What was Worse: the Rise or Fall of Rome

What Hurt Technology More:

  • The rise of Rome and her violent conquests.

    Votes: 13 12.1%
  • The fall of Rome to invaders.

    Votes: 34 31.8%
  • Neither, it was stagnation under Rome that was the issue.

    Votes: 54 50.5%
  • No technology was lost.

    Votes: 6 5.6%

  • Total voters
    107
Focusing on technology I have to wonder, when was more knowledge lost, when Roman went out conquering or when others came a conquering to Rome? Most people seem to assume the latter, but hearing details it leaves me wondering if the former was infact the greater issue.
 
I'm leaning to C, although it doesn't seem science would have advanced much faster without Rome, if any. It was a low tech era.
 
To say that Rome was stagnant is simplifying the issue greatly. Until the crisis of the third century, there is plenty of evidence that Roman society continued to develop its technology quite effectively, as evidenced by the impressive mill works at Barbegal, the Janiculum, and Hierapolis.

However, this largely seems to have been undone by the massive disruption in trade associated with the chaos of the third century and the frequent civil wars and hyperinflation that made trade all but useless, returning much of the Empire to little better than a barter economy.

Now, it could be fair to say that the Romans weren't as innovative as the Hellenistic Greeks, but thats a pretty high standard to which to hold them, in my humble opinion. Further, if the Empire weren't so dominant and effective in unifying the major trade market (the Med basin), then its hyperinflation would not have been so damaging. If, for example, Ptolemaic Egypt has devalued its currency as horrendously as Rome did during the 3rd century, everyone would just use Seluecid or Roman coinage in trade, and things would just go on as always. But when Rome did it, there wasn't any choice. Its not as though most of the traders in the Empire could just demand Sassanid coins.
 
I picked neither because the Roman state had its largest, wealthiest, most urbanized half do just fine into the 15th Century in a Christian form and the 20th Century in a Muslim one. Rome was the state that didn't really die until Sevres, which is a formidable achievement.
 
One question is whether the rise of Rome slowed the development of technology rather than actually leading to a regression. For example, had Hannibal destroyed Rome, would technology have developed faster or slower? There is at least one author who has argued that around 200 -150 BC, theoretical science rather than technology went sharply into reverse (“The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 Bc and Why It Had to Be Reborn” by Lucio Russo http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...ge&q=lucio russo forgotten revolution&f=false).
 

Esopo

Banned
The fall of Rome, which can be alternatively tracked in the third century crisis (decline of the western part of the empire), or in the XIII century (decline of its eastern part).
 
And it is to be noted, this thread could be called eurocentrist.

The east had thinkers too; indian maths, chinese techs, etc...

Only Europe mattered, it seems. :rolleyes:
 
The fall of Rome, which can be alternatively tracked in the third century crisis (decline of the western part of the empire), or in the XIII century (decline of its eastern part).

Or the XIXth Century, for the final decline of the East. I happen to think the Ottomans assimilated so much that was Roman that it's not easy to claim that say, the Paleologoi were Romans and Osman's bunch was not. Especially since the Palaeologoi did not establish a complete control of all of the territory that had been Rhomania, where the Ottomans both did and assumed the title of Kaysar in Constantinople.

And to me if we're going to claim that XIII Century Rhomania was Rome, then there's no mean to say *that* has connections to Caesar Augustus but the more powerful, hegemonic Ottomans have none whatsoever.
 
And it is to be noted, this thread could be called eurocentrist.

The east had thinkers too; indian maths, chinese techs, etc...

Only Europe mattered, it seems. :rolleyes:

Well, to be fair the thread *is* about Rome. The presence or absence of Rome wouldn't impair in any sense whatsoever the rise of the Chinese Empires or the various Indian ones, so......yeah.
 
And it is to be noted, this thread could be called eurocentrist.

The east had thinkers too; indian maths, chinese techs, etc...

Only Europe mattered, it seems. :rolleyes:

I am not being Eurocentric in the slightest. I am simply asking about European (+ North African and Middle Eastern) technology. If technology were lost to the west than the West would not be able to produce new ideas, so inflow from the East would be weakened and any outflow from the West would also harm the East. In fact my main concern here is wondering what was it that took the West from the respectible Greeks to being largelly a backwater.
 
