Six factors that brought about the decline and fall of Roman Civilization

>>widespread slavery
genocide in Gaul
natural climate change
no public education system
no postal system
no banking system
poor understanding of a market economy
until Diocletian, no system for orderly succession
internecine internal warfare (due to previous, and even continuing after)
political control of public religion
...those are the major ones.<<

Liberal Leftwing pablum!

The Roman Faith was always state supported.
The genocide in Gaul? I would say are irrelevent
Alot of people killed does not equal genocide and even if it werer such by Cesaar’s Legions, I would argue it stabilized Rome’s Northern frontier from barbarian raids.

Rome did have a crude postal system.

Not climate change or Global warming or any other leftwing drivel.
Exhaustion of natural resources was a factor.

All major economies of that era were at leats partly slave driven.

"Liberal Leftwing pablum!" ... as I suspected, you really don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, leftwing liberals often bemoan Rome's failure to establish a system of banking or its failure to embrace capitalism.

I would argue it stabilized Romeâ€™s Northern frontier from barbarian raids.

The death of so many Gauls, along with forced relocation from enslavement, left a lot of unclaimed territory, and resulted in the exact reverse of what you're saying. Rome had a new and bigger border problem that didn't improve thereafter. Three main approaches were used -- one was to try to pacify territories across the frontier; the second (particularly after the Varian Disaster) was bribery; the third was to permit settlement by immigrants from east of the Rhine.

Following the defeat of the last of his civil war enemies, Augustus had cut the size of the regular Roman army in half. This was necessitated by the cost, and by the need to avoid large standing armies with not enough to do, and of course by a shortage of native Italians to fill the ranks. The second innovation was to employ and train fighters from conquered peoples. Excluding the newly created Praetorian Guard, half of the imperial forces thereafter were auxiliaries.

Had Rome built a system of public education, the Roman Empire would have been more homogeneous, at least from a political point of view. That would have obvious importance in an imperial army suddenly half alien.

Natural climate change is liberal how? Obviously you don't know what you're talking about. European climate started to get colder, and this was the case also in Central Asia. Those series of immigrant waves seen historically in Europe, the Middle East, India, and in China resulted from natural climate change.

There was no postal system in the Roman Empire. The only method of getting a message from one private citizan to another was to find someone (friend of a friend, whatever) who was going in the general direction and ask them to deliver it. Those which survive tend to be written on ostraca, broken pottery shards. Considering that at its peak, the Roman Empire had something north of 50 million citizens, and stretched from the Scottish Highlands to the Persian Gulf, it's not accurate to say there was a postal system. The system of roads was part of an imperial courier system, but that wasn't used for private citizens' messages.

All ancient societies had slavery of various forms and to various extents. Rome had so much that even the Emperors wound up relying on slavery to ensure a skilled staff. Claudius' invasion of Britain almost fell apart when the troops refused to board ship. One of his two trusted freedmen hopped up on a high spot to harangue the army, which at first heckled him for his past as a slave. Unemployment in Rome was terrible because slaves did the work which would ordinarily have been available for those who would have worked for wages.

It's so leftwing liberal to oppose slavery though...

You misconstrue what I said.

Slavery was integral to the Roman economy, good or bad .

Second, Climate Change is the hype of Global Warming advocates. A gradual cooling would not have affected an advanced civilization like the Romans, they would have adapted.

Lack of proper succession plagued the Roman Empire throughout its’ history- off and on.
The Empire was far more than who was ruing it, otherwise it would have collapsed after the death of the last Julio-Claudian Ceasar, Nero.

Too much dependence on Slavery was a minor factor in weakening the security of Rome(unless you count the Spartacus Revolt)

There was a a global climate change after 536 A.D. when some natural catastrophe struck the world and started the Dark Age.

Add one more : using lead pipes in their water systems. In a way though, it was a giant rat cage experiment. Many years ago now some behavioral scientists had a rat cage as big as a house. Introduced a few male/female rats into it. Gave them all the straw, food, water, nutrients they needed.

At first they breed like crazy as each stakes out his/her turf. Finally though the cage is FULL of rats and all the social ills show up : killing infants, homosexuality, lethargy, picking needless fights.....

Now look at the Roman Empire as a bigger version of that rat cage experiment, and the USA(major cities)of today...

The Roman’s suffered from lead poisoning, that is a myth-
big time!

Chemical breakdown of their skeletal remains show no buildup of that heavy metal.

Besides, you do not get lead contamination from lead vessels, that is also a myth. It is the fumes from lead welds or the burning of lead compounds and or vapors of such(like from lead paint)inhaled that you get the contamination.

Romans also sweetened there wines with Sugar of Lead(Lead Acetate).
Didn’t do anything to them.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.