re: #377 Swift2991

The Roman empire came apart when there were too many plutocrats in Rome figuring out how to use the legions to rape and plunder the world so they could be richer. They became a world that Marcus Aurelius didn’t understand anymore. They fell apart at the hands of the peoples they had committed crimes against. Homosexuality was not as tolerated as it was in Greece, but it was fairly common and public before Constantine put the bishops in charge of public morality. Which Gibbons says was the reason for the decline of Rome. I don’t know, I think empires always fall.

They do, and always for the same reason.

The elite of the empire, or any society for that matter, start confusing their own well being for the well being of the empire. They might be congruent but they are not the same thing. At the point the elites well being becomes more important than the empire, or nations, well being is the point where the fall starts.

Hmmm. Why does that sound familiar?