Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

Was there really ever anything better?

1950s america

1920s america

>1950s america
wew lad

Unless you were a rich patrician no life sucked fat dick

500 BC scandinavia

Bronze Age Crete in the Minoan empire.

Peace and low taxes sucked dick. Okay kid.

The Middle Ages enjoyed a higher standard of living than the Roman Empire; all thanks to the Catholic church, distributist economics, decentralized secular government, and centralized ecclesiastical structures.

Source: my books
Sources of those books: the first set of my books

The early 21st century, wonderful times full of hedonism and drugs and idleness, right before it all ended

Kys pseud "muh heritage" guinea-american

The overwhelming majority of plebs were not nobilis and the "low tax golden age" and peace were almost exclusive to the Julio Claudians, Flavians and early Nerva-Antonines - only 200 years out of Romes long history, and even for most people there was nothing in life other than hard labour

Iron Age Sparta

I'm Germanic btw, my heritage was barbarians. Try again.

>its a nostalgia for a past time period you never lived in thread
I like my modern comforts and technology thank you. Prefer not to die from an infection by stubbing my toe on a rock or some bullshit. or get drafted in some pointless war

>Peace

But the Roman Empire was plagued by constant instability: usurpers and civil wars, invasions from barbarians or from the Parthians, rebellions, etc.

The Pax Romana was dandy and all, but there were still several wars fought during its duration: for example, the Jewish revolts, the revolt of Boudica in Britannia, and two wars with Parthia.

>low taxes

Mate...

In an era where 98% of the population were subsistence farmers a poll tax was absolutely crippling. Even in the so called golden age of the Empire during the Five Good Emperors Egypt was suffering major problems from abandoned land from people fleeing crippling taxation.

America period

u mad ancientfags?

Ming dynasty China

Shame about the Dark Ages though

one of the greatest historians of our time also the crusades were justified and great'n'shit

Ancient greece

Han China

that's still more peace than we've ever seen before

Minoan empire???????

Today.
I would probably be some kind of peasant in those times.

Late 80s America

>be a plebian
>starving in the streets
>no work available because of all the slaves
>no farmland available because of all the patricians
>can't be a soldier because the world's been conquered
>can only live off free bread
>nothing to do but beg at the arena

Rome was absolute shit covered in marble mate. Europe would be better if Carthage won

>Using lead on most buildings
>Heavy political and militar corruption
>Recurrent wars and civil revolts

I think you're the typical Middle-Ages dude who feel nostalgic about occidental Rome when it fell, and got replaced with heavy religious and barbaric dumbasses. Face it, it was way worst than greeks, and the fall of Constantinople (the end of the Eastern Roman Empire / Byzantine Empire) was objectively the best thing that could ever happend.

Romans as the main antagonists is canon.

The Golden Age of China

>all the chinks saying china

I mean, plebian instead of "dude". And also...

It could be this, if we ignore that plebian civilians we're the same as a soldier and private education.

>not broing it up with Cao Cao and unifying China

Not till La Belle Epoch.

Pre and early Dynastic Egypt

>Pax Romana
>wars/conflicts fought in either provincial backwaters or outside Imperial borders

yeah such violence and chaos

>American pseuds

Are you fucking retarded? Nowhere in the European peninsula had a multilevel bureaucracy of an enforceable code of laws that China did until a millennia after the collapse of the Roman Empire

This


>Gets accused of "muh heritage" pseudfagging
>But muh heritage

For fucks sake. What's with you people and rome? Rome this, rome that. Rome sucked. Most of the "roman" art and architecture was made in renaissance.

1990s in America

There once was a dream that was Rome, user. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish...it was so fragile. Its not about Rome itself, its about the idea of Rome. The idea of republican democracy with military, economic, cultural, and philosophical domination of the known realm.

Absolutely scandalous.

He's about as much of a historian as Jon Stewart was a news anchor.

He's a sociologist that gets away with writing history books, and can evade responsibility for being historically wrong because "he's not meant to be read as a historian".

It's like how Jon Stewart gets away with lying to his audience of yuppie knuckleheads, by reminding them that he's just a comedian.

However Stark was correct about the Crusades being justified, and Gnosticism being a pagan distortion of the Christian movement.

"rome" lasted a fucklong time so you can;t really just lump every period together

I think the Republic just after the Social Wars was pretty solid with decent opportunities for even plebs

Early Empire was alright, but not great

Late Republic was a mess of civil wars and lots of people getting fucked, but also more opportunities for the lower classes same with the Empire except lower classes were absolutely FUCKED for most of it barring a few select periods

Well, as long as we ignore that Greek city-states were held up by a foundation of slavery. The majority of people who lived under Spartan rule were helots, which were basically serfs, and Athens wasn't too much rosier.

If we were to randomly insert you into one of those city-states chances are you'd end up a foreign slave or a citizen who doesn't own land.

Any Western Country from 1871 - 1914