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Re: I am talking about one of the plagues not THE plague lyringlas Send a noteboard - 07/04/2010 08:45:26 PM
I would make it not happen.

Rome doesn't resort to tactics which would result in their fall and the dark ages never happen. Europe doesn't go through the intellectual lull it did and religious dogma and irrationality isn't able to take over.

As a result, mankind is much further along today.


Didn't the Plauge happen several hundred years after the fall of Rome? Or am I just being an idiot and not quite getting what your saying?

In some cases, the same diseases were responsible for multiple instances of plague, and it's hard to accurately diagnose each of them hundreds or even thousands of years later. "Plague" killed Pericles and a host of others when Athens was besieged in the Peloponessian War; WHICH plague remains an open question.

I don't agree the Romes plague near the end is what killed it though; overextension and complacency during the Pax are more attractive candidates. Christian unity and the assimilation of so many "barbarian" German tribes kept Rome on life support and hid the decline for at least a century after its peak, but had the Empire been sustainable Constantinople would never have been founded.


The plague that came through Rome crippled its army, killing most of the young Roman soldiers. This eventually forced them to try and assimilate barbarian tribes and resort to the measures that kept it on life support.

Without the plague, Rome's population might have been strong enough to sustain Roman troops and a Roman identity, instead of seeding power to outsiders.

Of course, the reason Rome fell can be debated endlessly. I'm one of those that thinks it was the plague.

Either way, if Rome hadn't fallen like it did, I think we'd be better off by a lot today. But "Have Rome not fall like it did" doesn't sound like a very good reply ;)



What are you talking about? This was how Rome thrived through its glory days: expansion, and delegation of military service. The amount of *actual* Romans from Latinum, and later even from the Italian peninsula serving in the provinces armies was negligible. The main principle of Roman military strategy was: conquer place A, take men and armies from place A and make them serve in place X, while having people from place X guarding place A. Then, after colonizing place A with people from place V, then conquer place B to give land to people from A...and continue in such a fashion to appease everyone. The heart of the empire, Rome, much like America, didn't really grasp the idea of warfare and the hardships that came with it, because the people living there were as far from the borders as possible.
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I know I just did a survey, but this was too good to pass up. - 07/04/2010 12:44:15 AM 799 Views
Myself: World War I. - 07/04/2010 12:45:57 AM 662 Views
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The Plague - 07/04/2010 12:52:33 AM 551 Views
Re: The Plague - 07/04/2010 01:05:35 AM 450 Views
Maybe; there were episodic plague epidemics before and after that time. - 07/04/2010 02:05:18 AM 597 Views
I am talking about one of the plagues not THE plague - 07/04/2010 02:50:25 AM 541 Views
Re: I am talking about one of the plagues not THE plague - 07/04/2010 08:45:26 PM 540 Views
I'm so glad you have the time and inclination to type up these replies. *NM* - 08/04/2010 07:09:22 AM 357 Views
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precisely. - 08/04/2010 05:37:26 PM 571 Views
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NOOOO1111 - 07/04/2010 01:11:33 AM 478 Views
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Fair enough. - 07/04/2010 12:51:16 PM 543 Views
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So it's borrowed propaganda. - 13/04/2010 09:30:39 AM 510 Views
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Ask yourself the question... - 08/04/2010 09:33:33 PM 378 Views
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I...do not know. - 07/04/2010 07:18:13 AM 454 Views
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Considering the way history is taught, is it surprising? *NM* - 08/04/2010 07:11:03 AM 322 Views
Nope, not really - 08/04/2010 10:24:54 AM 548 Views
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