the day the Roman Empire really collapsed...

Discussion in 'Politics' started by SNBthetrue, Dec 30, 2009.

  1. I think that it was the day that one Emperor and his advisers realized that it was under the Law of the Empire that the Christ had died...

    theirs hearts were so broken that they didn't took care of it anymore...

    It was the day that the all known world lost its value to them...
     
  2. For those who think that Rome was secular... lol...

    Romulus and Remus (traditionally c. 771 BC[1]–c. 717 BC and c. 771 BC–c. 753 BC respectively) are the traditional founders of Rome, appearing in Roman mythology as the twin sons of the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia, fathered by the god of war, Mars. According to the tradition recorded as history by Plutarch and Livy, Romulus served as the first King of Rome.

    [​IMG]

    And they were feed by a wolf after riding a river...

    [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_Remus]

    an other legend :

    Geese save the capitol.
    The tradition is that when the Gauls invaded Rome a detachment in single file clambered up the hill of the capitol so silently that the foremost man reached the top without being challenged; but while he was striding over the rampart, some sacred geese, disturbed by the noise, began to cackle, and awoke the garrison. Marcus Manlius rushed to the wall and hurled the fellow over the precipice. To commemorate this event, the Romans carried a golden goose in procession to the capitol every year (B.C. 390).

    [http://www.infoplease.com/dictionary/brewers/geese.html]
     
  3. stu

    stu

    Nah, no way.
    Had something important happened enough to get that upset about , the Christ character would at least have been formally recorded .
    Nothing was.
    Christ has only ever been a fictional mythological image, never an historical person.
    Any Emperor in those times would more likely be upset about what happened to Phaedra, the poor cow :p
     
  4. Constantine (emperor of Rome) converted to Christanity in the 3rd Century. I wonder if he thought it to be a myth just two centuries later?
     
  5. You demonstrate a lack of historical knowledge here... and when that happens, it's not unusual for one to cling to religion as a factor.

    Rome became an empire after the civil war between Marc Antony and Augustus (then known as Octavian) ended with the battle of Actium in 31 BC.

    Jesus supposedly died around 30 AD, give or take a few years. That's 60 years after Augustus' ascension, and the death of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire.

    Rome was sacked in 410 AD by Alaric the Visigoth almost 400 years after Jesus' death, then again in 455 AD by Geiseric the Vandal, and was depopulated by Totila, King of the Ostrogoths in 546 AD. Rome did not really fall in one day, it was a process of devolution.

    During that decline, Constantine moved the capital to Byzantium, named that city Constantinople around 306 AD. Rome was considered the "western" capital, while Constantinople was the Eastern capital. The Byzantine Empire followed for about another 1,000 years. It was Christian in nature, only because Constantine saw that it was politically expedient. Many Orthodox Christians even viewed Moscow as the third Roman Capital.

    Then in the Middle Ages, Rome rose again with the new power structure based in the Vatican. Rome's influence was seen in the rising city states of Florence, Venice, and before that Charlemagne...

    It's a long history, but if you view ancient Rome, Imperial Rome, Byzantium, and the Vatican as various "forms" of Roman power... Than it's not out of the question to say that Roman influence and power lasted between Julius Caeser in the 40sBC to the 1800s AD. A nearly two thousand year reign in one form or another.

    To say that one single Emperor's thoughts of Jesus was a turning point is kind of simplistic and ignores a lot about Rome's real influence and power through many centuries.
     
  6. Very informative. You are correct about Constantine's political reasons for "conversion". Most noted for the Council of Nicea regarding a dispute over the identity or nature of Christ (Arian and Augustinian schools). At issue is whether Christ ever existed. I find it hard to believe the emperor would unify an entire empire based on a mythological figure.
     
  7. Lucrum

    Lucrum

    And the Roman Gods Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Minerva, Neptune, Ceres, Vulcan, Diana, Bacchus, Vesta and the like were any less mythical?
     
  8. Did Rome devolve when Romans stopped believing in those deities?

    Was it the mythology (Christian or ancient greek-based) that made Rome powerful?

    Religion itself is a tool of governance by the elites. Especially back then when Religion legitamized a ruler's reign.
     
  9. stu

    stu

    Fair point, but I was taking the OP to mean the fall of Rome commenced when "an Emperor " at the supposed time of Christ's supposed death..."didn't took care of it anymore... "

    The Roman senate always considered Christianity generally to be another cult, I think it's fair to say.
    Indeed Constantine's so called conversion toward it was hardly such, more the situation where an emperor merely adopted or favored that particular unorthodox religious practice against others, in an ordinary , unsophisticated manner.
    Christianity can hardly be said to have become what is considered a formal or organized religion in that time.
    It took another 1- 2 hundred years at least to get any real hold through increased numbers to even begin to make it anything resembling established.
     

  10. Constantine obviously believed he existed, otherwise he would have kept the "dieties" you mentioned above.
     
    #10     Jan 2, 2010