Saturday, June 29, 2013

"210 Reasons for the Fall of the Roman Empire"

Not my area of expertise, I'll leave it to Classicists and other scholars to tease out the critical points from the fatuous.
From Wired:

Why did the Roman Empire decline? Was it due to barbarian encroachment, internal political rot and corruption, or even lead poisoning? Several decades ago, a historian decided to compile the numerous reasons that other historians have stated as Rome declined. And 210 reasons were found.

A brief selection from the list:
  1. Abolition of gods
  2. Abolition of rights
  3. Absence of character
  4. Absolutism
  5. Agrarian question
  6. Agrarian slavery
  7. Anarchy
  8. Anti-Germanism
  9. Apathy
  10. Aristocracy
Now, clearly not all of them can be correct, as there are many contradictory causes in the list. For example: asceticism (11) and hedonism (90); lack of religiousness (118), Christianity (32), and polytheism (157);  militarism (135) and loss of army discipline (125). I recommend playing along at home and trying to find more contradictions....MORE
HT: Marginal Revolution: