Topic: we are not rome

[whimsicalmamapig]

I am growing weary of those who compare the ancient Roman Empire to America. The facts just do not support the comparison on any but surface coincidences.

From its start, Rome was a culture that expanded its wealth and power by war and plunder.  It absorbed its conquered foe, romanized their government and utilized the assets to support Roman society.

I know a comparison could be made with the infiltration of our businesses into almost every corner of the globe and the dispersal of our troops after WWII in many strategic locations, but we, as a nation, did not invade to confiscate land or plunder, rather we stayed only to restore and renovate and then turn over control back to the locals. Our dispersal of troops was the result of our defense of our ideology against the threat of communism.

Our system of a federal republic that attempted to assure a government of the people, by the people and for the people was created by men wanting to free themselves from tyranny.
 
Rome was the result of a growing oligarchy, needing land and wealth and using its military as a means to that end. The roman army was rarely used as a defensive force. The roman senate was an oligarchy that only represented the needs of that class, slaves being the main source of labor and free citizens having, originally, little impact on the decisions of government.

If anything, our citizen soldiers have far more in common with the Greek hoplite than a roman legionnaire.

The structure of the Roman Empire was an ever developing bureaucracy needed to keep the vast empire in coordination.  In the end, it was the bureaucracy that was the last remnant of the empire that allowed Europe to continue its evolution after the slow death of the empire.

In America, it is the growth of a useless bureaucracy, whose purpose is to consolidate power into a smaller, more compact entity, (the federal government) away from the dispersed yet functioning states. This is the opposite of the direction taken by Rome.

As to the growing underclasses, it is true that both Rome and America created a large, unusable underclass, Rome by jobbing out the work to the citizens of their conquered states and the US by some misadventure in socialism and bleeding heart liberalism (add white guilt to that, noting that the romans felt no guilt about anything)

Trade was essential to both empires, but roman trade was curtailed by invading hordes from the east, requiring its client states to fend for themselves with less regularly maintained trade routes and the dispersal of power away from Rome/Ravenna to the outlying provincial capitals.

We are experiencing the opposite by the consolidation of power and control to DC and our decline in trade is due to decisions made by the federal government by trade agreements and tariffs.

The ultimate ends may be similar or not, but we are not Rome even though I could think of several emperors  I could compare to Obama. Our military is not the brutish attack dog that was the roman legions, and there is very little about innate roman culture that would be comparable to us except for our affinity to trade and commerce and one heck of a large tax system.

[RickZ]

We are not Rome, although we are becoming a 'gladiator' entertainment culture of death.  Pax Romana is a lesson for us as it pertains to the downfall of an empire and what comes after.  After Rome came the muslim horde, initiating the Dark Ages.  Once Pax Americana is gone, once the stabilizing influence that is the US that keeps the world running fairly smooth is no longer, a newer and more harsh Dark Ages will befall us.  And an old problem will resurface, the muslim horde trying to stamp on humanity their 7th Century values.  There is simply no country in the world who can take our place, or at least one we can trust.  Would I trust a Pax China?  Not hardly.  And Britain's (or Europe's for that matter) best days are behind them.  At this time, we are the last best hope for this planet.  At least we were until Barry #occupied the White House.

[whimsicalmamapig]

I agree that there are many surface similarities gladiator/football bread and circuses, but the down fall of rome had nothing to do with islam as the "official end of the roman empire in the west" (remember it continued another 1000 years in its eastern doppleganger) was 476 ad and Mohamed was born med 600's ad.

the "dark ages" weren't really that dark, we refer to it as dark because there is a dirth of information, hence the darkness, but there was the beginning genesis of western culture going on thanks to the remnants of roman bureaucracy and the rise of Christianity.

we are comfortable living in the end result of the western cultural evolution, of which we are the final chapter, and imagining all of western civilization trying to accommodate into a far eastern or Islamic cultural milieu is causing much angst among those who see what is happening, but the majority of the horde, like the citizens of rome before the gothic invasions, do not see what is happening.

our solution to this problem will not be "roman" but if citizens who understand the founding fathers do not gain control of this ship soon, we should all become used to being a subservient society.

[Weisshaupt]

I am growing weary of those who compare the ancient Roman Empire to America. The facts just do not support the comparison on any but surface coincidences.

