Stalin's Sermon: The fall of Rome

There's been a good deal of chatter recently on a blog about how, essentially, them damn homos caused the fall of Rome through 'moral rot'.

Wingnuts, of course, like those arguments, because they're both factually wrong and help in their wider agenda of setting Americans against each other by using fear. Remember, wingnuts need us at each others throats, so that the stench of their corruption and ineptitude isn't as widely perceived as it needs to be.

I find their argument interesting, because the current radical government of the Republic and the malign movement behind it do remind me of the factors that caused the rot and then, the fall of Rome, leading us into the Dark Ages. It might also be said that the Roman Republic fell to pieces when a dynasty, that of the Julian House, managed to establish itself, which lends a certain darkness to the wider fact that family political dynasties now play a too-vast role in America - the Bushes come to mind, and their ongoing attempt to reduce the Republic to ruins.

The reality of the fall of Rome is, of course, far more complex than the wingnuts would have it be. Historians generally agree that the noonday of Rome lasted from the Augustean Age - the first emperor is pictured with me above - until the end of the second century. Milton, writing in Rome in 1638, imagined the eternal city.

. . . an imperial city stood,
With towers and temples proudly elevate
On seven small hills, with palaces adorned,
Porches and theatres, baths, aqueducts,
Statues and trophies, and triumphal arcs,
Gardens and groves . . .

That's of course rather idealized, but there's little doubt that in Rome's golden age, the known world was coterminous with the extent of Rome's dominions. No wonder the terms orbis terrarum - circles of the earth - and Imperium Romanorum are used interchangeably by writers such as Pliny. Edward Gibbon starts out his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" thus:

In the second century of the Christian era, the Empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilised portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valour. The gentle but powerful influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury. The image of a free constitution was preserved with decent reverence: the Roman senate appeared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors all the executive powers of government. During a happy period (A.D. 98-180) of more than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines.

It's worth noting, little christian wingnuts, that the vast monarchy of which Gibbon speaks, the monuments of which still astound us today, was pagan. Christians were a widely, perhaps justly in light of what was to come, despised minority. Lion food in the Colosseum. Hadrian, under whom the empire reached its climax, dear wingnuts, was gay. Google Antinous if you doubt me.

The end began when the younger of the two Antonines - Marcus Aurelius, an equestrian statue
of whom can still be seen in Rome today - had the misfortune of a heterosexual marriage which produced ludicrously destructive offspring. Previously, the Romans had perfected a system of an adoptive monarchy, in which the reigning sovereign would adopt the best man from his circle and thus, hand him supreme power. This benign system ended with the re-establishment of the dynastic principle, and gives contemporary Americans, blighted by the disastrous reign of a princeling, something to think about.

The empire convulsed into chaos for few years until the emergence of Septimius Severus, a general who founded another ruinous dynasty. He was succeeded by his two sons; the one murdered the other and built a gigantic bath in Rome, the Baths of Caracalla. Another civil war broke out after his murder; one of his successors was Elagabalus, who entered Rome dressed as the Syrian sun god, and who attempted a sex change operation, with the predictable results. He, too, was murdered; just not because he was gay, but because he was inept. Worse than the average (R) appointee, in fact.

The pattern had been established: a victorious general rebels somewhere in the provinces, takes his legions into Rome, establishes a short-lived dynasty, is murdered by a son or another rival, tempting yet more military commanders to imagine themselves on the throne. The result was constant warfare, and the slow disintegration of a society that required peace, stability and security.

The various claimants to power went about and debased the coinage; in a precious-metals-based system, this was done by melting down old coins, adding an amount of base metal, and circulating the resulting larger amount of money. As a result, the coinage was debased, and economic confidence collapsed. It has been estimated that the entire fourth century was characterized by recession. Wars cost money, even when Halliburton isn't involved.

Similarly, with the central government losing its grip on the provinces, the massive public works - roads, aqueducts, and so on - went untended. Forests were ravaged for wood, and never replanted. Trade diminished, and epidemics broke out.

In the midst of the escalating chaos, there were calls to moral renewal. A number of new religions emerged from the East; one of them featured the son of god, born of a virgin, who turned water into wine. This was the cult of Appollonius, since eclipsed by the better branding of a related cult, still despised, but growing in numbers among the slaves, the poor, and the howling rabble of the capital itself. There was not much to be expected from life anymore, and the new slave cult promised a better life in the hereafter. In response, the established order persecuted the new cults, and proclaimed its own calls for 'morality'.

Politically, the unified orbis terrarum began falling apart in the third century; a gallic empire - those weasely French! - established itself for a few decades, as did a similar experiment in Britain, and after a few decades, it was felt that the entire huge territory could not effectively be ruled by one man. One of the stronger emperors, Diocletian, decreed that henceforth, four men should rule jointly; two in the west, two in the east.

One of his successors was a man by the name of Constantine, who went on to found the city that bears his name, Constantinople. In one of the endless wars that characterize the agony of the empire, he appealed to the christians to come to his aid - and they did, and he won.

As a reward, christianity was established as the state religion of the tottering, still pagan, state. The appeal was clear: the strict organization of the church, the blind loyalty of those recently despised, and now elevated to power, and the focus on redemption in the big blue sky, all of these things appeal to a despot. His successor, Julian, attempted to reverse this disastrous decision, disgusted at the sudden wealth and arrogance of the clergy; but it was too late. The Edict of Milan in 313 proved the beginning in power of the christian church in the Western World.

The emperor Theodosius, the last to rule over the entire orbis terrarum, enjoys the dubious distinction of launching the first anti-gay pogrom in history; in fact, he sacked the city of Thessalonica when the locals wouldn't agree to the killing of a popular gay charioteer. He was excommunicated for that; back then, it seems, the church wasn't quite as, well, intolerant, bigoted and frankly unchristian as it presently is.

Thinking of Pat Robertson, perhaps?

It took a few more decades, but the end came quickly. Christianity prevailed, universities were closed, monasteries opened - with the predictable result on military manpower, economic activity, and other secular concerns - churches flourished, the legions were filled with barbarians, and, finally, one winter day in 376, the Visigoths crossed the Rhine river in force, followed by other tribes flowing through the undefended frontiers. Rome was sacked in 410, and the last Western emperor abdicated in 476.

So there you have it, wingnuts. Boy-bonking had little if anything to do with the fall of Rome. Rather, policies that kind of sound like your own, leaders that definitely sound like your boy prince, and of course, your precious christian church, did.