this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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The roman empire fell for 2 reasons.
So keep a look out for someone suggesting to move D.C. to the other side of the country.
Both of your reasons are wrong.
Now, excuse me, I'm lobbying Congress to move to LA.
Move it to Seattle!
Fuck that leave us alone
That's the official motto of Seattle.
I’ve assimilated!
Hell to the no. We already have to deal with the cost of living increases due to tech. Seattle would become the most expensive place in the country if we were the political center too.
Oh god no.
Constantine created Constantinople/Byzantium as a second capital. At that point, there was an Eastern and a Western Roman Empire. When people talk about the fall/decline of the Roman Empire, they usually mean West Rome. East Rome is more often called the Byzantine Empire.
The Byzantine Empire declined over the centuries, but Byzantium remained unconquered for 1000 years after the official "fall" of the western empire. In the 15th century, it was taken by the Ottoman Empire and is now, as Istanbul, the capital of Turkey.
Not to ummm ackshually you, but Istanbul is the largest city and economic/financial hub of Turkey. The capital is a city called Ankara.
I only know this because years ago I heard a news report refer to the Turkish government as “Ankara” the same way they refer to the US as “Washington”.
Thanks. The correction is welcome.
That kept the empire alive for a couple more centuries and gave the Byzantines another millennia of time to fuck around. Christianity was central to Constantine's continued control of the military, which had stopped being an elite profession of the nobility and transitioned into a proletarian wage labor position.
Absent a strong socially cohesive force to keep his armed forces loyal, the Roman state would have disintegrated a lot sooner.
Not sure if bait or not
Say... Florida? In the Mar-A-Lago vicinity?
Rome fell for a lot more than two reasons and it took at least 200 centuries during which they suffered civil war after civil war between emperors fighting for power, severely weakening the empire over this long time.
So while the US currently might have a few facets similar to Rome during it's decline, it differs in a lot of other points. So I'd say it's simply not comparable.
That's an opinion, not a fact. Here's another opinion.
Constantine adopted Christianity because the people adopted Christianity and if he didn't follow suit, bad shit would've happened, mostly to him.
And the capital was moved to Constantinople to account for the growing asian influence that was beginning to threaten the empire. The west fucking up after that would have happened regardless of the capital being there.
The Abbasids fucked up the same way and no one gives them shit about it.
Most estimates have ~10% of the population as Christian (and some of them only dubiously so) when Constantine adopted Christianity.