I  disagree. Rome started as a Republic, and went through the same stages of decay we are seeing.  Yes, They grew by Military conquest and violent plunder. They also grew by trade. The US grew (as the British Empire did) by trade as well, and our far reach in this world, with military bases in nearly every allied country ( and many only tentatively so) is largely because of our Military participation in world wars.  The US has NOT been a peaceful nation. I don't mean that as a condemnation, but simply as a fact.   As much as Pacifism and isolationism may have suited and benefited us,  you just can't be the biggest kid  in the schoolyard and get away  with that. Yes Rome may have been more aggressive about it, but I don't think that makes them fundamentally different - and the number of wars fought for Rome increased and the republic failed and became corrupt. You know, just like we are seeing here now.
The Goals of the Roman senate as established were not to create an oligarchy- human nature did that.  The founders saw that, and tried to do it one better.

Not sure what you mean by ", it is the growth of a useless bureaucracy, whose purpose is to consolidate power into a smaller, more compact entity, (the federal government) away from the dispersed yet functioning states. This is the opposite of the direction taken by Rome."  Rome also consolidated power away from the City States it was contrived from.

Trade was essential to both empires, but roman trade was curtailed by invading hordes from the east, requiring its client states to fend for themselves with less regularly maintained trade routes and the dispersal of power away from Rome/Ravenna to the outlying provincial capitals.

 

This only happened to the degree that communication was impossible. Anything that could be controlled from Rome was, and client states requested resources and Men from Rome..

The ultimate ends may be similar or not, but we are not Rome even though I could think of several emperors  I could compare to Obama. Our military is not the brutish attack dog that was the roman legions, and there is very little about innate roman culture that would be comparable to us except for our affinity to trade and commerce and one heck of a large tax system.

We are very much like Rome before the emperors.  Obama is attempting to cross the Rubicon now. Our Army is the formidable one in the world ( were we to give them rules of engagement that would let them do their jobs)  Saudi Arabia is demanding they be used as attack dogs for them right now in fact, and Obama tried to oblige.   Rome was a western civilization like ours and we  have more in common with them than you might think, especially since our Founders formed this country with the Roman Republic very much on their mind.   Point is that history doesn't repeat, it rhymes.  No we are not exactly like Rome.  But I don't see that we are unlike Rome in anyway that would be meaningful to providing us a different fate than what Rome suffered.. other than the fact WE ARE ARMED. I can only hope it makes all the difference.

[ChrstnHsbndFthr]

My understanding is that they had a short period (11 years) between Julius and Augustus, in which the republic tried to re-establish itself. It failed, obviously, and Augustus ruthlessly killed those who had tried to restore the republic. 
I fear that I DO see MANY similarities. Certainly there are some differences, but they appear minor to me. Obama-Nero is fiddling as we speak.......the original Nero blamed Christians and began a great persecution that continued even beyond his reign.  I am not confident that we shall have even the 11 years, after Obama Ceasar is finished with us.

[Libertas]

I guess I'll add to your weariness, I think there are plenty of comparisons to Rome, as Weisshaupt recapped quite well.  And Romans in their early years very moral and family-oriented...and when those morals began to erode so did their society...not unlike what we see in America today.  And the Dark Ages were called dark because outside of isolated monasteries the world was feudal, subsistance-oreinted and hard...much of the knowledge of Rome and its engineering expertise went dormant...not awakened until the Renaissance.  We are not Rome, but there are too many similarities to dismiss out of hand.

[AmericanPatriot]

I've seen it said that history doesn't repeat itself but it does rhyme with itself
I'm also in the similar to Rome school.

Rome was a culture that expanded its wealth and power by war and plunder

I'd say that is exactly what we have been doing since the Korean War

If anything, our citizen soldiers have far more in common with the Greek hoplite than a roman legionnaire.

At the risk of offending some here,we don't have a citizen army.
That ended with the draft.

We have mercenaries. The volunteer army is just hired guns.
They are used for every purpose except defending our national interest.
We are an occupying force with bases all over the world

From its start, Rome was a culture that expanded its wealth and power by war and plunder

Manifest Destiny? Westward expansion?

Trade was essential to both empires, but roman trade was curtailed by invading hordes from the east, requiring its client states to fend for themselves with less regularly maintained trade routes and the dispersal of power away from Rome/Ravenna to the outlying provincial capitals.

Our foreign policy is to defend the petro dollar. And to benefit the multi national corps.

That's enough offending for this post.

[LadyVirginia]

I think comparisons to Rome can be made precisely because our Founders looked to Rome for inspiration.

