What was the exact moment in history that began its decline? At what point did it start to go downhill?

What was the exact moment in history that began its decline? At what point did it start to go downhill?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest
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When Augustus came to power and ended the republic

Around the death of Aetius and Stilicho.

When it expanded beyond the Italian peninsula

commodus being degenerate
caracalla selling citizenry like a common bread just to get dem money for dem programs
crisis of third century in general

This is a bad implication since history is not one rise and fall, but many

when bathing became a common thing. the hot water of the roman baths boiled and sterilized the testicles of the average roman citizen, causing infertility and manpower shortages that had to be filled with barbarians that weren't properly romanized.

In a speech to Roman nobles, the Emperor Augustus commented on the low birthrates of the Roman elite:

>"How otherwise shall families continue? How can the commonwealth be preserved if we neither marry nor produce children? Surely you are not expecting some to spring up from the earth to succeed to your goods and to public affairs, as myths describe. It is neither pleasing to Heaven nor creditable that our race should cease and the name of Romans meet extinguishment in us, and the city be given up to foreigners,—Greek or even barbarians. We liberate slaves chiefly for the purpose of making out of them as many citizens as possible; we give our allies a share in the government that our numbers may increase: yet you, Romans of the original stock, including Quintii, Valerii, Iulli, are eager that your families and names at once shall perish with you."

And similarly:

The Greek historian Polybius largely blamed the decline of the Hellenistic world on low fertility rate, writing in his work The Histories that:
>"In our time all Greece was visited by a dearth of children and generally a decay of population, owing to which the cities were denuded of inhabitants, and a failure of productiveness resulted, though there were no long-continued wars or serious pestilences among us…. For this evil grew upon us rapidly, and without attracting attention, by our men becoming perverted to a passion for show and money and the pleasures of an idle life, and accordingly either not marrying at all, or, if they did marry, refusing to rear the children that were born, or at most one or two out of a great number, for the sake of leaving them well off or bringing them up in extravagant luxury."

Things started going downhill when they ran out of people to feasibly conquer.

Crisis of the Third Century was the beginning of the end, no coming back from that one.

Had Aurelian survived his assassination maybe the madman could've pulled off a miraculous recovery of the Empire, but we'll never know.

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>What was the exact moment in history that began its decline?

The death of Augustus.

The fact everyone after him tried and failed to be as awesome as him and emulate him should be a big heads up.

Marcus Aurelius did a good job of trying to get shit back on track but ultimately he was still building up from a lower plateau.

Commodus becoming emperor.

>aurelius did a good job of trying to get shit back on track
u wot all he did was war with the germanic tribes and become the face of stoicism for present-day fedoras

Augustus
>Be constantly manipulated out of delegating an appropriate and able heir
>Oblivious to the purges taking place around him
>"I will make Rome a city of marble.... or at least I'll take credit for it while Agrippa handles it all."

When the Arabs conquered the Levant.

457AD

This happens when you forgot to build the wall.

Elagabalus being raped by donkey was a decisive attack on Rome's dignity.

build a wall where, in the middle of the danube??

Dunno if there's an "exact moment" because history rarely follows such neat patterns, but the reason the Republic and Empire were so successful was because the energies of the powerful aristocratic families were successfully directed toward outward expansion rather than infighting. So once expansion became difficult, those families saw it was more profitable to gain power by fighting internally and then shit began to go downhill with civil wars and such.

There was a wall, but there weren't enough men to guard it due to the decreasingly low interest in military service among late Romans. I assume that plenty of the soldiers on the border later on were Germanic themselves.

>not 461

Literally the modern day equivalent of the US vs Afghan cave dwellers. The might of the Roman military machine was no match against woodland germites.

So what is happening in modern day America?

...

When Caesar crossed the Rubicon.

Agriculture

When Carthage stopped being a threat to Rome

Plague

I have an unorthodox opinion on this. I actually don't think the crisis of the third century made the fall inevitable. Strong post-crisis emperors like Diocletian and Constantine proved that the Roman Empire could easily survive and even thrive. But as you know the Western Roman Empire was ruled by a series of completely incompetent emperors in the last 100 years of its existence. So I think the year 383 is a pretty good year to mark the beginning of the end for the west. That was the year where Gratian, the last competent emperor of the west (with the exception of Majorian). The emperors that followed were spoiled children, completely incompetent, and corrupt. Had there been strong leadership, the constant barbarian invasions could have been repelled or at the very least, Rome wouldn't have been sacked.

The moment the Jews decided it was time.

>The might of the Roman military machine was no match against woodland germites

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest

get mad olivecucks

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Cyprian

Constantine

t. Edward Gibbon