Challenge: Roman Dystopia

Your challenge is to make Rome as immoral and decadent as possible. Every Roman vice should be taken to the extreme and as many new ones to be acquired as possible.
 
That's dystopian?

Anyway, it's relatively easy to do. The Republic survives the Civil Wars and the Senate keeps control under a revamped Sullan-derivative constitution. Rome will not be around for very much longer, but oh, the memories...
 
What am I missing, evil robots?

Maybe we're talking cross purposes, but when I hear 'immoral' and 'decadent', I think good food, late nights and lots of mind-altering substances and kinky sex. Which I personally don't really consider horribly dystopian, at least compared to things like non-decadent, extremely moral Sparta.

I'll take Petronius and Ovidius over Cicero and Juvenal any day.
 
A non-Christian (or Mithran or any such "ethical" type Rome) Rome survives and eventually discovers various drugs and Rome becomes extremely hedonistic.
 
A non-Christian (or Mithran or any such "ethical" type Rome) Rome survives and eventually discovers various drugs and Rome becomes extremely hedonistic.

That's not going to do it. Sadly, the fashion in the first few centuries AD was consistently away from Hellenistic hedonism and joie-de-vivre towards an ideal of asceticism, strict self-control and savage punishment for transgressions of any kind. It had some good effects in the early years, but it was pretty unpleasant in the long run.
 
Rome wasn't a hippy commune you know.

No, I'm completely ignorant about Roman culture.

Look, what the first poster said was to create a dystopia that maximised every Roman vice. He emphasised immoral and decadent. I can't see how that could make Rome dystopian, given that it was Roman virtues that made life hell for so many people.
 

Susano

Banned
It does seem to me that the worst traits of Roman culture were indeed bloodlust and discipline, not any later attributed "decadence". Now, Im not as knowledgeable about those things as Carlton, but that seems to me to be a very simplicist view. "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" is over 200 years old by now and hardly state of current research, you know, twg?
 
No, I'm completely ignorant about Roman culture.

Look, what the first poster said was to create a dystopia that maximised every Roman vice. He emphasised immoral and decadent. I can't see how that could make Rome dystopian, given that it was Roman virtues that made life hell for so many people.

:confused:

The original poster is me. Are you arguing a dystopia is not defined by how outsiders see it, but only by it's internal morality? Slavery and execution by burning, by eaten by wild beasts as entertainment, etc may be acceptable to Romans but certainly immoral a priori.
 

Susano

Banned
:confused:

The original poster is me. Are you arguing a dystopia is not defined by how outsiders see it, but only by it's internal morality? Slavery and execution by burning, by eaten by wild beasts as entertainment, etc may be acceptable to Romans but certainly immoral a priori.

That has nothing to do with "decadence", though. Immorality, yes, but even that word has other connotations, especially if used together with "decadence".
 
:confused:

The original poster is me. Are you arguing a dystopia is not defined by how outsiders see it, but only by it's internal morality? Slavery and execution by burning, by eaten by wild beasts as entertainment, etc may be acceptable to Romans but certainly immoral a priori.

No, I'm saying that that has nothing to do with immorality, vice, or decadence. That's crime, evil, sin, cruelty, savagery, brutality, you have a host of names for it. Immorality is screwing a Greek boy when you're supposed to be governing Sicily. Vice is drinking 'Greek style' or overeating. Decadence is warm baths in the late afternoon and a long dinner party instead of cold water in the face and off to conquer Carthage. At leasat, that's the commonplace usage of these words, both in period and today.

Anyways, if that part is what you mean I wpould refer you to ward-Perklins who used the expression 'a cruel, exploitative system' to describe Roman rule of the late Republic and early Empire. I think it fits much better. Most historians who refer to immorality and decadence view it as being in opposition to martial glory (and hence cruel oppression, though they don't call it that). Which takes me back to my argument.

Anyways, the Romans weren't decadent, they had more than ten teeth.
 
I think that when people refer to "Roman decadence" these days, they are mainly referring to the high level of casual brutality in late Republican and early Imperial society, with gladiator fights and mass public executions being favorite spectator sports, and economy so heavily dependent on slavery and so brutal in its treatment of slaves and conquered peoples, etc. Some people would consider some of the more hedonistic behavior to be decadent also, but I don't think that's Rome's main fault in most people's minds.
 

boredatwork

Banned
Your challenge is to make Rome as immoral and decadent as possible. Every Roman vice should be taken to the extreme and as many new ones to be acquired as possible.

Um...

We are talking about the land of the industrial slavery, gladitorial games, vomitoria, and the rest, right?

Just how much more decadent could they get?
 
Lets see,

How about stoicism takes off, so there is never really a moderating influence to prevent absolute hedonism. At this point, Romans become even more decadent and immoral, whose leadership itself is so obsessed with orgies and the pursuit of immoral pleasure (as if they weren't enough in OTL) that they become ineffective, and law-making begins to break down. Rich Romans then take over, acting as robber-barons, exploiting the poor to fuel their wild ad extravagant ways.
 

Susano

Banned
I think that when people refer to "Roman decadence" these days, they are mainly referring to the high level of casual brutality in late Republican and early Imperial society, with gladiator fights and mass public executions being favorite spectator sports, and economy so heavily dependent on slavery and so brutal in its treatment of slaves and conquered peoples, etc. Some people would consider some of the more hedonistic behavior to be decadent also, but I don't think that's Rome's main fault in most people's minds.

No, but its not what "decadence" refers to. Henc eits the wrong word choice. Decadence is something good, in the end...

Besides, decadence connotes that a society fell to this particular state from a better state. But the bloodlust that led to gladiator fighst etc was one of the earliest and purest roman attitudes.

At this point, Romans become even more decadent and immoral, whose leadership itself is so obsessed with orgies and the pursuit of immoral pleasure (as if they weren't enough in OTL) that they become ineffective, and law-making begins to break down.
That makes no sense at all.
 
That's not going to do it. Sadly, the fashion in the first few centuries AD was consistently away from Hellenistic hedonism and joie-de-vivre towards an ideal of asceticism, strict self-control and savage punishment for transgressions of any kind. It had some good effects in the early years, but it was pretty unpleasant in the long run.

That sortof confirms the impression I have from some recent reading that some of the nastier anti-women, anti-fun, anti-everything views of a lot of the Fathers Of The Church represented not a reaction to paganism but the adoption of some of the attitudes that many "elite" pagans held: a bid for respectability, so to speak.

Bruce
 
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