In setting up their own republic, the American Founders looked to the Roman Republic as a model for what they should be and to the Roman Empire embodied by Caesar as a portent of what they feared the republic could become. Americans feared that liberty was fragile and that the republic could be undone by the ambition of one man.
***
While the example of Sparta inspired some of the American Founders, the history of Athens troubled them. Athens was a democracy, the Athenian Assembly being made up of every adult male in the city. But Greek democracy often led to demagoguery. For every virtuous Pericles produced by the Athenian assembly there was a conniving Alcibiades. The problem was so great that the custom of ostracism was invented, in which a man deemed dangerous to the city was sent away in permanent exile. Democratic Athens, Americans knew well, executed Socrates and grew into an empire that tyrannized its neighbors.

Americans were, however, influenced quite a bit by one Romanized Greek thinker. They read the Hellenistic historian Polybius’ description of the ideal government, which was a mixed one, combining elements of the three general types of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy—the rule of the one, the few, and the many. The problem according to Polybius was that these forms inevitably degenerated over time into, respectively, tyranny, oligarchy, and mob rule.

Polybius’ ideas were adapted and expounded upon by Roman thinkers, like Livy, Tacitus, Plutarch, and Cicero. It was primarily these Roman authors that fired the American imagination in the attempt to resurrect republicanism. Thomas Jefferson called Tacitus “the first writer in the world without a single exception.  His book is a compound of history and morality of which we have no other example.” John Dickinson owned a copy of Tacitus’ Germania and praised the Roman as “that excellent historian and statesman…whose political reflections are so justly and universally admired.” The challenge for republicanism, according to the Renaissance humanist Niccolo Machiavelli, was to break the cycle of decay that Polybius had identified.

Americans thus turned to the proper structure of society and government as the solution to republican longevity. Republics—whether of the Ancient Greek, Renaissance Italian, or early Roman variety—had traditionally been small in size. It was an axiom that republicanism, if it could work at all, could only work in a relatively small area, where the customs, manners, and habits of the people were uniform. After all, these things are what unites people. James Madison famously addressed this concern in Federalist 10. Madison acknowledged that “faction,” defined as a group—whether in the minority or majority—that seeks to oppress the rest of the citizenry for its own benefit, would inevitably arise in republics. The cure, Madison said, was not to destroy liberty by trying to give all the citizens of a republic “the same opinions, the same passions, the same interests,” but rather “to extend the sphere” of the republic—to expand its geographic borders—so as to encompass so many groups of diverse interests that no one can dominate the others. “Extend the sphere,” Madison wrote, “and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other.”

link

There, in the struggle of Roman civilization against barbarism within and without, is our own struggle; through Rome’s problems of biological and moral decadence signposts rise on our road today; the class war of the Gracchi against the Senate, of Marius against Sulla, of Caesar against Pompey, of Antony against Octavian, is the war that consumes our interludes of peace; and the desperate effort of the Mediterranean soul to maintain some freedom against a despotic state is an augury of our coming task. De nobis fabula narratur: of ourselves this Roman story is told.

link

But as we all know, the republican spirit of incorporation disappeared rapidly once Cato the Elder got his way and the ancient (and perhaps useful) enemy was no more. It is a commonplace that the Roman Republic was ruined by success, both in the Punic Wars and in the East (Macedon, Parthia, etc.). It is more appropriate to say that the harm was done by the form of that achievement, and by the time that it required. External pressure had been necessary to the development of a balanced constitution and a cohesive interdependence of the classes, a community of older (patrician) and newer (plebeian) families.[20] Yet, contrary to many authorities, this dependence was in itself nothing ominous or unusual. Some of it is visible in the history of every healthy nation—an oblique proof that enemies can motivate a people to perform their best. Instead, the real problems were (1) removal of the Roman armies from the category of citizen-soldiers into the classification of full-time military professionals; (2) the consequent decline of home agriculture and village life; (3) the growth of large slave-operated, absentee-owned estates; (4) the large concentration of wealth in a new group of imperial managers and international traders; (5) a great dependence on foreign food and the skills of educated foreigners; (6) a sharp decline in character among the plebeians of the city—the emergence of a useless, dishonorable proletariat. Without a rural nursery for virtue or a necessary role for all citizens, and with Romans in the army detached (and almost in exile) from the motherland, the ground had been cut from under the institutions of the old Republic.[21] Add to these harbingers of disaster the decline of the official Roman religion and the concomitant “passion for words flowing into the city,” the foreign rituals and forms of speculation, and we can understand why old Cato drove out strange priests and philosophers.[22]

link

There are days and, then, there are days.

In 1948, T.S. Eliot assumed that western civilization moved inexorably toward a new dark age. “We can assert with some confidence that our own period is one of decline,” he lamented. “The standards of culture are lower than they were fifty years ago; and the evidences of this decline are visible in every department of human activity.”

