When Rome fell, life continued as normal, everything functioned, however, life slowly degraded, got harder, people disassociated, communities became hollow, crime and homicide exploded, and all services collapsed. Rome didn’t fall from decadence it fell to inaction; it became a nationless state.
Comments
The Western portion divided into various kingdoms and life in Rome continued as usual.
Until Theodosius decided to invade in 394.
30 million people. 2/6
There were other, more powerful currents: Any attempt to keep the Roman military, the legions, out of the process 3/6
From 14 to 192CE: 14 emperors.
From 192 to 293CE: more than 70 emperors (depending on who’s counting) and continuous civil war.
Macrinus became the first emperor who had not been born a senator. So goes the deterioration of standards. 4/6
Beard writes: “Whether [the second] millennium was one long, slow period of decline; a series of patchy cultural and political changes which eventually transformed the ancient world into the medieval; 5/6
I wonder if the Emperor Honorius watching the Visigoths coming over the seventh hill truly realized that the Roman Empire was about to fall. - Picard, TNG
Gladiator:
Quintus: People should know when they are conquered.
Maximus: Would you, Quintus? Would I?
(It was quite a few, many, widespread fires over centuries of night)
Similarly but disparately, libraries weren’t all burned at once, they were burned, looted, hoarded in churches & destroyed at a protracted pace until dark ages settled in with a man baby child king.
sheesh.
#SoundFamiliar?