Ancient World Review

Time-To-Death Of Roman Emperors Followed A Distinct Pattern

"Roman emperors faced a high risk of violent death in their first year of rule, but the risk slowly declined over the next seven years, according to an article published in the open access journal Palgrave Communications. When statistically modeled, the length of time from the beginning of their reign until their death followed a set pattern, similar to that seen in reliability engineering, interdisciplinary research by Dr. Joseph Saleh, an Aerospace Engineer from the Georgia Institute of Technology, US suggests." Source: Archaeology News Network.

According to Saleh, gladiators had a better chance of surviving a fight than Roman emperors had of avoiding a violent death:

"...of the 69 rulers of the unified Roman Empire, from Augustus (d. 14 CE) to Theodosius (d. 395 CE), 43 emperors suffered violent death, that is 62%, either by assassination, the most common mode of death, suicide, or during combat with a foreign enemy of Rome.

Saleh writes that "It's interesting that a seemingly random process as unconventional and perilous as the violent death of a Roman emperor—over a four-century period and across a vastly changed world—appears to have a systematic structure remarkably well captured by a statistical model widely used in engineering. Although they may appear as random events when taken singularly, these results indicate that there may have been underlying processes governing the length of each rule until death."

Comment: There's no mystery about this. The underlying process here was the Roman political system itself. Indirectly, Saleh has identified the fundamental issue that caused the decline and fall of the empire -- the instability of its form of government. Politics in Rome was always based on violence and conspiracy. Once the Roman army figured out that it could make or break emperors, powerful military commanders began to "go for the purple," using violence to take control. Many of them assassinated their predecessors only to be assassinated themselves, sometimes reigning for only a few weeks or months, so it's not surprising that gladiators had a better chance of survival. Highly-trained gladiators had value, but most emperors, especially during the final centuries of Rome, were a dime a dozen. The first years of their reigns were the most critical. If they couldn't consolidate their power -- and many of them couldn't -- they didn't last very long, a fact that shows up clearly in Saleh's statistics.

Book Review: The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire by Michael Grant

The fall of Rome proves beyond doubt that one thing always leads to another, usually in unexpected ways. For example, when the Romans gave up the idea of conquering Germany and switched to a defensive strategy along the Rhine and Danube frontier, they succeeded in blocking the German advance into their territory, but they had no idea that they were starting a long chain of events which would eventually lead to the collapse of the western empire.

The Germanic tribes needed living space. Stymied in their attempts to spread west into Roman Gaul, the various tribes started to move to the east in the Second Century AD and ran into big trouble about a century later. In 372, according to The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, "the eastward expansion of the Ostrogoths provoked an explosive reaction from the Huns of the Volga Steppe." When the Ostrogoths intruded into their territory, the Huns drove all the German tribes back towards the Danube like a giant hammer, pounding them against the Roman frontier.

"...the Huns rolled forward to the Danube, crushing the Visigoths and enslaving the Gepids, who had the misfortune to occupy the Hungarian steppe. There the Huns settled down with their flocks, lords of a pasture that stretched back to the Caspian. In three years they had obliterated a century of German expansion." New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, page 10.

Over the next century, the Franks, Frisians, Suevi, Vandals, Alemanni and Visigoths crossed the frontier into Roman Gaul, but they didn't stop there. Driven by hunger, the need for land and their leader's private ambitions, the Visigoths sacked Rome and spread as far as Spain, establishing the Kingdom of the Visigoths in 418. Rome in the west, heart of the strongest and most successful empire the world has ever seen, no longer existed.

The story of the fall of the western empire is more complicated than this, of course, but the main question is why Rome couldn't defend its frontier. What had changed? One part of the answer is given by the famous classical historian Michael Grant in his short and relatively obscure book "The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire." Briefly, Rome had been so weakened by two centuries of political instability, corruption, civil wars, military disasters and financial problems that it was no longer able to defend itself. In fact, according to Grant, the western empire should have collapsed in the Third Century, but managed to recover thanks to the efforts of a series of strong emperors who instituted much needed reforms.

