So, let’s return to our main line of thought. The Romans had a system that contained more discipline, efficiency, and practicality than the Athenian one. They built roads, bridges, and aqueducts of great size and engineering sophistication by employing knowledge they had learned from the Greeks, mainly the Athenians, and from their own neighbours, the Etruscans (or Tuscans). And some useful ideas were the Romans’ own creations, of course. Similarly, in other areas such as agriculture, medicine, law, and war, the Romans achieved practical successes unmatched in their times.

                                                                                

   

            Etruscan scenes tomb painting in Tarquinia, Italy (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

In addition, it is important to note that the Roman republic, as cruel as it could be to outsiders, was dearly loved by Romans. They were citizens of a democracy. They were a family. They truly thought that they deserved to rule because there had never been any state like Rome. It had been chosen by the gods to be specially gifted and destined. The state religion said so. The Aeneid said so. Thus, the Roman world view, by a direct chain of logic, assigned to the Romans the most important role that had ever existed in the history of the world. For them, their gods did not rule them and their universe with cruelty. Instead, for generations, the Romans were certain of where they stood: clearly, the gods (later, God) loved Rome.

                                 

   

                   Glory days of ancient Rome (credit: Thomas Cole, via Wikimedia Commons)

This worldview produced an Athenian style of idealistic patriotism because it was built around a model that gave democratic rights to all Roman citizens, or at least all “true” citizens, namely adult Roman males who owned property. There were aristocratic families, as had been the case in almost all previous states, and these were accustomed to the idea of privilege. But there were also plebeians, and they too were full citizens with rights to vote, run for office, have a fair trial if they were charged with a crime, and so on. Ideals above any human individuals. How could one not love such a country? What would one not endure for her?

When slaves eventually became half of the population of southern Italy, the Romans viewed this situation as just part of the natural order. This view, by the way, that superior people must have slaves in order to have time to pursue nobler ideals and activities, did not originate with the Romans. It had been Aristotle’s view centuries before, and he defended it at length for reasons similar to those that the Romans subscribed to. These people were convinced, without thinking about it, that their country’s system and the patriotism that it fostered made them superior. They deserved to be the masters of inferior cultures.

But as the generations passed, Rome became a society built more and more on slaves and materialism, restrained only by a warrior’s code of discipline and loyalty. It had to collapse when the warriors ran out of territories to conquer and sank into boredom, sloth, envy, and internal strife. 

In short, the cultural code of Rome stopped evolving. Nevertheless, its remnants were used doggedly by its carriers, the Romans, until it became dangerously out of touch with the larger forces in its environment, many of which had been produced by the Romans’ own success. For example, neighboring tribes learned better ways of making war from the Romans themselves. And the problems of victory can be worse than those of defeat: people with too much wealth and time on their hands slip more and more into envy, plotting, corruption, vice, and greed. The natural direction of most humans is toward laziness, foolishness, and self-indulgence. 

A cultural code, like a computer operating system’s code, needs constant updating in order to stay effective in the environment that it must interface with every day. Code that does not stay updated leads to whole programs becoming obsolete as more efficient routines are devised by competing software companies. The consequences for societies whose code falls out of touch with reality, however, are more drastic than the consequences for an obsolete set of computer operating system protocols.

By the time the Romans realized that Rome really could fall, it was too late.

   

                     Late Roman decadence (credit: Thomas Couture, via Wikimedia Commons)