Tuesday, September 4, 2012

American Minute with Bill Federer Sept. 4 - The Fall of Rome & Lessons for Today


American Minute with Bill Federer
Sept. 4 - The Fall of Rome & Lessons for Today
Join Bill Federer on a fact finding trip to Israel. Click Here    
 
THE FALL OF ROME was a culmination of several external and internal factors.



GREAT WALL OF CHINA: By 220AD, the Later Eastern Han Dynasty had extended the Great Wall of China along its Mongolian border, which resulted in the Northern Huns attacking west instead of east. This caused a domino effect of tribes migrating west across Central Asia, and overrunning the Western Roman Empire.



OPEN BORDERS: Illegal immigrants poured across the Roman borders: Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Franks, Anglos, Saxons, Alemanni, Thuringians, Rugians, Jutes, Picts, Burgundians, Lombards, Alans, Vandals, as well as African Berbers and Arab raiders.



Will and Ariel Durant wrote in The Story of Civilization (Vol. 3-Caesar and Christ, Simon & Schuster, 1944, p. 366):

"If Rome had not engulfed so many men of alien blood in so brief a time, if she had passed all these newcomers through her schools instead of her slums, if she had treated them as men with a hundred potential excellences, if she had occasionally closed her gates to let assimilation catch up with infiltration, she might have gained new racial and literary vitality from the infusion, and might have remained a Roman Rome, the voice and citadel of the West."



LOSS OF COMMON LANGUAGE: At first immigrants assimilated and learned the Latin language. They worked as servants with many rising to leadership. But then they came so fast they did not learn Latin, but instead created a mix of Latin with their own Germanic, Frankish and Anglo tribal tongues. The unity of the Roman Empire began to dissolve.



THE WELFARE STATE: "Bread and the Circus!" Starting in 123 BC, Emperor Caius Gracchus began appeasing citizens with welfare, a monthly hand-out of a free dole (handout) of grain.

Roman poet Juvenal (circa 100 AD) described how Roman emperors controlled the masses by keeping them ignorant and obsessed with self-indulgence, so that they would be distracted and not throw them out of office, which they might do if they realized the true condition of the Empire:

"Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who ONCE UPON A TIME handed out military command, high civil office, legions - everything, NOW restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."



The Durants wrote in The Lessons of History (p. 92):

"The concentration of population and poverty in great cities may compel a government to choose between ENFEEBLING THE ECONOMY WITH A DOLE or running the risk of riot and revolution."

Welfare and government jobs exploded, as recorded in Great Ages of Man-Barbarian Europe (NY: Time-Life Books, 1968, p. 39), one Roman commented:

"Those who live at the expense of the public funds are more numerous than those who provide them."



VIOLENT ENTERTAINMENT: The Circus Maximus and Coliseum were packed with crowds of Romans engrossed with violent entertainment, games, chariot races, and until 404 AD, gladiators fighting to the death.

Gerald Simons wrote in Great Ages of Man-Barbarian Europe (NY: Time-Life Books, 1968, p. 20):

"In the causal brutality of its public spectacles, in a rampant immorality that even Christianity could not check."



CLASS WARFARE: City centers were abandoned by the upper class, who bought up farms from rural landowners and transformed them into palatial estates. The Durants wrote in The Story of Civilization (Vol. 3-Caesar and Christ, Simon & Schuster, 1944, p.90):

"The Roman landowner disappeared now that ownership was concentrated in a few families, and a proletariat without stake in the country filled the slums of Rome."

Inner cities were destabilized, being also plagued with lead poisoning, as water was brought in through lead pipes. ("plumb" or "plumbing" is the Latin word for "lead.")

The value of human life was low. Slavery and sex-trafficking abounded, especially of captured peoples from Eastern Europe. "Slavs," which meant "glorious" came to have the inglorious meaning of a permanent servant or "slave." (Great Ages, p. 18).



TAXES: Taxes became unbearable, as "collectors became greedy functionaries in a bureaucracy so huge and corrupt." Tax collectors were described by the historian Salvian as "more terrible than the enemy." (Great Ages, p. 20).

Arther Ferrill wrote in The Fall of the Roman Empire: The Military Explanation (New York: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1986):

"The chief cause of the agricultural decline was high taxation on the marginal land, driving it out of cultivation."

There was a loss of patriotism, wealth began to flee the Empire, and with it, the spirit of liberty. President William Henry Harrison warned in his Inaugural Address, 1841:

"It was the beautiful remark of a distinguished English writer that 'in the Roman senate Octavius had a party and Antony a party, but the Commonwealth had none'...

The spirit of liberty had fled, and, avoiding the abodes of civilized man, had sought protection in the wilds of Scythia or Scandinavia; and so under the operation of the same causes and influences it will fly from our Capitol and our forums."

More recently, John F. Kennedy observed, January 6, 1961:

"Present tax laws may be stimulating in undue amounts the flow of American capital to industrial countries abroad."



