"November, the eleventh month of the year, actually takes its name from the Latin word for the number nine, and it isn't unique in this regard. September, October and December are named after the Roman numbers seven, eight and 10 respectively. July and August used to be named Quintilis and Sextilis, meaning fifth and sixth month, before they were renamed after Julius Caesar and his heir, Augustus. So why are these names all off kilter by two months?" Source: Live Science.
Note: The answer may be that the Romans were constantly screwing around with the calendar, renaming months (or adding new months) to honor politicians, for instance, only to change the names again -- or drop them altogether -- and the wizards in charge of keeping it all straight weren't paying that much attention.
"Archaeologists have long wondered exactly how the ancient Egyptians constructed the world's biggest pyramid, the Great Pyramid. Now, they may have discovered the system used to haul massive stone blocks into place some 4,500 years ago." Source: Live Science (2018).
"They discovered the remains of this system at the site of Hatnub, an ancient quarry in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. The contraption would have been used to transport heavy alabaster stones up a steep ramp, according to the archaeologists working at the site ... And it was possibly how Egyptians built the Great Pyramid..."
According to one Egyptologist, "'The quarry preserves large numbers of inscriptions left by ancient quarrying expeditions from 4500-4000 years ago. These enable us to better understand the personnel and logistics of organising expeditions to these desert quarry sites.'" (Phys.org, 2018)
I haven't been able to find any more information about this staircase (assuming that it actually exists). The website of "French writer, researcher and explorer" Antoine Gigal, mentioned in the video, can be found here, but it doesn't have a search function as far as I can tell and I could only find one brief mention of the staircase on her site.
If this staircase isn't some kind of hoax, it could have been built (by the Romans?) to provide access to groundwater. It's also possible, I suppose, that it leads into a system of tunnels or natural caves. While trying to track down something about the staircase, I ran across a 2009 Discovery Channel article describing an "ancient cave complex" under the Giza plateau:
"An enormous system of caves, chambers and tunnels lies hidden beneath the Pyramids of Giza, according to a British explorer who claims to have found the lost underworld of the pharaohs.
"Populated by bats and venomous spiders, the underground complex was found in the limestone bedrock beneath the pyramid field at Giza.
"'There is untouched archaeology down there, as well as a delicate ecosystem that includes colonies of bats and a species of spider which we have tentatively identified as the white widow,' British explorer Andrew Collins said." Collins is a regular contributor to Ancient Origins and I guess he could be described as an "alternate history" writer in general. That doesn't mean the caves don't exist, of course.
I don't know what to make of any of this, but I'll post more information if I can find it.
Some books are dangerous. For various reasons, they're dangerous to read or to possess and their authors sometimes take huge risks to write them. Books can be dangerous because of the knowledge they contain, e.g., the medieval grimoires of black magic, and some books, like the illegal English translations of the Bible before the English Reformation, are dangerous simply because they exist. Back in the medieval world, the people who wrote or read these books were often persecuted and sometimes executed in grisly ways.
Some books are dangerous because they expose the crimes and moral degeneracy of the powerful. The Secret History by Procopius is a good example of this kind of forbidden book. At the time it was written, it was probably the most dangerous book in the western world. If not, it was certainly dangerous to its author, who would have almost certainly been put to death after prolonged torture if his masters, the rulers of Byzantium found out what he was writing about them.
"Having dutifully written the official war history of Justinian's reign, Procopius turned around and revealed in The Secret History the other faces of the leading men and women of Byzantium in the sixth century. Justinian, the great law-giver, appears as a hateful tyrant, wedded to an ex-prostitute, Theodora; and Belisarius, the brilliant general whose secretary Procopius had been, is seen as the pliable dupe of his wife Antonina, a woman as corrupt and scheming as Theodora herself." -- Procopius, The Secret History, Penguin Classics.
Procopius goes relatively easy on the general Belisarius, who comes off as a hapless cuckold easily manipulated by the treacherous Antonina. Most of The Secret History is devoted to a detailed survey of the lurid crimes and personalities of the emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora, the absolute rulers of the Christian Byzantine empire. Both of these admittedly accomplished monsters are now considered saints by the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Procopius describes Justinian and Theodora as literal demons in human form, bloodthirsty psychopaths who committed bestial murders, betrayed their loyal friends and supporters, seized businesses and property in order to enrich themselves and corrupted the state for their own benefit as a matter of routine. The emperor was "dissembling, crafty, hypocritical, secretive by temperament, two faced..." Theodora was a deranged, power-mad slut, cruel and scheming, a former dancing girl and whore, intelligent but "malicious in the extreme."
