My Classics prof is ending this semester by repeating Edward Gibbon's thesis about the fall of Rome being caused by...

Rome collapsed the instant Sulla crossed the rubicon and made himself dictator. The Republic was doomed to collapse from their and fortunes of Rome now relied on the prescient foresight of a single man in order to balance the ever evolving complexities of the state.

The Jews collapsed it

>Sulla crosses Rubicon
>Rome collapses 1500 years later
Man I hope my country collapses like that.

Sulla crossing the rubicon established the precedence that would lead to the centuries of civil war that would eventually collapse the WRE

Is nobody going to point out that Caesar crossed Rubicon?

>Centuries of civil war
>Empire begins with a 250 of peace and prosperity
>Western portion of it lasts longer than any Chinese dynasty.

You faggots need to stop extrapolating major events from singular sources centuries away,

Is nobody going to point out that Sulla did it first which paved the way for Caesar to do it years later?

That's about what I'd expect in a Classics class. The field is very insular and it's tried to shield itself from the self-criticism that most related fields introduced during the 20th century; as a result of that, you see people making a lot of the same, outdated arguments that people were making over a hundred years ago.

You could try saying something, but I doubt you'd get anywhere. It's just what the field is like.

>all these christian apologists
you should fail. World studies does not belong to your wishy-washy hand-wavy feelings about how you point fingers to things other than piety for why countries fail. It has been established since the greeks, that countries fall because the people in them are impious. Which, in the Roman Empires case, was 'decadence' which means Christianity. Just look at the fractured countries that came afterwards, bumfuck shitholes for hundreds of years that were fudeal monarchies, with the populace of christians being serfs or worse. Getting conquered by Nords, Muslims, schismatics, G*rmanics etc. Living in squallor, and then those countries collapse in a short-order save the muslims.

But then, looking at the rest of the humanities, it doesn't seem like being insular is such a bad idea. The others are worse.

>Empire begins with a 250 of peace and prosperity
what about the year of four emperors? That was a devastating civil war that also coincided with major uprisings in britannia and judea.

>the WRE lasted longer than any chinese dynasty
the WRE was only around for roughly 150 years

the Zhou dynasty lasted from 1046BC-246BC

I look at Freud, Derrida, and Lacan in film studies and tend to agree.

The Byzantine empire presisted in spite of being christian rather than because of it, more than once christian sects threatened to tear it apart before the Rashidun caliphate conquered half of it.

In the case of Rome, it was more a case of the East having to amputate the west to keep the whole body from dying.

>Empire begins with a 250 of peace and prosperity

Only because of the efforts of an extraordinary individual. It is true, that time and time again, Rome was pulled back from the brink through the efforts of brilliant men, but often times the chaos that preceded them was the direct result of a series of Imperial leaders who were simply incapable of managing such a massive Empire. Effectively, the Empire was too large for any one autocrat to govern properly, and what was needed was a devolution of power to maintain stability. Further, were it not for Augustus and the fortune he had of such an unusually long reign, it was almost certain another general would attempt to cross the Rubicon and plunge Rome into another civil war in the name of power, particularly if meant obtaining the position Augustus held.

>classics
Fuck off, colonist.
WIR
WAREN
KAENIGE UN SCHIESSE

>extraordinary individual.
Back to the 17th century, brainlet.
No such thing exists.

Yeah, I'm sure anyone could have done exactly what Augustis did. That's why the history of Roman Emperors in littered with such benevolent rulers.

>muh great men
Back to /pol/dit

Sulla came from the south brainlet.

So what's the Veeky Forums approved explanation for the failure of the WRE? Multiculturalism, immigration stress and conflict, and civil strife, of which Christianity was a part?

Muh Zhou empire, roan empire barely lasted a century and a half

That's some high tier trolling, tell us more

Thesis is backwards.

Roman didn't fall because of Christianity. Christianity was a sign that Roman had already fallen

Aren't you agreeing with his professor? Christianity wasn't the cause Byzantia survived for another 1000 years.

