
Why ancient Rome matters to the modern world - anigbrowl
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/02/mary-beard-why-ancient-rome-matters
======
manachar
One of the infuriately amazing things about Roman history is the tendency for
people to see within the past whatever lesson they most want to communicate to
the present.

Some see Rome through the eyes of the conservative: Once a great nation that
fell to decadence and handouts to the populares.

Other see Rome through the eyes of a more socialist/anarchist bent: Once a
great nation frittered away on useless wars while elites competed for power.

The truth? Rome is complex and fairly well recorded. We can know a lot about
it and it allows us to see that humans build quite complex and often
contradictory societies. Easy, bumper-sticker versions of this are often at
least partially wrong and do not do justice to the very vibrant lives that the
Romans lead. Similarly, they too were often slaves to the bigger trends and
forces that were often unseen in daily lives.

That's a long way of saying, be careful when you think you've got a lesson
from history. It probably says more about you than the Romans.

~~~
rmc
There are literally hundreds of theories as to why Rome fell. Here's a list
[http://www.utexas.edu/courses/rome/210reasons.html](http://www.utexas.edu/courses/rome/210reasons.html)

~~~
km3k
My favorite from that list:

22\. "Bread and circuses"

I'd love to see the theory on that one.

Edit: It's way more boring than I hoped.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses)

~~~
xlm1717
Not necessarily boring. Someone even managed to turn it into a best-selling
series of books and major motion pictures: The Hunger Games. The name of the
country in The Hunger Games is Panem, meaning, of course, bread! The games
themselves are the circus used to pacify the populace, either through
entertainment for the upper classes, or fear for the lower classes.

The most fun part of Wikipedia is always following the related links at the
bottom of the article.

------
ZanyProgrammer
"It is a fair bet that there has not been a single day since 19BCE when
someone somewhere has not been reading Virgil’s Aeneid, and it is hard to
think of many other books, apart from the Hebrew Bible, of which one could say
that."-This does massively overlook the texts of Eastern religions and
philosophies.

------
trynumber9
Rome is relevant, if by only one virtue, due to language. It's hard to write
English, a Germanic tongue, without using words that come from Latin. I wonder
if liberal arts universities do not place enough emphasis on the classics.
Even if only for elucidation of scientific vocabulary, basic Latin and Greek
knowledge can be useful.

Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

------
acd
We can also learn from Roman monetary history.

Debasing the currency comes from when the romans switched from noble metals
gold and silver in the coins to more worthless metals.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_currency#Debasement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_currency#Debasement)

~~~
creshal
We learned, and dropped the gold and silver standards because it's a stupid
idea.

~~~
krsree
Hearing a lot that infact dropping gold standard was stupid, and it matches
with humanity's tradition too. Could anyone explain why gold standard was a
stupid idea? Any link would be helpful. Thanks!

~~~
creshal
The problem is that you cannot really control the gold/silver supply. If your
gold mines suddenly run dry (which happened to the Romans), it immediately
cripples your economy (debasing the currency will create a panic, not debasing
the currency leads to runoff deflation). If someone suddenly finds a massive
new gold source, it will… also cripple your economy, due to runoff inflation
(happened in the Spanish Price Revolution after the discovery of the New
World).

Fiat money gives a much better control over the currency. Now we can argue
what inflation/deflation rate a currency _should_ have, instead of leaving
that to random chance.

~~~
PepeGomez
That would still make currencies far more stable than modern currencies. It's
very unlikely that a significant source of gold will be found and even if it
will be, it won't be in owner's interest to mine it very quickly.

The price revolutions were literally a one off event and while it's usually
described as "rampant", the inflation rate was at most in the range of a few
percent and it would be seen as moderate to low today.

~~~
creshal
> That would still make currencies far more stable than modern currencies.

Stability is not inherently good. Stable currencies that suffocate the economy
because they do not allow for rapid enough expansion or reduction of the money
supply are a _burden_. Another example would be the interwar years and great
depression, were virtually all countries suspended the gold standard because
it was simply impossible to uphold, and the economy recovered from it.

~~~
PepeGomez
When the economy expands, things get cheaper. Like with most electronics in
the last five decades or so.

~~~
creshal
Deflation is a lot more complicated than that, unfortunately.

~~~
PepeGomez
No, it isn't.

~~~
creshal
Okay, so you have products that get cheaper and cheaper. Is that good? No, the
computer industry is in a deep crisis because of that – first PC sales tanked,
then laptop sales, then netbook sales, then ultrabook sales, then tablet
sales, soon smartphone sales… if products get cheaper and cheaper, you have no
incentive to buy more than absolutely necessary, because not waiting with your
purchase will always lose you money.

And then we have the other problems: What about rents? Debts? Wages? Do you
decrease them over time, too? What happens if they aren't? Who would lend
money under such circumstances, if just keeping the money under your pillow
will make you richer anyway, and at zero risk, too?