Procopius writes: "In view of all this, I, like most of my contemporaries, never once felt that these two were human beings: they were a pair of blood-thirsty demons and what the poets call 'plaguers of mortal men'. For they plotted together to find the easiest and swiftest means of destroying all races of men and all their works, assumed human shape, became man-demons, and in this way convulsed the whole world." -- The Secret History, p.102.
In The Secret History, Justinian and Theodora are like the shape-shifting reptilians of modern conspiracy theories. According to Procopius, "some of those who were in the Emperor's company late at night, conversing with him (evidently in the palace) -- men of the highest possible character -- thought that they saw a strange demonic form in his place." -- Ibid, p.103. One of these witnesses claimed to see Justinian's head disappear while he paced around the room.
"A second man said that he stood by the Emperor's side as he sat, and saw his face suddenly transformed into a shapeless lump of flesh: neither eyebrows nor eyes were in their normal position, and it showed no other distinguishing features at all; gradually, however, he saw the face return to its usual shape." -- Ibid, p.103.
The Secret History is a classic example of what we would now call a political hit piece. After discussing the relationship between Belisarius and Antonina, Procopius goes on to describe in vivid detail "Justinian's Misgovernment," "The Crimes of Theodora," "The Destruction Wrought By The Demon Emperor," "The Ruin Of Various Classes Of The Community," and how "Everyone And Everything [was] Sacrificed To the Emperor's Greed," just to quote the chapter headings.
Note: I'm not sure if the chapter headings are used in the original manuscript. The book was apparently given the title "The Secret History" by later scholars.
Is The Secret History authentic? The book is so unlike Procopius's other works -- his history of Justinian's wars and his pandering description of the emperor's admittedly fantastic building projects -- that some scholars have wondered if The Secret History was actually written by Procopius at all. However, according to the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition, written by the translator, G.A. Williamson, the book is most likely authentic.
The question is why Procopius would have written such a vicious attack in the first place. It was an extremely dangerous thing to do, to say the least, and he couldn't have published it while the emperor and his wife were still alive and in power. Williamson argues that no one would have forged the book for the same reason. If they couldn't publish it, what would be the point? Furthermore, nothing in The Secret History contradicts the information in Procopius's other books and he most likely thought he could get it published after Justinian died. One way or another, Procopius must have taken extraordinary measures to safeguard the manuscript while he was working on it.
I can only imagine what Justinian and Theodora would have done to Procopius if they had discovered what he was writing about them. They would have executed him, naturally, but how? Considering their well-deserved reputation for cruelty, whatever method they used wouldn't have been gentle or quick. I like to imagine Procopius working on his manuscript by candlelight in a locked chamber in the middle of the night, constantly on the alert for approaching footsteps. He must have hidden the scrolls somewhere safe--under a loose floorboard, maybe, or behind a stone in the wall. If you're writing a book that could get you blinded, flayed and burned alive, you're not going to just leave it lying around on your desk.
Theodora died, maybe of cancer, in 548 AD, Justinian about 20 years later. The Secret History is thought to have been written around the same time that Procopius wrote books 1-7 of his history of the wars, according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised). "The Secret History covers roughly the same years as the first seven books of the History of Justinian's Wars and appears to have been written after they were published," according to Wikipedia. "Current consensus generally dates it to 550 or 558, or maybe even as late as 562." Justinian died in 565, so if these dates are correct Procopius had to keep the Secret History secret for several years at least.
The Secret History "is a virulent, uncritical, and often scurrilous attack on the whole policy of Justinian and on the characters of the emperor and his consort, which can only have been circulated clandestinely so long as Justinian was alive. It provides a kind of subtext to the History of the Wars, and reveals Procopius as a diehard, if occasionally almost paranoiac, adherent of the aristocratic opposition..." (OCD)
Were Justinian and Theodora as bad as Procopius says they were? Probably. They were highly intelligent and competent in many ways, but never forget that these "saints" also massacred thousands of their own subjects at the Hippodrome during the Nika riots in order to hang onto power. Procopius may have been "uncritical" and "paranoid," but The Secret History is one of the most entertaining books I've ever read about the period. Highly recommended.