OUTSOURCING: Rome's economy stagnated from a large trade deficit, as grain production was outsourced to North Africa.

Gerald Simons wrote in Great Ages of Man-Barbarian Europe (NY: Time-Life Books, 1968, p. 39):

"As conquerors of North Africa, the Vandals cut off the Empire's grain supply at will. This created critical food shortages, which in turn curtailed Roman counterattacks."



DEBT PRECEDED FALL: Rome was crippled by huge government bureaucracies and enormous public debt. The Durants wrote in The Lessons of History (p. 92):

"Huge bureaucratic machinery was unable to govern the empire effectively with the enormous, out-of-control debt."

In Great Ages of Man-Barbarian Europe (NY: Time-Life Books, 1968, p. 20), Gerald Simons wrote:

"The Western Roman economy, already undermined by falling production of the great Roman estates and an unfavorable balance of trade that siphoned off gold to the East, had now run out of money."

 

SELF-PROMOTING & CORRUPT POLITICIANS: The Durants wrote in The Lessons of History (p. 92):

"The educated and skilled pursued business and financial success to the neglect of their involvement in politics."

Richard A. Todd wrote in "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (Eerdmans' Handbook to the History of Christianity, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Co., 1977, p. 184):

"The church, while preaching against abuses, contributed to the decline by discouraging good Christians from holding public office."



CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS: Roman families had fewer children. Some would sell unwanted children into slavery or, up until 374 AD, leave them outside exposed to the weather to die.

The Durants wrote in The Story of Civilization, Vol. 3-Caesar and Christ (Simon & Schuster, 1944, p. 134):

"Children were now luxuries which only the poor could afford."



IMMORALITY: There was court favoritism, the patronage system, injustice in the legal system, infidelity, perverted bathhouses, sexual immorality and gymnasiums ("gym" being the Greek word for naked).

5th-Century historian Salvian wrote:

"For all the lurid Roman tales of their atrocities...the barbarians displayed...a good deal more fidelity to their wives." (Great Ages, p. 13.)

Salvian continued:

"O Roman people be ashamed; be ashamed of your lives. Almost no cities are free of evil dens, are altogether free of impurities, except the cities in which the barbarians have begun to live...

Let nobody think otherwise, the vices of our bad lives have alone conquered us...

The Goths lie, but are chaste, the Franks lie, but are generous, the Saxons are savage in cruelty...but are admirable in chastity...

What hope can there be for the Romans when the barbarians are more pure than they?



Samuel Adams wrote to John Scollay of Boston, April 30, 1776:

"The diminution of public virtue is usually attended with that of public happiness, and the public liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals. 'The Roman Empire,' says the historian, 'must have sunk, though the Goths had not invaded it. Why? Because the Roman virtue was sunk.'"

MILITARY CUTS: Though militarily superior and marching on advanced road systems, the highly trained Roman Legions were strained fighting conflicts from the Rhine River to the Sassanid Persian Empire. Roman borders were over-extended and the military defending them was cut back to dangerously low ranks.

The Durants wrote in The Story of Civilization (Vol. 3-Caesar and Christ, Simon & Schuster, 1944, p.90):

"The new generation, having inherited world mastery, had no time or inclination to defend it; that readiness for war which had characterized the Roman landowner disappeared."



TERRORIST ATTACKS: Visigothic King Alaric first sacked Rome in 410AD, followed by Vandal King Genseric in 455.

Attila the Hun, "The Scourge of God," committed terrorist attacks, wiping out entire cities, such as the city of Aquileia in Italy, which had been listed as the 9th greatest city in the world.

Residents fled to lagoons by the sea and hammered trees into the watery mud to create ground, founding the city of Venice.

Pope Leo rode out to meet Attila in 452AD, and persuaded him not to sack Rome, delaying the inevitable a few more decades.

Finally the barbarian Chieftain Odoacer attacked, and Rome is considered to have officially fallen on SEPTEMBER 4, 476
News from AmericanMinute.com
Join Bill Federer on a fact finding trip to Israel. Click Here

Exciting new book MIRACLES IN AMERICAN HISTORY
  
Receive the daily American Minute on your Facebook wall, Twitter feed, or RSS reader. 

Visit the American Minute archive
  
Watch Bill Federer's TV program Faith in History

Obama's America 2016

Visit our website to download an MP3 version of the American Minute suitable as a radio PSA.
 


Daily Reading: http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/readingplans/index.php/2012/09/04

Get a great book and help a great cause: James Nyondo's Absolute Integrity:   The Bridge to Your Destiny
http://www.nasaf.net/book/

 Please support the American Minute.  Click here to make a donation. Thank you!

Use the Send to a Colleague link below to tell others about the American Minute or click Join Our Mailing List to sign up.

American Minute is a registered trademark. Permission is granted to forward. reprint or duplicate with acknowledgement to vwww.AmericanMinute.com
Like us on FacebookFollow us on Twitter


meriSearch, Inc | PO Box 20163 | St. Louis | MO | 63123

No comments:

Post a Comment