196

Everytime I see somthing like this it further entrenched my belief that religion destroyed Rome.

As someone who is both anti-Christian and pro-Roman, I'd like to note that Rome's fall was not fundamentally caused by Christianity. Christianity was a minor issue in the overall fall of the Empire, with most of the problems that caused the decline and fall being written on the wall when paganism still reigned supreme and Christianity was barely known or understood by the powerful men of the Empire. Christianity did not cause the aristocracy or the autocracy that drained the Empire of its ability to coordinate its resources, nor did it cause the rampant militarism, nor the breakdown of the decentralized imperial ideology of the first 2-3 centuries of the Empire. Rome did all that to itself.

I'd also note sympathetically to your point, though, that Christianity was still damaging to the Empire, with its pointless squabbles both over 'orthodoxy' and 'pagans', its obsessive wealth-draining posturing, the persecution of intellectuals and artists, and the mass abandonment of public life in exchange for spiritualist careers leeching off of those still actually contributing to society.

So definitely fuck Christianity, it just wasn't the core cause.

Favorite scene in the entire show