"The fact that the Roman empire did not collapse in the 260s or 270s AD is one of the miracles of history." Grant, Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire, Introduction, xvii.

In my opinion, the origins of Rome's political instability can be traced all the way back to Julius Caesar, at least. When the legions figured out that they could make or break emperors at will, they became the ultimate power brokers and this eventually developed into a state of constant chaos and civil war as ambitious military leaders bribed and murdered their way into power, only to be murdered themselves, sometimes after a reign of only a few days. The turnover in the Roman government between 235 and 284 AD was mind-boggling:

"In the age of the soldier-emperors, between the assassination of Alexander Severus, the last of the Severans, in 235 A.D. and the beginning of Diocletian's reign in 284, at least sixteen men bore the title of emperor: Maximinus (r. 235–38 A.D.), Gordian I and II, Pupienus and Balbinus (r. 238 A.D.), Gordian III (r. 238–44 A.D.), Philip the Arab (r. 244–49 A.D.), the Illyrian Decius (r. 249–51 A.D.), Trebonianus Gallus (r. 251–53 A.D.), Aemilianus (r. 253 A.D.), Valerian (r. 253–60 A.D.), Gallienus (r. 253–68 A.D.), Claudius Gothicus (r. 268–70 A.D.), Aurelian (r. 270–75 A.D.), Tacitus (r. 275–76 A.D.), Probus (r. 276–82 A.D.), Carus (r. 282–83 A.D.), Carinus (r. 283–84 A.D.), and Numerianus (r. 283–84 A.D.). Most were fierce military men and none could hold the reins of power without the support of the army. Almost all, having taken power upon the murder of the preceding emperor, came to a premature and violent end. Social life declined in Roman towns and instead flourished among the country aristocracy, whose secure lifestyle in large fortified estates foreshadowed medieval feudalism." (Source: Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History)

Michael Grant's short book, actually a monograph of 68 pages with an appendix and notes, provides a good overview of the chaotic succession of emperors and the constantly changing state of Roman relations with the Germans and Persians at the time. In Part Two, he discusses the military, financial and religious reforms instituted by the "strong emperors" such as Diocletian and Constantine who emerged at just the right time and managed to pull the empire back from the brink--for a while. Grant's book gives one of the most coherent explanations available for why the western empire collapsed after the Ostrogoth's fatal encounter with the Huns on the Volga Steppe. The lesson is clear enough. A series of bad or ineffective leaders can destroy a civilization.

Sound familiar?

The Accidental Suicide Of The Roman Empire

Video from 2012.

A Visual History Of Mesoamerica From The Olmecs To The Spanish Conquest

Related: Chronology of the Mesoamerican Cultures. This excellent Thought Company article details the rise and fall of Mesoamerican cultures from the Preclovis Period (?25,000 – 10,000 BCE) to the Colonial Period (1521 - 1821).

Comment:The Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica is a fantastic adventure story. I'm currently reading The True History of the Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, one of the conquistadors who fought with Cortez before and during the conquest of the Aztec Empire. Highly recommended.

One Theory About Why The Classic Maya Culture In The Lowlands Collapsed

"The ninth century collapse and abandonment of the Central Maya Lowlands in the Yucatán peninsular region were the result of complex human–environment interactions. Large-scale Maya landscape alterations and demands placed on resources and ecosystem services generated high-stress environmental conditions that were amplified by increasing climatic aridity. Coincident with this stress, the flow of commerce shifted from land transit across the peninsula to sea-borne transit around it. These changing socioeconomic and environmental conditions generated increasing societal conflicts, diminished control by the Maya elite, and led to decisions to move elsewhere in the peninsular region rather than incur the high costs of maintaining the human–environment systems in place." Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (2012).

Comment: If I understand this correctly, the theory here doesn't describe a social collapse so much as a process of decentralization and geographic dislocation. The growth of the Mayan civilization led to increased complexity and instability caused by a greater demand on a dwindling supply of resources which was made even worse by a catastrophic drought. At the same time, the change in trade patterns from land to sea transportation would have shifted the centers of economic power to coastal areas -- that would have been enough to weaken the central governments even if they weren't already under a lot of stress.