I am not being Eurocentric in the slightest. I am simply asking about European (+ North African and Middle Eastern) technology. If technology were lost to the west than the West would not be able to produce new ideas, so inflow from the East would be weakened and any outflow from the West would also harm the East. In fact my main concern here is wondering what was it that took the West from the respectible Greeks to being largelly a backwater.

The combination of the implosion of the Carolingians in the West and Kievan Rus in the East. With that Western imperial civilization collapsed and the new bunch kept getting invaded before it could come close to re-asserting itself.
 
The combination of the implosion of the Carolingians in the West and Kievan Rus in the East. With that Western imperial civilization collapsed and the new bunch kept getting invaded before it could come close to re-asserting itself.
Huh, I'd thought there were such constant remarks against the "Myth of the Dark Ages" on here that things weren't so bad.:eek:
 
In fact my main concern here is wondering what was it that took the West from the respectible Greeks to being largelly a backwater.


What counts as "The West"?

Iirc most of the Greek achievements in mathematics, geometry etc took place in Hellenistic kingdoms, ie in the east. Was western Europe doing much in that era?
 
What counts as "The West"?

Iirc most of the Greek achievements in mathematics, geometry etc took place in Hellenistic kingdoms, ie in the east. Was western Europe doing much in that era?
Well I consider the non-Arab lands west of Persia as 'the west'.
 
Iirc most of the Greek achievements in mathematics, geometry etc took place in Hellenistic kingdoms, ie in the east. Was western Europe doing much in that era?

More practical achievements, in less "nobles" arts as metallurgy, agriculture, engineering...

Not as shiny as theoretical sciences, yes, but not less important.

Of course, mainly of the intellectual achievement of West, began or in Arabo-Andalusian civilization or Latin Europe since the early Middle-Ages.
 

Esopo

Banned
Or the XIXth Century, for the final decline of the East. I happen to think the Ottomans assimilated so much that was Roman that it's not easy to claim that say, the Paleologoi were Romans and Osman's bunch was not. Especially since the Palaeologoi did not establish a complete control of all of the territory that had been Rhomania, where the Ottomans both did and assumed the title of Kaysar in Constantinople.

And to me if we're going to claim that XIII Century Rhomania was Rome, then there's no mean to say *that* has connections to Caesar Augustus but the more powerful, hegemonic Ottomans have none whatsoever.

First, how much a nation is powerful has nothing to do with what it is roman and what it is not.
Second, obviously it is subjective as a definition: my idea is that after the fall of the republic wecan talk of "Rome" until the end of principatus, which means until the third century crisis. Rome was then replaced by a euromediterranean entity (or a number of these: palmyra, Gallic empire etc.) which were still roman but had lost the traits which were already disappearing since the principatus. So, if we consider the dominatus still roman we can also consider the byzantine empire roman too. What had the dominatus in common with the principatus? first, its domains, second the subordination of the church to the state, third the language, four the conviction of being roman, five the law, six the fact that the emperors were legally heirs of the empire, seven the burocracy.
Sincerely i dont know if these seven points are enough to consider the dominatus/byzantium roman, because of the increasing differences in language, the radical change in geography after the fall of the west and a completely new religion. Even the burocracy eventually became unrecognizable in the ERE.
The ottoman empire? sincerely i think it is difficult that they can be considered more roman than the goths, or the franks, the russians or the germans which claimed to be roman.
They didnt have any of the points of above, but maybe a vague idea of the sultans of being the heirs of rome and a relatively similar relationship among church and state.
 
1) On the contrary, it has everything to do with it after a certain fashion. The professional standing armies that characterized Roman civilization couldn't be supported on the basis of a city state.

2) The Ottomans developed a new variant of the Roman professional army, relied heavily on Roman imperial institutions, ruled an empire which territorially had much in common with East-Rome in terms of its own biggest extent at its own height (arguably larger, as IIRC parts of Ottoman North Africa were in the Western Roman Empire pre-Vandals). They appeared roughly contemporaneously with Trebizond and the Palaeologoi, so it's not even clear that it's possible to say the last Roman dynasty is purely Roman but the Ottomans were not.

The whole patron-client system that promotes an established religion and relies on slavery reflects the original Autocracy from the Principate to Theodosius, but as most people forget about the immense importance of slavery to the Roman Empire, well.......
 
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