Was Nero the victim of an ancient smear campaign? Of course he was. Just to take one example, the famous story that he set fire to Rome and then played the lyre while watching the city burn is an obvious fabrication.
Here's the Roman historian Suetonius's description of what happened:
"Pretending to be disgusted by the drab old buildings and narrow, winding streets of Rome, he brazenly set fire to the city; and though a group of ex-consuls caught his attendants, armed with tow and blazing torches, trespassing on their property, they dared not interfere. He also coveted the sites of several granaries, solidly built in stone, near the Golden House; having knocked down their walls with siege-engines, he set the interiors ablaze. This terror lasted for six days and seven nights, causing many people to take shelter in monuments and tombs. Nero's men destroyed not only a vast number of apartment blocks, but mansions which had belonged to famous generals and were still decorated with their triumphal trophies; temples, too, vowed and dedicated by the kings, and others during the Punic and Gallic wars -- in fact, every ancient monument of historical interest that had hitherto survived. Nero watched the conflagration from the Tower of Maecenas, enraptured by what he called 'the beauty of the flames'; then put on his tragedian's costume and sang The Sack of Ilium from beginning to end." -- from "Nero", paragraph 38, Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars.
This is an entertaining story, but it's pure fiction. In fact, this account of Nero's crime is so outlandish that it's almost comical.
Just think about it. According to Suetonius and other sources, Nero sent his flunkies out to burn the city because he wanted to clear land to build his Golden Palace, aka the Domus Aurea, a "vast landscaped palace ... in the heart of Rome." (Wikipedia) This would be like an American president sending out his personal staff to burn down the neighborhoods around the White House so he could build a gigantic complex of mansions and pleasure gardens.
Nero's men weren't subtle about their arson, either. If Suetonius is to be believed, they ran completely amok for six days and seven nights, using siege engines to knock down walls and torching apartment blocks and other buildings that were presumably swarming with people. The chaos and panic this would have caused can easily be imagined. That would be bad enough, of course, but Nero also destroyed monuments and tombs and temples and "mansions which had belonged to famous generals."
This wholesale destruction would attract some attention, to say the least.
Rome was a big city at the time, but it wasn't that big and Nero's orgy of destruction supposedly went on for an entire week, right out in the open. Everybody would have known what was happening and who was responsible. According to Suetonius, a group of ex-consuls, no less, caught Nero's men setting fires but were afraid to do anything about it. In other words, they knew who the arsonists worked for.
The point is that none of this was a secret. When it was all over, everyone from the patricians in the Roman government to the ordinary plebs on the street would have known that Nero was responsible. He would have been universally condemned, but that isn't what happened:
"The Great Fire of Rome was an urban fire in July of the year AD 64. It caused widespread devastation in the city on 19 July, before being brought under control after six days. Differing accounts [emphasis added] either blame Emperor Nero for initiating the fire or credit him with organizing measures to contain it and provide relief for refugees." Wikipedia.
Why would there be differing accounts of what happened if Suetonius's version of events is correct? Remember, some of Nero's arsonists were supposedly caught in the act. This wasn't a covert operation. If Nero really did order his people to "brazenly" attack and burn his own city, it wasn't exactly deniable.
Nero himself was in Antium when the fire started. According to Wikipedia, "[h]e returned to the city and took measures to bring in food supplies and open gardens and public buildings to accommodate refugees." Curiously, he wasn't lynched on the spot after committing such an atrocity. On the contrary, he was given credit, at least in some sources, for his relief efforts.
Nero, like Caligula, was the victim of an ancient smear campaign, but that doesn't mean he was a particularly good emperor. He wasn't, but even though Rome apparently rejoiced at his death (according to Suetonius), he was still popular with part of the population when he was finally overthrown and murdered during the revolt of Vindex and Galba in 68 AD. Even Seutonius concedes as much:
"...there were people who used to lay spring and summer flowers on his grave for a long time, and had statues made of him, wearing his fringed toga, which they put up on the Rostra; they even continued to circulate his edicts, pretending he was still alive and would soon return to confound his enemies. What is more, King Vologaesus of Parthia, on sending ambassadors to ratify his alliance with Rome, particularly requested the Senate to honor Nero's memory. In fact, twenty years later, when I was a young man, a mysterious individual came forward claiming to be Nero; and so magical was the sound of his name in the Parthians' ears that they supported him to the best of their ability, and only handed him over with great reluctance." -- "Nero," from paragraph 57.