The Classic Mayan Period lasted for around 650 years -- roughly three times longer than the United States has so far. The Mayans built a great civilization, but they were brought down by a combination of factors they couldn't deal with. Maybe they would have lasted longer if they hadn't been so successful and grown so large and complex, but all civilizations collapse eventually from systemic instability or foreign conquest or both. Sometimes they simply enter a long period of decline and never recover, fading into the background noise of history. 

If you start counting from the Declaration of Independence, the United States is only around 244 years old and it is declining very quickly by historical standards. There's a good argument that the American culture has already collapsed or is in the last stages of collapse. One way or another, if you take the long view of things, it looks like we'll be lucky if we can last even a third as long as the much more primitive Mayans.

The Education Of Julian The Apostate

Flavius Claudius Iulianus Augustus (331 - 363 AD) was a great man and one of the last true Romans. He is more commonly known today as Julian the Apostate, the name he was given by the Christian church for his determined attempt to restore paganism in the dying Roman empire.

Born in Constantinople in 331, Julian was "placed in the care of an Arian bishop" as a child and "from 342 was confined for six years on an imperial estate in Cappadocia," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised). "He impressed his Christian tutors there as a gifted and pious pupil, but his reading of the Greek classics was inclining him in private to other gods."

Christians who read and think too much tend to lose their faith, even if they're "heretics" like the Arians. "In 351, as a student of philosophy, [Julian] encountered pagan Neoplatonists and was initiated as a theurgist by Maximus of Ephesus," a Neoplatonist philosopher and magician who should be commemorated by pagans everywhere for the role he played in converting Julian to the traditional beliefs of the ancients.

Julian played a double game for years while waiting to see if he would be executed or made emperor. "For the next ten years Julian's pagan 'conversion' remained a prudently kept secret," according to the OCD. "He continued his studies in Asia and later at Athens until summoned to Milan by [Constantius II] to be married to the emperor's sister Helena and proclaimed Caesar with charge over Gaul and Britain."

Julian fought successful campaigns against the Alamanni and Franks that made him very popular with the army, which mutinied and declared him emperor after Constantius "ordered the transfer of choice detachments to the east..." (OCD). Luckily, civil war was avoided when Constantius died later that same year (361) and Julian took over Rome.

He publicly declared his paganism, purged the imperial court, issued a declaration of general religious tolerance that "foreshadowed a vigorous program of pagan activism in the interest of Hellenism," restored "the temples and finances of the ancestral cults," and established "a hierarchy of provincial and civic priesthoods." During the process, "Christian churches and clergy lost the financial subsidies and privileges gained under Constantine and his successors."

Julian discriminated in favor of pagans, but, unlike the Christians themselves, he didn't believe in using violence to persecute the people who didn't share his beliefs. Instead, he tried to marginalize Christianity, partly through argument, such as in his essay Against the Galileans, which is still well worth reading.

Julian's "learning and literary talent" as well as his control of the Roman legal apparatus could have changed the future course of the world in dramatic ways, but he was killed in a "minor skirmish" in his war against Persia after only three years in power. Wounded on June 26, 363, he died three days later on June 29, a  day which should also be commemorated by pagans.

By the time of Julian, Rome was already in serious trouble and the western empire would collapse around a hundred years later. Ultimately, Julian was fighting a rearguard action against Christianity, but his reforms might have made a difference if he had lived longer. After all, Christianity owed much of its influence to official support and a lot of important people converted in order to gain the favor of the court. Once that support had been removed, who knows what might have happened?

The real Rome was a pagan, not a Christian, empire. In Julian's day, the empire was being destabilized and distorted beyond recognition by a foreign religion and Julian might have been able to turn that around. 

"One of the persistent themes of Julian's antagonism towards the Christian church was his belief that they were troublemakers, causing political discord in any community where they formed the majority: 'they turn everything upside down.'" -- from the introduction to "Julian's Against the Galileans," edited and translated by R. Joseph Hoffmann, Prometheus Books, 2004. This feeling that an alien ideology is turning everything upside down is all too familiar today.