One can only shake his head in wonder and bewilderment at what Eliot might write in 2012.

link

Dr. Birzer asks in A New Dark Age

What if the founding of America was the highpoint of western civilization? What if it served as the end of an era, the culmination of all that came before it, rather than the beginning of a new era? In our understandable American patriotism, we call it a “founding.” What if it’s really an “ending.”

Interesting.

[Libertas]

Excellent post LV!

Much of that echoes with my recollection of all my readings of the Founders and the Founding.   

Many of the Founders knew more than one language and many read Tacitus in Latin and the classics in their original Greek.

And to borrow that Madisonian idea of "extending the sphere" no longer works...there is no frontier...we've been beating at the wall of the sphere and like an over-extended Rome when the fiat/debt kabuki ends the sphere will collapse like air rushing out of a balloon.

[AmericanPatriot]

Thank you for this Lady V.

What if the founding of America was the highpoint of western civilization? What if it served as the end of an era, the culmination of all that came before it, rather than the beginning of a new era? In our understandable American patriotism, we call it a “founding.” What if it’s really an “ending

[Libertas]

Another point to ponder...toward the end even Rome's mighty Emperor's had a hard time keeping the masses happy...as more and more wealth became more concentrated in fewer hands and the middle class became more and more squeazed...there was just the few haves at the top, the well tended Praetorians and bureaucrats tended to...and scraps for the rest...

At some point the free shyt runs out and the treasury is bled dry and the jig is up.

Not unlike our own path to ruin.

Our growing underclass...thanks to suicidal progressive insanity...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-28/29-uncomfortable-truths-about-soaring-poverty-america

[whimsicalmamapig]

there has been quite a bit of revision as to our understanding of the decline of the roman empire since Gibbons. I am currently re-reading "the Inheritance of Rome" by Chris Wickham, penguin books, that details the history of the areas that once comprised the roman empire from 500 - 1000 ad. there have been many new archeological studies that have shed new light on what transpired in that period that oppose the traditional ideas of the "dark ages". again, the term dark ages was a name given to the time because of the lack of info about it, not the lack of intellectual activity or commerce specifically.

If you give this book a browse you will understand how a comparison of America to rome is really inapplicable. we share only a similarity because of the size of our economic impact and the size and our legitimately superior military ability. as to the nature of the creation of our 2 cultures, the aspirations of our 2 cultures and the causes of the decline of them, they are really quite dissimilar despite how easy a superficial analogy can be made with just surface info, not the deep understanding of the  2 cultures based on the more boring facts and figures of the 2 cultures.

I hold firm on my belief that we will not gain much insight into the plight of our own predicament by incorrect comparisons to rome.  It is much like the use of the term Spartan. The 3rd brigade combat team of the 10th mountain division uses the Spartans as their official brigade logo. My business would make plaques and awards for them and we would place the Spartan iconography on much of their products but if they had read Victor Davis Hanson's summation of just what the Spartans were truly about, these brave young americans would have rejected them entirely, but a few good stories about Sparta has made many feel that the Spartans should be emulated. the same goes with rome, we are not them.

[Weisshaupt]

If you give this book a browse you will understand how a comparison of America to rome is really inapplicable. we share only a similarity because of the size of our economic impact and the size and our legitimately superior military ability.[/url]

and that our republic was designed with the failures of the former in mind, which seem to be failures in "self government' and the vices that men then and now are prey to.

as to the nature of the creation of our 2 cultures, the aspirations of our 2 cultures and the causes of the decline of them, they are really quite dissimilar despite how easy a superficial analogy can be made with just surface info, not the deep understanding of the  2 cultures based on the more boring facts and figures of the 2 cultures.

Without some idea as to what  specific differences between the cultures you feel  invalidate the  analogy,  its hard to really agree or disagree with your assessment.
I think most of us find the analogy holds because the vices of men  have not changed,  nor am I convinced that the Republic of Rome was formed with the goal of creating an Oligarchy, or ubiquitous centralized control. It was  a pact made or share mutual costs,  just as our was, or the compact of the Iroquois  Nations.
I don't think there is anything in Roman culture that made them more vulnerable to vice, or anything in ours that makes us less vulnerable.  The  specific  nature of what was considered vice, and what wasn't , may differ, but I am not convinced its a relevant difference. It seems the  same forces, the same lust, the same human failings,  that corrupted their government and culture and are producing the same result  in  ours.

[IronDioPriest]

I guess without reading the book Mama referenced it is difficult to assess the comparison from that perspective. Interesting discussion though.