People don't usually put up statues to honor deranged lunatics who attack and burn their own capital cities. For the real story, at least as far as it can be reconstructed, check out The Great Fire of Rome by Stephen Dando-Collins. Highly recommended.
"On the eastern slopes of the Andes Mountains, in the remote San Martin Province of Peru, lie the abandoned ruins of a mysterious civilization. Modern Peruvians tell us that a people whom they call the Chachapoya, 'the cloud people,' built these structures. The most notable of these is the massive Kuelap Fortress [see videos below], which contains more stone than even the pyramid of Cheops [the Great Pyramid] in Egypt. The Chachapoyan civilization, which according to the carbon-14 dating method dates at least as far back as 400 AD, existed until around 1500 AD. At that time, it succumbed to two external forces that arose in short succession. First, the expanding Incan Empire, which conquered the Chachapoyan civilization around 1490 after 20 years of fierce resistance, and next, diseases that the Europeans introduced after 1492 and which started showing up among the Chachapoya around 1535, diseases to which the Chachapoya had no immunity." Source: Lew Rockwell (2016).
Note: This article is based on the speculative theory that Carthaginians and some of their Celtic allies from northern Italy settled in South America following the Roman destruction of Carthage in 146 BC. The article and others I've seen describe the Chachapoyans as "European," but the citizens of Carthage were a Semitic people descended from the Phoenicians who originally founded the city. The Chachapoyans are described in the sources as being lighter than the other people living around them, but that doesn't mean that they were white Europeans.
"Ancient sources described the Chachapoya, the famous Cloud Warriors of Peru, as individuals with lighter skin than that of other peoples from the region, such as the Incas," according to Ancient Origins. "Also, they stood apart not only by their physical characteristics, but by the unique culture which they left behind." Among other things, they were apparently headhunters and shape-shifting sorcerers who mummified their dead. "The Incas feared the mummies of the Chachapoya, viewing them as the living dead who could rise and inflict death upon all those arrogant or ignorant enough to disturb them." (Ibid) The Incas eventually overcame their fear and conquered the Chachapoyas shortly before they themselves were conquered by the Spanish.
The theory that the Carthaginians or Phoenicians may have reached South America is an interesting one and at least theoretically possible since the Phoenicians, in particular, were renowned for their seamanship, but the lack of archaeological evidence probably constitutes evidence in itself that they never made the voyage. Most of the mainstream sources I've found describe the Chachapoya as a tribe of South American indians.
The Chachapoya lived in the Andean tropical cloud forests between the Maranon and Huallaga River valleys, but their culture disappeared after a complex and chaotic sequence of events. In the 15th century they were conquered by the Incas, who apparently treated them very harshly. They staged several failed rebellions and many of them sided with the Spanish during their war against the Incas, only to rebel against the Spanish after they occupied the region and imposed their usual regime of extortion. Spanish soldiers finally subjugated the Chachopoyas and relocated them to Spanish towns. According to Wikipedia, "Disease, poverty, and attrition led to severe decreases in population; by some accounts the population of the Chachapoyas region decreased by 90% over the course of 200 years after the arrival of the Spanish." Note, however, that the Spanish only ended what the Incas had started. The conventional wisdom that the Spanish simply conquered and wiped out the indigenous people of the New World is extremely misleading.
In the popular imagination, the Chachapova are seen as the quintessential lost tribe who founded a "lost civilization" and "lost cities" long abandoned and hidden in the cold and rainy forests. The theory that they were descended from Carthaginians fleeing Rome doesn't seem very likely because the archaeological evidence shows that people began to settle the area around 200 AD and Carthage fell around 250 years earlier than that. Still, the early history of the Chachapova is kind of hazy. The actual civilization they built is thought to have started around 750-800 AD but there are signs of human occupation in the region going back to around 2700 BC, so as far as the dates go I suppose it's possible that the people who created the Chachapova civilization could have been the descendants of the Phoenicians.
