XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, or.politics, ca.politics   
   XPost: fl.politics, rec.aviation.military   
   From: muratlanne@gmail.com   
      
   "max headroom"  wrote in message news:vtfpkr$2cp0c$3@dont-email.me...   
      
   > How did it fall? How long did the rich provide bread and circuses?   
      
   The traditional and very effective solution to unemployment is to start a   
   war and draft them. The survivors are much more mature and self-reliant;   
   productive citizens. Rome's decline began as the citizens became too lazy   
   and decadent to be good obedient soldiers, so troops were recruited from the   
   colonies with the promise of citizenship and (conquered) farm land on   
   retirement. German palace guards already had the power in 41AD to made   
   Claudius the Emperor.   
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudius   
      
   Founded in 753BC (+/-), Rome was still strong after >1000 years pagan, it   
   fell to Goths (and only briefly recovered) after less than 100 years   
   Christian. That was NOT the answer the Sunday School teacher wanted to hear.   
      
   313AD Christianity legalized, though poorly tolerated.   
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Milan   
      
   410AD Alaric conquers Rome. He was a former Roman ally who had been badly   
   mistreated, a "Good Indian".   
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_(410)   
      
   476AD A Christian of German origin takes over, considered the final fall   
   except in German history where it was a rebirth.   
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odoacer   
      
   493AD Theodoric the Great becomes (Gothic) Emperor, restores the lapsed   
   grain subsidy and generally behaves like the better previous Roman Emperors.   
   "An able Goth wants to be like a Roman; only a poor Roman would want to be   
   like a Goth."   
      
   541AD This plague is likely the real reason unified European civilization   
   collapsed. The plague continued into the 700's. Without strong central   
   authority robbery and piracy suppressed global trade and fragmented society.   
   Local trade didn't require literacy.   
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian   
      
   800AD Charlemagne is crowned the new Holy Roman Emperor, by French and   
   Germans. The empire lasted until Napoleon.   
      
   1453AD The last holdout of original Roman authority falls to the Turks.   
      
   Rome wasn't a perfect model for our time, neither was Greek democracy (ours   
   is Viking), but it was closer than many realize and we still make the same   
   mistakes such as causing inflation by over-issuing devalued currency.   
      
   Modern civilization didn't begin to significantly surpass Rome's until the   
   Industrial Revolution of around 1800. London's public water and sewer   
   systems were more primitive than ancient Rome's until the 1850's. Their   
   concrete was in some ways superior to ours today.   
   https://www.valvemagazine.com/articles/ancient-roman-valves   
   https://news.mit.edu/2023/roman-concrete-durability-lime-casts-0106   
   jsw   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)