Here's to Flavius Claudius Iulianus Augustus. Rest in peace.

Decline Of Christianity In US Continues At Rapid Pace

A Catholic perspective on the decline of Christianity in the US.

"The religious landscape of the United States continues to change at a rapid clip. In Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or 'nothing in particular,' now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009." Source: Pew Research Center.(Oct. 2019)

A Southern Baptist evangelical perspective.

Comment: The decline of Christianity in the U.S. is probably a lot more dramatic than these latest statistics would lead you to believe. For one thing, there's still a stigma attached to being an atheist or irreligious, so a lot of people are probably reluctant to admit to a pollster that they're not Christians. In other words, the polls are probably under-reporting the loss of faith because people aren't honest about what they really believe.

For another thing, the percentage of Americans who are religious has always, I think, been wildly exaggerated. I've never believed the claim that the vast majority of people in this country are Christians. They say they are, or at least they used to in the past, but I'm guessing that the number of real Christians who actually take their religion seriously has never been higher than twenty or thirty percent of the overall population. Even if I'm wrong about that, however, there's no doubt that Christians are becoming a minority in the First World.

The decline in traditional religious belief in the U.S. is real and the situation is even worse (or better, depending on your point of view) in Europe. We're not seeing the death of Christianity, however, but it's transformation from a First World into a Third World religion. Christianity is still the world's largest religion, but that's rapidly changing as well:

"Muslims are projected to be the world’s fastest-growing major religious group in the decades ahead, as Pew Research Center has explained, and signs of this rapid growth already are visible. In the period between 2010 and 2015, births to Muslims made up an estimated 31% of all babies born around the world – far exceeding the Muslim share of people of all ages in 2015 (24%)." Source: Pew Research Center (2017).

The decline of Christianity is only one part of a much larger story -- the decline and fall of the West.

Christianity Is Becoming A Third-World Religion (Updated)

1,707 years after Galerius's Edict of Toleration ended the persecution of Christians which started under Diocletian, the religion that once exercised absolute dominion over the West is rapidly disappearing from Europe. That's not very surprising, though. Even the United States is becoming less religious and Christianity as an institution has been in decline for a very long time now.

The history of Christianity has been one of schisms and fragmentation, a long process of disintegration caused by theological disputes, administrative squabbles and church corruption. When the Catholic church lost its monopoly during the Protestant Reformation, Christianity as a unified institution (1) ceased to exist. Protestantism itself went through a long chain-reaction of schisms with the result that there are now hundreds of Christian denominations in the world.

(1) Early Christianity wasn't a single movement with a unified belief system, but this gradually changed after Catholicism became the official religion of Rome and the church began its centuries-long process of stamping out "heretical movements." Very roughly speaking, and taking into consideration the fact that the eastern and western churches of the time had distinct differences, Christianity survived as a near-monolithic religious institution for about a thousand years before it started to fall apart.

Video from 2016.

The rise of science and the spread of secularism accelerated the decline of Christianity in the West. Some denominations have attempted to "adapt to the times" by dropping or "interpreting" their mythology and transforming themselves into little more than progressive social-work institutions, but these congregations are in rapid decline. Conservative churches which preach a defiant fundamentalism are thriving in the United States and Christianity is apparently exploding in the Third World.

According to Chuck Colson, "the percentage of the world's population that is, at least by name [emphasis added], Christian will be roughly the same in 2050 as it was in 1900. By the middle of this century, there will be three billion Christians in the world -- one and a half times the number of Muslims. In fact, by 2050 there will be nearly as many Pentecostal Christians in the world as there are Muslims today.

"But at that point, only one-fifth of the worlds Christians will be non-Hispanic whites. The typical Christian will be a woman living in a Nigerian village or in a Brazilian shantytown."