Inflation and shit economic policies.

Tell your professor he's falling for revisionism
google.com/search?biw=1216&bih=707&tbm=bks&ei=wQMaWpq4DsbbjwSJlLfIBw&q=The Roman History: From the Foundation of the City of Rome&oq=The Roman History: From the Foundation of the City of Rome&gs_l=psy-ab.3...3070.3070.0.3258.1.1.0.0.0.0.4.4.1.1.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.0.0....0.mg_aqRRQs44
This

>Produced a 200 year pax romana
>Muh Civil war for 100 years was better because muh republic
or am i wrong?

Loving all these buttblasted byzzieboos desu, tell your professor he's doing a good job OP

they became christian first
thats dudes wrong

They were already on the decline when Christianity became mainstream to them.

>Should I say anything?
Yes. You should say (and write) to indicate that you understand his position and the arguments he makes in favor of it. You are not required to adopt his position.

A decent professor would be perfectly fine with you intelligently arguing a different position, but not all profs are any good. I'd be especially careful about arguing against a professor who takes a anti-Christian position, that sort of "fedoraishness" is a favorite stance among the less tolerant ideologues in academia. Such people are often not above allowing their irritation with your not embracing their world-view to impact your grade in their class.

WIR

they conqured lands and grew in power up until the very point constantine made christianity the state religion

This

The Romans of old would've exterminated chirstianity like they did for Druidism

Taxes?

WIR

>great men thesis
This isn't even that. If you cannot admit that some men are more fit to ruling than others by virtue of their skills or character you need to look outside and read a book.

>look outside and read some propaganda
MUH GREAT MEN
I HATE AFRICANS
Fuck off, dogmatist.

The empire's greatest extent was almost two hundred years before Christianity took over. Lurk Moar.

>MUH GREAT MEN
>I HATE AFRICANS
>Fuck off, dogmatist.

Friend, you are the dogmatist here. You are the one hallucinating my point, and then attacking me unjustly with ad hominem, based on some concocted and perceived connection between being racist and acknowledging the inherent inequality amongst individual men brought about via differences in upbringing. Fuck off with your narrow minded stupidity and concoct an actual argument.

>we wuz kangs n shieeeet
>arguments r good becuz dem greats men kill the shitskins

and the Christians never surpassed it within the roman empire

Inability of people to pay them because they were taken in gold and nobody had any gold but rich people. Massive inflation as a result.
Bonus points for having your land confiscated if you can't pay your taxes so people would just take off with all they had.
Meanwhile military and bureaucracy were growing and spending was growing as a result.

State management only got more expensive meanwhile all the sources of revenue were drying up for Rome.
Rome was well on its way to bankruptcy before collapse, in modern world it would have gotten fucked way earlier.

>grew in power up until the very point constantine
Crisis of a 3rd century didn't happen I guess.

Constatine got a country that was already running on fumes at the time. It just got out of massive clusterfuck and it sure as hell didn't recover.

>>Western portion of it lasts longer than any Chinese dynasty.
That's retarded. Compare the individual dynasties of the WRE to the individual dynasties of China, not the whole multi-dynastic realm to a single dynasty.

The longest lasting dynasty in the WRE was the Antonines who lasted from 96 - 192 A.D. By comparison, the Western Han lasted from 206 B.C.–9 A.D and the Eastern Han lasted from 25–220 A.D.

And the realm itself is still in existence, far outlasting the Roman Empire

>IF he tells you that the Byzantine Empire wasn't Roman tell him to quit his job

While I don't agree with your "jewish leftist faggot" hyperbole in the former sentence; I do completely agree with your assertion in the latter.

>Rome collapsed the instant Sulla crossed the rubicon and made himself dictator.

America, Britian, France, and every other fucking empire wishes wishes it could "collapse" like the Roman Empire did. All empires would want want to do it "collapse" as Rome's expansion after Sulla was larger than it's expansion before Sulla

>No Gaul
>No Egypt
>No Syria

To name the "big" ones it got while "collapsing".

