- This topic has 7 voices and 15 replies.
-
Posts
-
I just finished reading A Desert Called Peace by Tom Kratman today. In the afterword he raises an interesting point about the fall of Rome and one in which I had not considered before but may make some sense. Most of us are aware of the traditional explanation for Rome's Fall. That they invited barbarians into the Empire to help secure the border and those barbarians ventually turned on Rome and essentially bit the hand that fed them. Kratman's books are full of the dangers of what he calls Transnational Progressives or Tranzis as he calls them. Tranzis are essentially the network of NGO's and various do-gooder groups like Amnesty international and Judicial watch that as kratman says do WELL but do not do GOOD. They are the ones that feed off the misery of others and while supposedly helping them instead prolong their misery. They also advocate for the increased immigration of supposedly downtrodden groups that then refuse to assimilate into their host society and advocate for their right or even obligation to not assimilate. Much like the phenomenon occurring among the Muslim population of Europe or the Hispanics in America.This feeds into the Fall of Rome when he asks
Do you suppose their were pro-Vandal, pro-Hun, and pro-Goth immigration public interest groups in ancient Rome? Societies usually rot from the inside so it does seem likely.
I think he may have a point here, if one that is not necessarily supported by the evidence that I am aware of, but an intriguing theory at the least. Surely their must have been more than just military reasons for inviting large populations of barbarians into the Empire. Perhaps the Romans were afflicted with vapid do-gooders such as we have in the Enlightened West today. It would not be surprising to find out this were so, and it is something I will definitely have to rea=search furh=ther once i get to a break in my seemingly endless quest to complet my MA.
Why not? As well as an anti-war faction, they had pro-Persian Greeks and pro-Spartan Athenians. I would imagine this occurs in all societies.
Rome stagnated under its own bureaucratic weight. Special interest groups were heavily over shadowed by the Church by that time wouldn't you think?
Rome did not have as big a bureaucracy as you may think. If the Romans had problems then we are in for a world of hurt with the size of government bureaucracy in America. The more I think about it the more the interest group theory makes sense. I cant believe that the current era is the only one that has seen such influential interest groups.Here is a pretty good lecture on roman Bureaucracy i found, it is a pretty long read but woth it as it takes pretty in-depth look at the subject: Fresh light on Roman bureaucracy; an inaugural lecture, delivered before the University of Oxford, on March 11, 1920
Here is a pretty good lecture on roman Bureaucracy i found, it is a pretty long read but woth it as it takes pretty in-depth look at the subject: Fresh light on Roman bureaucracy; an inaugural lecture, delivered before the University of Oxford, on March 11, 1920
Haven't read the whole thing yet, but it seems this lecture focuses mainly on Roman Egypt. (I like all the Greek in it)
This feeds into the Fall of Rome when he asks
Do you suppose their were pro-Vandal, pro-Hun, and pro-Goth immigration public interest groups in ancient Rome? Societies usually rot from the inside so it does seem likely.
I think he may have a point here, if one that is not necessarily supported by the evidence that I am aware of, but an intriguing theory at the least. Surely their must have been more than just military reasons for inviting large populations of barbarians into the Empire. Perhaps the Romans were afflicted with vapid do-gooders such as we have in the Enlightened West today.
Which barbarians were "invited" into the Empire, aside from the Goths? I'm not so sure about the theory because it seems like the invitation was different from the happy-go-lucky approach that may be advocated today. The Romans had been trading with the Goths, who later crossed the Danube into the Empire with permission to flee the Huns. This entry, however, was not an unconditional invitation, and the Romans would later betray the Goths (to the Romans own peril). Later on these Goths were given permission to settle in Gaul, meaning that the modern idea of celebrating "inclusiveness" wasn't really the aim of the Romans. Other adverse barbarians up north crossed into the Empire once they saw that the borders were no longer being manned, so they didn't come by invitation.I would be cautious of such a theory since it sounds like the author might be projecting a modern-day mentality type on an ancient civilization. Yes, there may have been more than just military reasons for letting the Goths into the Empire, but I don't think these reasons would have been anything like the post-colonial ones that are used nowadays to prop up disaffected groups.
I am not saying I agree with it 100%, but I do think he makes a valid point. Nevertheless there are some intriguing similarities with the present. I dont think you could say that the US “invited” the large population of illegal immigrants it currently hosts, but there is certainly sentiment for letting them remain. That is more of what I am talking about happening with the Romans and Barabrians other than the the Goth's. There were more than just Goths living within the empire byt the 4th century. refusing to eject them then and now is an implicit, if not explicit invitation, don't you think?
It could be that there were other barbarian groups inside the Empire by the 4th century, and I may simply be unaware of them. Do you happen to know which ones? I seem to recall the Vandals coming in during the 5th century. True, allowing them to stay could be considered an “invitation” of sorts, but I wonder how much this was due more to the fact that Rome couldn't really kick them out without overly-exhausting itself. I think that many illegal aliens are allowed to remain in the U.S. not because we couldn't kick many of them out, but because it would look really bad to be rounding them up and deporting them in large numbers. People start an uproar when there are raids performed on even a small scale. But yes, I suppose I can see some similarities as you say. I think one of the benefits of letting the Goths (and possibly others) remain inside the Empire was entirely practical - so they formed a "buffer" against aggression from other outside groups. Likewise, letting illegal aliens into the U.S. has a very practical component of being able to staff U.S. companies with workers who perform manual labor without demanding excessive pay.Basically it seems to me that the Romans made political decisions based on how they helped Rome function. In modern times, politicians sometimes make political decisions based on how they help individual oppressed groups, even to the detriment of the state. I think that this latter type of thing would have been foreign to Roman politicians.
For the most part this line of thought is pure speculation. However it does tie in nicely with the lament of Vegetius in the early to mid 5th century of the dangers of Barbarizing the Legions. I am not sure but I think their were also Franks, Saxon tribes in addition to the Goths in 4th century Rome. I just checked Ferrill's The Fall of the Roman Empire and he has the vast majority of the barbarian invasion happening in the early 5th century but he also has Franks and Goths living in the Empire in the early 4th Century.11. Arthur Ferrill. The Fall of the Roman Empire. (London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 1986) 57-60 & map 100
According to the book Foreigners at Rome: Citizens and Strangers by David Noy (London: Duckworth, 2000), the main sources of foreigners in Ancient Rome were Gaul and Hispania, Central and Eastern Europe, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, North Africa and Jews. However, it seems that most of those from outside of Europe were ethnically Greek, while Jews never fully assimilated into Roman society, and that the city's foreign population at its peak was only ~5%. Also, foreigners (especially slaves) had higher mortality rates and lower birth rates than natives and were sometimes subjected to mass expulsions. Once you build an Empire, people from all over these conquered territories are full part of it, troubles occurred when Rome was not able (strong enough) to assimilate them anymore: in the case of the Visigoths, their first intention was to find protection from the Huns, betrayal was one of the causes of their "invasion" against their former protectors or allies.This was happening during the Antiquity, modern States should find modern response to such problems about a feeling of insecurity because of a so-called rush of illegals. USA and EU share the same feeling (eg. boat-people from Africa)
Never really has been a melting pot… more a salad bowl; a long story, check Carl Degler: Out of Our Past.