Etc. pp.

~~~
PepeGomez
>No, the computer industry is in a deep crisis because of that – first PC
sales tanked, then laptop sales, then netbook sales, then ultrabook sales,
then tablet sales, soon smartphone sales… if products get cheaper and cheaper,
you have no incentive to buy more than absolutely necessary, because not
waiting with your purchase will always lose you money.

Yes, because that's absolutely what happened. What actually happened is that
there is no longet any reason to buy the top end, because the low end is
enough for most people.

>And then we have the other problems: What about rents? Debts? Wages? Do you
decrease them over time, too?

Why should wages decrease?

>What happens if they aren't?

People have more money to spend and the additional demand further boosts the
economy.

>Who would lend money under such circumstances, if just keeping the money
under your pillow will make you richer anyway, and at zero risk, too?

People would definitely go back to saving and away from making debts. That is
not a problem, the need to invest money when there is no objective reason to
do so is what leads to investment bubbles and excessive debts.

~~~
creshal
> Yes, because that's absolutely what happened.

Sales are down down. Total sales. Not "high end sales". All sales.

> Why should wages decrease?

The economy is growing. The population is growing. Everything is growing…
except your money supply. You have to make products cheaper with fixed wages,
your personnel costs will explode, until it's no longer affordable to pay the
current rates.

Same with rents: Building housing will become progressively cheaper. Rents,
land taxes, etc. will have to go down to match these prices, or nobody will be
able to afford living in existing housing any more.

> People would definitely go back to saving and away from making debts.

You seem to conflate a lot of issues here. We had inflation with gold
standards (because you can debase your currency anyway). We had crashes and
bubbles with gold standards (and pre-gold-standard gold based currencies,
which you conflate too…). The destruction of the middle class and
impoverishment of the lower classes aren't a result of fiat currencies.

> That is not a problem, the need to invest money when there is no objective
> reason to do so is what leads to investment bubbles and excessive debts.

Except that deflation will result in a shortage of investment even where there
is objective need.

~~~
PepeGomez
>Sales are down down. Total sales. Not "high end sales". All sales.

For how long? A few years? Prices have been dropping rapidly for many decades.
Yes all sales are down, because you don't need high end computers any more,
which also means you don't need to replace old computers as often.

>The economy is growing. The population is growing. Everything is growing…
except your money supply.

Yes, that's why prices get lower to compensate.

>You have to make products cheaper with fixed wages, your personnel costs will
explode, until it's no longer affordable to pay the current rates.

That's illogical. If you need to cut wages in order to decrease prices, you
aren't growing, you are cutting costs.

>Same with rents: Building housing will become progressively cheaper. Rents,
land taxes, etc. will have to go down to match these prices, or nobody will be
able to afford living in existing housing any more.

If they will have to drop so be it. But I doubt that the costs of building the
house is what determines property prices, it's more about the location.

>We had inflation with gold standards (because you can debase your currency
anyway).

No, inflation started after gold standards were abandoned. As you wrote
previously, the 1-2% inflation caused by influx of gold from the new world was
seen as catastrophic at the time.

>We had crashes and bubbles with gold standards (and pre-gold-standard gold
based currencies, which you conflate too…).

Not nearly as often. Yes, bubbles did happen as rare occurences, today they
are seen almost as an unavoidable part of the economy.

>The destruction of the middle class and impoverishment of the lower classes
aren't a result of fiat currencies.

That's not what I said, but it could be so. Avoiding inflation is much easier
for the wealthy after all.

>Except that deflation will result in a shortage of investment even where
there is objective need.

There is no reason to believe it would.

------
louithethrid
It shows that cheap labour (slaves) starves innovation. You dont need a robot,
if you have servants. Thus, the irony, a social system that keeps the labour
expensive, boosts tech.

~~~
Houshalter
I think thats too simplistic. The romans didnt have modern metal working to
build effective steam engines or coal to power them. They didn't even have
printing presses to preserve and spread knowledge. Or good number systsem to
do math with.

Maybe they could have had an industrial revolution but its not as simple as
just slaves.

~~~
lordnacho
I think there's some value in the parent comment. Of course labor is not the
only input.

But the laws of nature haven't changed; the Romans could have discovered
science back then if they'd only set up society to do so.

~~~
Houshalter
We don't know that. That's hindsight bias. There are so many things that
happened before the industrial revolution that contributed. I mentioned the
printing press and modern mathematics. The creation of a totally different
economic system than the Romans had. I also read once about the development of
the canon lead to experimenting with better and better metal working. Which
eventually allowed steam engines.

The Romans had no concept of the scientific method. No concept of machines
that could do work or produce energy. The whole philosophy that the universe
obeyed simple laws that could be discovered empirically was foreign to them.
The Greeks believed that they could discover the laws of the universe just by
thinking really hard about them.