>Constatine got a country that was already running on fumes at the time.
>running on fumes
>Lasts for over 1,000 years

Any empire today wishes it were "running on fumes".

This, it's a wonder the Empire even lasted as long as it did.

If you can read French, read Louis Rougier's work on Celsus. (protip: it's on Libgen)

If you want to get technical, the WRE had only existed since the death of Theodosius, which was a hell of a lot less than 200 years in any case.

All of those examples you listed were acquisitions which took place during the final days of the Republic, and in spite of the fact that Sulla had gunked up the machinery of government and made collapse into autocracy inevitable, but mostly owing to the military genius of Julius Caesar, who could pull victory out of his ass despite incredibly long odds

After the reign of Caesar Augustus none of Rome's conquests were sustainable or permanent.

The peace which followed is the result of a solution being worked out to the inequities of the Roman Republican system. The problem is that this solution was fragile. In the Republican system the Law itself could be used as recourse to correct inequities in the system. As much as the Senate attempted to stall, unless they wanted wholesale slaughter, the lower classes would either force a confrontation or have the Senatorial class be eradicated. Countless times in the Republic's history had the common people faced off against the aristocrats and a solution emerged amicable to both. Under the Republic there was renewal to meet new challenges. In its decentralized structure change could come from any number of angles. Under the Empire, there was no such thing. There was no long standing transformation of the Imperial system to renew Rome into a new age. The closest that ever emerged, Diocletion's tetrarchy lasted only one lifetime, before the problems of the Imperial system tore it apart in a single generation. The Republic was not ideal, but the capacity for change is inherent in the system.

>So what's the Veeky Forums approved explanation for the failure of the WRE?
From my brainlet reading of TD&FotRE I'd add Praetorians/the army stabbing every emperor who tried to rein them back.

KÖNIGE UND SCHEIßE

Kriminalgesichte des Christentums, m8

>That's retarded. Compare the individual dynasties of the WRE to the individual dynasties of China
Why? The Roman empire is not defined by the dynasties that ruled it.

Does this look like Rome at its territorial apex you retard? The empire spent its first 150 years expanding continuously, and only stopped because it had nowhere else to go.

Diocletian's system lasted for a millennium.

>and only stopped because it had nowhere else to go.
India?

Zhou is Not a real dynasty, 5 cent brigade.

Its about as real as the Shang dynasty.

If you believe either of these are historically attestable, you likely believe agriculture was invented by Sheng Nong, and there used to be 10 suns in the sky

Way too far away for the time, and even if it wasn't they'd have to go through Parthia first, which they never could. Rome hit its effective limit at Zagros moutains.

>Does this look like Rome at its territorial apex you retard?
I didn't say it was the apex you goalpost moving mongoloid. I said it was its primary expansion phase, where it goes from being a cluster of Italian city states to being the continent straddling superpower in your map. Everything it added later was incremental compared to what it had added by 40 BC (which doesn't take into account the fact that most of the places Rome later annexed were by that point client states) and even more so by 14 A.D. Trajan's conquests, the bulk of the expansion which took place during the empire post-Augustus, were worthlessly unsustainable and abandoned as soon as he died, the Empire simply could no longer expand, only consolidate and hold as their territory was gradually chipped away.

But that's only because we chose not to define it that way, mostly because we distinguish between periods which were ruled by Rome, and periods which weren't, while the Chinese never have to make that distinction because "China" never permanently falls the way that Rome did

>implying

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinxu

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone_script

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions

Retard.

italians btfo

>Almost a 50% increase in territory
>Incremental

>Levant, Britannia, Mauretania, Thrace and Asia Minor remain integral parts of the empire for centuries
>Not sustainable.

Nigger what are you talking about?

China never permanently falls, but it does fall all the time. Chinese nation has continuity stretching back millennia. Chinese states do not.