"In one of the most arid regions in the world a series of carefully constructed, spiralling holes form lines across the landscape. Known as puquios, their origin has been a puzzle – one that could only be solved from space." Source: BBC Future (2016).
"The holes are from the Nasca region of Peru – an area famous for the Nasca lines, several enormous geometric images carved into the landscape; immaculate archaeological evidence of ceremonial burials; and the rapid decline of this once flourishing society.
"What adds to the intrigue in the native ancient people of Nasca is how they were able to survive in an area where droughts can last for years at a time.
"The puquios were a 'sophisticated hydraulic system constructed to retrieve water from underground aquifers,' says Rosa Lasaponara of the Institute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis, in Italy. And they transformed this inhospitable region."
Note: No one is sure who built this water system. According to Wikipedia, "research has led to conflicting results about when the aqueducts were built, in part due to a general lack of historical references both before and after the time of the Spanish Empire. Some archaeologists contend that they were built by Pre-Columbian people around 540 CE in response to two prolonged droughts during that time. The first historical writing of their existence was in 1605 by Reginaldo de Lizárraga, which some contended could indicate that they were built by the Spanish. However, the available Spanish texts do not mention a project to build the puquios, nor describe already existing water systems."
According to Ancient Origins, "This could have especially important implications for understanding the prehistory of Anatolia. Moreover, it appears that there may be links between Kahin Tepe and the famed Göbekli Tepe , which has changed our understanding of the evolution of human civilization."
This fantastic discovery (made in 2018, I believe) could reveal a lot of hidden history related to the culture which built Gobekli Tepe, still one of the greatest archaeological mysteries in the world. I think the next video (June 2020) shows the same site, though Megalithomania refers to it as Karahan Tepe, not Kahin Tepe.
"Longyou Caves is a complex of 24 artificial caves, constructed into the sandstone geology of Fenghuang Hill in the Zhejiang province of China." Source: Heritage Daily.
"The caves were discovered by accident in 1992, when local farmers drained several ponds revealing five large manmade caverns and 19 smaller caves.
"The five caverns, independent from each other measure between 18-34 metres [59-111 ft], reaching heights of up to 20 metres [65 ft] with supporting pillars and distinctive shapes remarkably curved with shaking imprints across the cavern walls and ceilings."
These chambers are really gigantic. According to Wikipedia, their average floor area is over 11,000 square feet and some of the caves are almost a hundred feet high in places.
Views of caves start at around 4:29.
"First discovered in 1992 by a local villager, 36 grottoes have now been discovered covering a massive 30,000 square metres. Carved into solid siltstone, each grotto descends around 30 metres [app. 98 ft] underground and contains stone rooms, bridges, gutters and pools. There are pillars evenly distributed throughout the caves which are supporting the ceiling, and the walls, ceiling and stone columns are uniformly decorated with chisel marks in a series of parallel lines. Only one of the caves has been opened for tourism, chosen because of the stone carvings found inside which depict a horse, fish and bird." (Ancient Origins)
These chambers date back to at least 200 BC and nobody knows how they were constructed. No tools have been discovered at the site. There are no signs of the huge amount of material that must have been excavated and the amount of manual labor required is mind-boggling:
"Taking into account the average digging rate per day per person, scientists have calculated that it would take 1,000 people working day and night for six years to complete. These calculations are based purely on hard labour, but what they haven’t taken into account is the incredible care and precision of the sculptors, meaning that the actual workload would far surpass the theoretical estimation. As for how they were constructed and what tools were used, it is still unknown." (Ancient Origins)
Next video (2017) discusses the possibility that the caves were built to serve as water reservoirs.
Everything about these caves is a mystery. We don't know who built them or why or how they worked in the dark. No one knows what the symbols carved on the walls and pillars mean. And it's unclear how the caves could be so well-preserved after thousands of years of submersion:
"One of the most interesting and challenging questions is how the caves have been able to keep their structural integrity for more than 2000 years. There are no signs of collapse, no piles of rubble, and no damage despite the fact that in some areas the walls are only 50 centimetres thick. Over the centuries, the area has gone through numerous floods, calamities and wars, the mountains have changed their appearance and exposed stones have been weathered, but inside the caves, the form, patterns and markings are still clear and precise – it is as though they were built yesterday. " (Ancient Origins)
Alternate-history researchers, naturally, point to the Longyou caves as evidence of ancient high technology and the extreme age of the human race.
