Disishowiwin wrote:
Im still trying to grasp why anyone would take the actions of that empire and people as a way to fix modern problems, or well any problems.
Roman innovations, infrastructure and ways of thinking endure to this day. The Romans were absolutely brilliant organizers - they were certainly less than perfect at solving political problems, but no other culture even comes close to their genius at understanding people and how to get them to work together. It was their capacity to solve political problems - not military badassery - that allowed them to grow from a small village to masters of a vast empire.
Disishowiwin wrote:
They obviously did so well in staying together and like lasting the test of time right?
The Roman Empire endured for over a thousand years (753BC - 476AD).
The Byzantine Empire, a direct continuation of the Roman Empire that referred to itself by the same name, endured another thousand, until 1453AD.
If that doesn't qualify as "withstand the test of time", what does?
Disishowiwin wrote:
If anything arent they more like a, uh Nazi Germany?
This is a mostly accurate assessment. The Romans were definitely an authoritarian, ultranationalistic culture that believed that any cruelty was acceptable so long as it was for the good of the state. And past the "good of the state", the Romans delighted in bullying, submission, and exacting punishments. Roman culture was organized around power-tripping in a way like none other. And the Romans did not value individual human life as we do.
Nazism was regarded less favorably than Roman imperialism partly because the world had moved on in the last 2000 years (with the Enlightenment and the rise of Western Judeo-Christian thought), but mostly because the kind of incredible brutality that both the Nazis and Romans perpetrated looks a hell of a lot more ugly up close.
That said, you're probably getting your impressions from those Nazi-style banners seen in Caesar's Triumph on HBO's Rome. Am I right? That scene, like many in the TV serial, is grossly skewed to appear familiar to contemporary American viewers and contains many historical inaccuracies besides the banners.
Disishowiwin wrote:
That just got away with it, and somewhat actually carried out their plan? Well...for a while at least.
Gibbons, the foremost scholar of Roman history, made the observation that "the marvel is not that Rome fell, but that it endured as long as it did".
Roman civilization contained the seeds of its own destruction and never really overcame its fundamental flaws. That said, they still innovated and did many things very right.
Disishowiwin wrote:
So more at Aestu here, are you a Nazi?
I consider myself a National Socialist, but not a Nazi.
EDIT: It appears Weena wins. Is my answer too long for you people? Yes, no?
