What was it like to live through the Fall of the Roman Empire? [10:34]

YouTube ^ | August 19, 2022 | Garrett Ryan, Ph.D (as toldinstone)

[SunkenCiv]

The fall of the Western Roman Empire was an era, not an event. But those who lived through it had no doubt that it was a catastrophe. 

What was it like to live through the Fall of the Roman Empire? | 10:34 
toldinstone | 583K subscribers | 316,756 views | August 19, 2022 

 

0:00 Introduction 
0:55 Reactions to the Fall of Rome 
2:09 St. Germanus and Britain 
3:27 St. Severinus and Noricum 
4:39 HelloFresh 
5:46 St. Severinus (cont.) 
6:56 Sidonius Apollinaris and southern Gaul 
8:31 Boethius and Italy

[SunkenCiv]

Correct, and that's often been mentioned, for which I'm grateful. But the first of Rome's conquests was of Ostia, circa 500 BC. Since the "republic" of Rome was just a mafia-family-style oligarchy, 500 BC is the actual birth of the empire.

It was an empire with only an intermittent one-man rule until Octavian, who was the first of the fulltime executive branch rulers.

Thanks to having to develop a standing army to defend the city from continual threats from the Gauls, Carthaginians, the Greek spinoff of Alexander the Great, the city-state outgrew even the fiction of republican rule.

[9YearLurker]

Do you think they had endless protests like this?

https://goodtroubleliveson.org/

Yep. The next biggie. Check out all the info, including “grants”, available!

[SunkenCiv]

There was a massive fall in population throughout the western Empire. The finances were also a mess, which meant the food supply probably got spotty due to a decline in wheat deliveries via the Portus and security problems moving cargo by road. But I doubt there’s an accurate way to estimate the city population.

[Lou L]

It seems that whenever there is a potential for crisis, contemporary thought becomes, "How do we manage it? How can we better prepare for it, or prevent it from happening?"

Short of creating a tax on the fall of our empire, can anything be done? Do we simply accept it and adapt, or do we go down swinging?

[SunkenCiv]

Travel in the Roman heyday was relatively safe (particularly in comparison with areas outside the Empire). Commerce was secure.

The Empire emerged from the Crisis of the Third Century. Naturally, the last major dynasty before that began had Carthaginian roots (or purported to; Septimius Severus founded the Severan Dynasty, and was proud of his roots).

In the late 4th and early 5th centuries, the population apparently fell, hard. Legions remained, but the size fell from 4000-5000 to about 1000.

[T.B. Yoits]

The number of ruins that archeologists find points to cities being abandoned with regularity, as though an inevitable part of a cycle.

The cycle doesn't appear to be simply war, famine, plagues, or technological change. Any of those would show evidence of abandonment followed by later returning. Competition with other cities appears to play a role in the rate of growth or decline but the abandonment seems to have reasons all its own.

I'd argue that one critical flaw in cities is that they are hostile places to raise children and as such have no future.

[T.B. Yoits]

Short of creating a tax on the fall of our empire, can anything be done? Do we simply accept it and adapt, or do we go down swinging?

Let's first accept that "our" empire hasn't been ours for a century. The Federal Reserve and the Income Tax meant it was no longer ours.

Replacement may be the only outcome. The globalists are bringing in these invaders because they know the replacement is coming and they want it tilted in their favor. They're not going to give up power willingly.

[nagant]

1:38 · The fall of the Western Roman Empire – in the sense of an end to effective imperial
1:43 · authority in a given region – was not always dramatic, or even especially noticeable.
~~~~~

The 535 A.D. eruption of Krakatoa was so brutal that it darkened the sun over Europe for years. Grain supplies dwindled to zero, starving Roman empire towns which relied on communal grain caches. The souring grain supplies caused killing plagues.

Muhammed’s Turks fed on beef, and beef feed on grass. Muhammed’s armies moved in and conquered the eastern Roman Empire.

[RitchieAprile]

HelloFresh was an Emperor? I totally missed that in History class..

[Dat]

I think that is a bit of a myth. The end of the Republic/ beginning of the Empire was extraordinarily decadent. At the end of the empire there was a big emphasis on Christianity and from a Christian perspective the empire was probably the most "moral" it had ever been. I think the biggest contributor to the fall was the gradual de-Romanization of the army, the unprecedented invasions of the German tribes, and the de-militarization of Roman society, the roots of which began all the way back in the time of Augustus.

There are a lot of good podcasts that go into detail about the end of the Empire and even after the West fell, the areas around the Mediterranean were still more or less "Roman" in culture. Even the barbarian invaders held Rome in high prestige, but they kept a monopoly on military service and gradually the civilian populations would adopt a great deal of their customs.

[Responsibility2nd]

That’s interesting. I’ll look into that.

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Like the last 60 years and the nect 40.....exactly.

The Church will still be.

[Moltke]

“Barbarians” was basically just Greek/Roman for foreigners.

If you are taking a neutral birds-eye view of the goings-on, you could name the tribes instead of using a weak catch-all term.

[SunkenCiv]

Bar-bar — the sound made by one of the hordes that encroached on Greece, according to the Greek ear.

[SunkenCiv]

That’s been claimed. The trouble is, every such volcanic ‘explanation’ for worldwide disaster has been shown to have not happened after all, and David Key’s claim (which was spurious from the git-go) of an eruption of Krakatoa has been shown to have not happened.

The 535 or 536 event was apparently, instead, an impact event.

[Cronos]

Have either of you read the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. It is loosely based on the collapse of the Roman Empire.

In one book he describes Trantor (the “Rome”), a few centuries after the fall. It was a planet wide city that after the fall quickly becomes ruralised

[Moltke]

Ah yes, old Greek for “hair cutter.”