"The small island of Pátmos in the Dodecanese is reputed to be where St John the Theologian wrote both his Gospel and the Apocalypse. A monastery dedicated to the ‘beloved disciple’ was founded there in the late 10th century and it has been a place of pilgrimage and Greek Orthodox learning ever since. The fine monastic complex dominates the island. The old settlement of Chorá [the capital 'city'], associated with it, contains many religious and secular buildings." Source: UNESCO World Heritage List.
"Midway along the road that winds steeply up from Skála [the only commercial port on the island] to Chorá is the Cave of the Apocalypse ... where according to tradition St John dictated the Book of Revelation and his Gospel to his disciple Prochoros. This holy place attracted a number of small churches, chapels, and monastic cells, creating an interesting architectural ensemble."
That's the official church history. There's no telling how true any of this is, however, and it's still unclear who actually wrote the Book of Revelation. The author identifies himself as John, but there are several Johns who could have written this obscure, bloody and hallucinogenic apocalypse.
The author of Revelation is widely considered to be the same John the Apostle who wrote the Gospel of John. However, other authorities identify the author as John the Elder, aka John the Presbyter, and many modern scholars believe that Revelation was written by another author they've named John of Patmos. It's possible that all these men were one and the same, and it's also possible that Revelation was written by a completely unknown apocalyptic prophet who passed off his book as the work of one of these other characters in order to make it seem more authentic.
According to the traditional story, John the Apostle wrote the Book of Revelation while exiled to Patmos as a result of anti-Christian persecution under the Roman emperor Domitian, but this is unlikely since the emperor Domitian didn't come to power until 81 AD.
As far as I can tell there isn't much evidence that Domitian actually persecuted the Christians, but some historians believe that he launched a persecution against Jews and Christians during the latter part of his reign (89-96 AD). John the Apostle is thought to have lived from 6-100 AD, so if the dates are correct and you believe the traditional story, he would've been somewhere between 83 and 90 years old when he dictated Revelation to Prochorus [1]. That's still possible, of course, but, again, it doesn't seem very likely.
[1] The Book of Revelation is commonly thought to have been written around 95 or 96 AD, which would put its composition towards the very end of Domitian's supposed persecution.
I have a hard time accepting any of the official church history about the Book of Revelation and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the entire tradition surrounding Patmos and the Cave of the Apocalypse is just another Christian myth. As for who wrote the book, if I had to take a position I'd guess that it was written by an unknown, educated Christian, possibly a Greek, who may have lived in or near the Ionian city of Ephesus during the reign of Domitian (or earlier) and who had a serious grudge against Rome.
It's commonly believed that the Book of Revelation describes Armageddon, the end of the world, but it seems more likely that its author was prophesying the fall of the hated Roman empire. A classic example of the apocalyptic literature of the period, the Book of Revelation was probably written in response to the spread of the Roman imperial cult under the Flavian emperors:
According to biblical scholar L. Michael White, "most scholars now think that the issue revolved around the inauguration of the Flavian imperial cult in Ephesus ... Our clearest indication of how this is reflected in Revelation is seen in the description of the two 'beasts' from Rev. 13. The first is called 'the beast from the sea' who is given his power by Satan himself. He is described as having 'seven heads and ten horns,' and people worshiped him (Rev. 13.1-4). Then there is a second, 'the beast from the land' who makes everyone worship the first beast and its 'image' (Rev. 13.11-18). The 'image' (13.14-15) and the mysterious number '666' (13.18) refer to statues and coins or inscriptions with the emperor's image and titles. The 'beast from the land' probably referred to either the provincial governor of Asia or to the high priest of the imperial cult, who jointly would have overseen the temple and its festivals in Ephesus at just this time."
In other words, the apocalypse predicted by the Book of Revelation actually refers to the hoped-for collapse of Rome. If this view is correct, then all the millennial cults and end-times Christians who are waiting for Armageddon based on their reading of Revelation are actually waiting for an event which happened almost 1500 years ago. But the strange truth of all of this is that the Roman empire was already Christian when it collapsed in the west. Gibbon was at least partially right when he blamed the fall of Rome (partly) on "barbarians and Christianity."
We'll probably never know for sure who wrote the Book of Revelation. This is a shame because it's a masterpiece and its author should get credit.