>Almost a 50% increase in territory
Over the course of the Republic's history it went from being 3,900 sq mi in 326 BC to 750,000 sq mi in 50 BC. That's a 19,130% increase for territory. There's no comparison.

>Levant
exploded in massive uprising multiple times, completely broke off from the Empire in the 3rd century, readily spread their legs for the Islamic conquests but yes, overall was a lucrative investment.
>Britannia
Told to go fuck themselves by the WRE because it was not worth the effort to defend.
>Mauretania
Had the luxury of being on the ass end of the world
>Thrace
Was basically a Gothic state-within--a-state by the 4th century.
>Asia Minor
All these miss the point: that expansion was far more rapid when individuals within the Republic still had an incentive to go out and conquer places, rather than during the Empire when any military project of appreciable size required the direct supervision of the Emperor himself, and he simply couldn't be in two places at once.

Meanwhile Rome's dreams of conquering Germania and moving the border to the far more easily defensible Elbe basically died with Quintilius Varus and was never attempted again. All of Trajan's conquests ended up being worthless, and Rome could never truly solidify its grip over Dacia, despite its massively profitable gold mines

>"Splendid" -The Times (London)
Roman-hating scum.

Umm no sweety Byzantines arent Roman try again ;)

>Over the course of the Republic's history it went from being 3,900 sq mi in 326 BC to 750,000 sq mi in 50 BC. That's a 19,130% increase for territory. There's no comparison.
Exponential increase is easier when you're small than when you're big, is that supposed to be noteworthy?Or are you trying to claim that such a rate of expansion could have been maintained had the republic persisted?

>Levant, Britannia, Mauretania, Thrace, Asia Minor
Bro, all the provinces left at some point, because the empire fucking disintegrated. That doesn't make them unsustainable. Some of them were part of the empire longer than fucking Italy.

>All these miss the point: that expansion was far more rapid when individuals within the Republic still had an incentive to go out and conquer places.
That was never a thing in the Republic until the Marian reforms, which were a direct cause in the Republic's collapse. Now if you wanna argue that Rome was most efficient at expanding during the late Republic, that's fine, but then you can't claim that Sulla fucked everything up.

>Rome's dreams of conquering Germania and moving the border to the far more easily defensible Elbe
Everything about that sentence is straight up wrong.

>Exponential increase is easier when you're small
no, it's HARDER when you're small, because you're surrounded by larger, hostile enemies who want to make your territory part of theirs and you're having to constantly convince new allies put their faith and trust in your ability to expand.... or conquer them by playing them off of each other

>Or are you trying to claim that such a rate of expansion could have been maintained had the republic persisted?
what he said> In the Republican system the Law itself could be used as recourse to correct inequities in the system. As much as the Senate attempted to stall, unless they wanted wholesale slaughter, the lower classes would either force a confrontation or have the Senatorial class be eradicated. Countless times in the Republic's history had the common people faced off against the aristocrats and a solution emerged amicable to both. Under the Republic there was renewal to meet new challenges. In its decentralized structure change could come from any number of angles.
The Republic was adaptable and dynamic and readily incorporated new peoples into the empire. The Empire was overcentralized and stagnant and treated new peoples like permanent second class citizens while reducing the concept of citizenship to meaninglessness.

>That was never a thing in the Republic until the Marian reforms
Wrong again. By the time of the Marian reforms the Republic was already at 460,000 sq mi, more than 2/3rds of what it would eventually swell up to become. The Marian reforms were a contributor of the collapse only in that they were a limp-wristed compromise which didn't go far enough in terms of providing for veterans. I already stated that the expansion continued to happen- in spite of- the fact that Sulla fucked the Republic and turned it into a bloated, gridlocked, kleptocratic mess dominated by conservatives

>Everything about that sentence is straight up wrong
Everything about your argument is straight up wrong

>Diocletian's system lasted for a millennium.
>Create system of government dividing the vast Empire into 4 sections to ease the burden on the Emperor, and help reduce civil wars through the sharing of power.
>In a single generation civil war reduces the tetrarchy back into an autoarchy.