After almost 2,000 years, the historical trajectory of the rise and fall of Christianity is becoming clear. The religion originated in the Near East, spread into the Roman empire, rose to the height of its power in medieval Europe, then began to fragment and decline. This decline has been a long, complex process that started centuries ago and it has accelerated dramatically during the last hundred years or so in the western, developed world:

"The decline of Christianity is a widespread, ongoing phenomenon that has affected the Western world, developed countries and denominations in the post-World War II era, which have shifted towards a post-Christian, secular, globalized, multicultural, and multireligious society. Infant baptism has declined in many nations. Thousands of churches have had to close or merge and mainline Protestant denominations in the United States lost many members of their congregations." (Wikipedia)

Christianity has been struggling to survive the transition to the so-called postmodern world, itself a symptom of the overall decline of the West. The religion has been under attack for a long time now, but the biggest problem is that religion in general is no longer believable to most educated people. In Europe, even the church's own leaders don't seem to believe its teachings anymore, a sure sign that the religion is in its last stages in countries like Britain, where many churches are being closed, turned into historical museums or converted into mosques. As a result, Christianity is dying off in the West and thriving in the Third World. It will survive in the form of die-hard fundamentalist sects and the various syncretic mixtures of Christianity and native religions now spreading through places like South America, Asia and Africa.

Video from 2010.

Christianity is finished in Europe and declining in the United States, but it will continue to thrive in its original form as a prescientific, preliterate religion in the Third World. "In 1900, 80 percent of Christians lived in Europe and North America. In 2000, 60 percent lived in Africa, Asia and Latin America, with many in developing countries." (Facts and Details) By 2050, if present trends continue, "four out of every 10 Christians in the world will live in sub-Saharan Africa" and "the number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world." (Pew Research Center (2015))

Related:

Why There Is No Way Back For Religion In The West.

Is Religion Dying Out?

Where Churches Have Become Temples of Cheese, Fitness and Eroticism

The Dark Lords Of Hattusha

"Hattusha [Hattusa] exerted dominating influence upon the civilizations of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC in Anatolia and northern Syria. The palaces, temples, trading quarters and necropolis of this political and religious metropolis provide a comprehensive picture of a capital and bear a unique testimony to the disappeared Hittite civilization." Source: UNESCO World Heritage.

According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised),  "the site [of Hattusa] has been under excavation by German archaeologists since 1906 (1), and besides the massive Hittite occupation has produced pre- and post-Hittite levels. Among the principle finds has been the royal archives of thousands of cuneiform clay tablets."

(1) I'm not sure if the Germans were still excavating the site when the war broke out in Syria. If so, I assume that their work was interrupted.

"Hattusa is a site full of treasures, which is mentioned in history books due to the rich correspondence between the Hittite king and other rulers like the pharaohs of Egypt. The site contains many important places, including the pre-Hittite royal tombs, dating to 3,000 B.C., and have yielded stunning artifacts such as weapons, gold and silver containers and jewelry, animal sculptures made of bronze and clay, chairs, gold brooches, belt buckles, and gold leaf-covered figures." Source: Ancient Origins (2016).

Next video shows the Yer Kapi tunnel under Hattusa.

"The Hittite Empire began its decline around the middle of the 13th century BC," according to Ancient Origins, "mainly due to the rise of their eastern neighbors, the Assyrians. Moreover, raids by hostile forces, such as the Sea Peoples and the Kaska further weakened the Hittite Empire, finally resulting in its collapse during the first half of the 12th century BC. In 1190 BC, the Kaskas managed to capture Hattusa, which they then sacked and burned."

According to Wikipedia, "[e]xcavations suggest that Hattusa was gradually abandoned over a period of several decades as the Hittite empire disintegrated. The site was subsequently abandoned until 800 BC, when a modest Phrygian settlement appeared in the area."

Sweden Could Drop Ancient History From School Curriculum

"Previously-undisputed pillars of education such as ancient and medieval history will have to make way for contemporary topics such as gender roles, democratic values and immigration in the newly-proposed Swedish school curriculum." Source: RT.

"A new syllabus developed for Sweden's state schools by the country's National Agency for Education proposes drastic changes in how history and humanities should be taught.

"The most striking part is that Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages, a formative period for the Western world in general and Sweden in particular, will disappear from the curriculum completely."

Comment: More self-destructive radlib insanity from Sweden. All I can say to these morons in the National Agency for Education is "HOW DARE YOU?"