An interesting take on this is Archimede's Chronophone:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/h5/archimedess_chronophone/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/h5/archimedess_chronophone/)

------
paganel
Interesting essay, even though written more from a "literary" viewpoint than a
historical/archaeological one. Nevertheless, I found this phrase a little
disconcerting:

> We hardly need to read of the difficulties of the Roman legions on the
> Syrian borders to understand that modern military interventions in western
> Asia might be ill‑advised, or that feeding inedible food to refugees is
> likely to rebound.

As far as I know the refugees now passing through different European countries
have not been given _inedible food_ by the locals, or not on purpose, anyway,
quite the contrary, there are more than a couple of YT videos of some refugees
throwing away bottles of water and what looks to be good enough food. Not sure
how this Cambridge professor might have come to this conclusion, and more so,
why she chose to propagate this false fact as being, well, the truth.

~~~
gadders
Mary Beard, although approaching national treasure status in the UK, is pretty
left-wing in her political opinions.

EG:

Shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Beard
was one of several authors invited to contribute articles on the topic to the
London Review of Books. She opined that many people, once "the shock had
faded", thought "the United States had it coming", and that "[w]orld bullies,
even if their heart is in the right place, will in the end pay the price"[11]
(the so-called "Roosting Chickens argument").

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Beard_(classicist)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Beard_\(classicist\))

~~~
rz2k
That doesn't sound very left to me. It sounds like cheering brutality for the
sake of brutality unless she is specifically interested in the relative
prestige among the most powerful nations on the planet.

Reactions to the attacks, often based on terrible strategy, have killed far
more innocent people outside of the US than were killed in the attacks. It
would make no sense to argue that previous foreign policy was harmful to other
poorer countries in such a way that the attacks were justified, without
acknowledging that the attacks made people's lives worse around the world.

"Had it coming" is a phrase I'd expect more from a right winger who feels his
or her superiority is insufficiently respected. Such a right wing person would
still be angry with the US for Roosevelt telling Churchill that he didn't get
to keep his empire, and argue about the terrorist attacks in terms of disorder
and power vacuums and other imperial concepts. (It should go without saying
that colonialism causes far more harm than terrorism)

I'm joking to say that she is a closet believer in colonialism, and I think
she was making a joke too, but I think the humor is aimed for a domestic
audience's national pride. Taking glee in others misfortune because they
"deserve it", when the result will be counter productive to anything good
happening is not good.

~~~
gadders
I am not aware of right wingers that have seeked to blame the victim in the
case of the 9/11 attacks. That has almost always been a theory advanced by the
Chomsky-style left.

------
lordnacho
Great article.

Note that in Britain, there's a small community of classicists who are
permanently having to defend the relevance of their studies. It seems to be
drilled into them that what they study is relevant to modern society (which it
is). Thus you find the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, peppering in Rome
references in his writings. Everything that happens in the news is at some
point going to have a commentator who studied classics, and you'll get nice
Latin quotes.

------
hyperion2010
Even during the late empire, nearly a thousand years from its founding, many
Romans believed that they were still living according to the laws laid down by
the 12 tablets.

Food for thought in light of the common belief that we still live by the
Constitution.

On the other hand don't forget that a favorite Roman pastime was to watch live
fish cooking in a glass bowl.

~~~
toothbrush
> _On the other hand don 't forget that a favorite Roman pastime was to watch
> live fish cooking in a glass bowl._

I wonder if modern factory farms are any less barbaric?

~~~
thfuran
Insofar as they aren't a popular tourist destination for people wanting to
watch animals suffer, yes.

~~~
toothbrush
However, i posit that 100 years from now, people will marvel at our disregard
for non-humans' rights and dignity. Maybe i'm just optimistic though :)

------
ommunist
It seems Cicero successfully traded his art of public speech for influence and
than he traded influence for money. This is the only lesson I can see from the
article. Also it seems civil construction for the public good was much more
developed under dictatorship in Rome, because bribery was centralised.

------
agentgt
Great article.

I have ambivalent feelings about the constant need to justify why we need to
learn the truth about something extremely big. Particularly using complicated
analogies that have to show how its relevant to today. I understand scholars
need to raise money and part of this is showing why something "matters today"
but I prefer the altruistic search for truth. ie the whole history is valuable
because history repeats itself idea is so boring (and never really true) which
the author does a great point making.

But again great piece.

------
minikites
Why ancient Rome and not ancient Persia, an incredibly tolerant empire? Why
not the Mali Empire under Mansa Musa? Is it because we feel most comfortable
learning the history of people that are the most similar to us in geography
and race?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
The civilization most directly ancestral to our own, _and therefore the one
that has the most influence on our current civilization._ That's why.

Other civilizations can be profitably studied as well, of course. But for
western Europe and the US to specialize on Rome is quite reasonable.

------
brudgers
"The empire never ended." \-- Philip K. Dick