[whimsicalmamapig]

I think we romanticize (pardon the pun) what the romans were, the egalitarian political system that is compared to us was only for wealthy "senatorial" families and not for the poor schlub working the farm. The creation of the roman republic was not to insure the rights of all as much as system of government needed as a result of the Latins subduing their neighbors on the peninsula. They occupied first the peninsula and afterward the Mediterranean basin not so much with the manifest destiny of our forefathers crossing the continent allowing free men to grow and prosper but as the result of their original conflicts with Carthage which was going to "eat their lunch" if the romans didn't conquer them first.

The romans were cruel and selfish in their motivations and their concept of a republic was a pale imitation of the greek polis.
The concept of the citizen soldier, the militia, is truly more greek than roman and the voice of each man, who understood the obligation of freedom was the obligation to fight for that freedom is much more us than rome. we need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that we are rome, but we must not disabuse ourselves of the idea that power corrupts. that is where I will agree, we are failing because of corruption, not because we are like rome, but because we are less like our founding fathers.

to say otherwise is to excuse our failing and lay it at the feet of determinism  as an explanation for that failure.

[oldcoastie6468]

We are not Rome, but we are burning.

[Libertas]

If one is looking for linear one-for-one comparisons between one group of people of one era, sure, things can break down, but I don't think anyone here is going to that depth, it is pointless to do so anyway because what does fit and what can be compared between us and them is at the larger macro level.  What impels those macro forces may be different but the consequences those decisions create is not.  To say "we are not Rome" is akin to saying "we are not Romulans", sure, that is obvious, but people can find common threads, denying that those common threads do not exist or saying that since "we are not them" we by default are better and therefore it is impossible for us to suffer their fate if we commit the same mistakes is intellectually dishonest and means we have no need of history because there is absolutely nothing we can learn from it simply because we are not them.

I have no romantic vision of Rome or any other state of any era (save perhaps our Founding era), the Romans were both brilliant, ingenious and admirable as well as ruthless, devious and murderous.  At the same time I have no romantic notion of modern man, we are not superior to our predecessors...we may have impressive technology and spectacular feats and accomplishments...but I am under no illusions that mean, vile and vicious people cannot rise and oppress and terrorize people.  Witness Muslim fanaticism, Communist totalitarianism and Fascist despotism of our modern era.

We are not Rome.  True.  We are both different and similar, better in some cases, worse in others.

[whimsicalmamapig]

you make a good point, LIbertas, but in essence, it can be a dangerous fatalism to begin to believe that we will follow in the path of rome because of how much we are similar to it and that could forestall actions needed to prevent the fall.  I don't think we need to go that way, and to proffer that comparison may be to pre-ordain it.

[Weisshaupt]

you make a good point, LIbertas, but in essence, it can be a dangerous fatalism to begin to believe that we will follow in the path of rome because of how much we are similar to it and that could forestall actions needed to prevent the fall.  I don't think we need to go that way, and to proffer that comparison may be to pre-ordain it.

Empires rise and empires fall. That is the lesson of Rome. No matter how powerful and unassailable from the outside  you become, you are vulnerable to yourself and your own weaknesses.

I don't feel fatalism about my nation because it is in some way similar or dissimilar to Rome. My fatalism is based entirely in Math, and the unassailable ignorant  arrogance of the so called "ruling class" -  They are determined to plunge us over the fiscal cliff, no matter what, in order to get a few more months of power, a few more minutes of lavish lifestyle.  Nero Fiddled while Rome Burned -- its a well known phrase in our language because it has played out that way again and again in country after country, with ruling class after ruling class. Its a truism of power, no matter who wields the power.

There are no longer actions that can be used to stop this fall.  At least not peaceful actions. The political solutions are off the table because 1/2 of the country have been brainwashed, indoctrinated and otherwise convinced that  People are the property of the state.  That "the Wants of an Individual are less important than the well being of the nation"  as that grammar assignment suggests.  "Gemeinnutz geht vor eigennutz"

These people will not recognize the rights of others to live free. They think of the State as their master , and not as a servant. We are the servants, and they will make us get in line.  There is no negotiation, no live and let live.  They wish to battle to the death over it, and we will at length be forced to oblige them or accept their chains.  For we have seen the movie before. IN Rome, In the British Empire,IN the French Revolution,  in China, in Russia, and so on.  We know how it has ended every time but one.  And that one has the hands of God all over it.  We will do what we must, but History does not lend us encouragement. If it is to happen again, it will be with God's providence or not at all.

[Pandora]

And that's the name of that tune.  Rome/not Rome is not the point.