DanM

My favorite time is maybe the very end of the 5th century and the first half of the 6th century. I am of the school of thought that Justinian made a lot of flashy, but unsound decisions that led to a faster decline of the Empire of his day. I think he was a remarkably talented man, but a man of flawed vision and flawed judgement. So a lot of how I look at things is from the perspective of an arm chair quarterback. How could Justinian have done things differently? More specifically, what choices could have been made by Justinian that might have kept the Empire on a more sound footing leading up the rise of Islam? If the Empire had not been so severely weakened by the Persian wars leading up to the Arab conquest, I think it is very likely that it could have held its ground. As for your interest in the Western Empire, I think your area of interest will be even tougher than my own. Since I focus more on the 6th century, my interest is naturally more on the eastern side of things. If you are interested in the West, however, why don't you check out my post here regarding my speculation on the role that periodic climate changes might have had on the decline of the Western Empire. I would be interested to hear your perspective.

The first thing we need to make clear is whether we think it was justified in our eyes or in the eyes of the people of the day. According to our values and ethics today, of course it isn't justified. According to today's values Ceasar should have gone to sensitivity training and most likely some form of counseling to deal with his feelings of hostility. And Ceasar probably would have been removed from his command of the army for his anti-Gaulish sentiments. He should have been more respectful and tolerant of other cultures and learned to embrace all of the cultural differences that made the Europe of his time such a rich tapistry of human experience. And to publicly prove their contrition for such an insensitive episode in Roman history, the Roman Senate could have appointed someone along the lines of Alan Alda to teach the Roman legions that real men do cry and its OK to be in touch with your feelings. lol In their day, I am sure moral justification wasn't really an issue. Rome was beginning to assert itself as a power that controlled outside provinces such as Sicily, Africa and so on. Although I cannot say exactly what the prevailing values of the day were, I am fairly certain a person of our day would have to clear his or her mind of a lot of contemporary conditioning before he or she could even begin to ask the question of whether or not it was justified in the minds of the people of Ceasar's day.

I would want to be the same thing that I would like to be in our society. One of the idle rich. If I could pick my scenario, I would be a healthy, wealthy guy who never had to worry about fighting in a war, politics or where my next meal was going to come from. I would just lay back in one of my villas and have a pretty girl feed me grapes or something. lol So you guys can keep your gruesome battles and stuff like that while I sleep in a comfortable bed and have a fun, relaxing life.

I live in the USA so my answers will be slanted towards that perspective. 1. (Politics) I think more people are losing respect for politicians of both sides. They see them increasingly as dishonest, petty, self-serving and unqualified to do the job we elected them to do. Therefore, its likely the American public will continue gaining a more realistic perspective of our elected representatives if this trend continues. Thats a good thing. 2. (Energy) I think the American public is finally waking up to the need for a more responsible long-term energy policy. We have been a bit slow on this one, but price fluctuations over the past few months have left Americans with a deep-seeded insecurity with respect to future energy prices. Nothing motivates as well as fear or greed. Now that a sustainable energy policy has fear as its engine, I think the ball will start to roll. Maybe we will finally become scared enough to do what we should have started 15 years ago. 3. (war) sorry but I don't know how to put a happy face on future trends regarding war. In general, I'm against war, but thats just me. I don't really feel comfortable talking about my family with people I do not know on the internet. I'm sure you are cool, but there are too many freaks out there for that sort of thing. Sorry.

And its possible that Belgian scientists gave us aids? Those #$*&H Belgians. (just kidding) And who gave us weaponized versions of smallpox? What about chemical weapons? What about Bob Saggett? Well OK. We can't blame that one on the scientists, but I'm still not happy about it. Scientists are like lawyers and big business CEOs. There are good and bad. They can be constructive and destructive. Its like saying fire is bad because your house burned down and not recognizing the fact that it was also used to cook your food and give you warmth. At the end of the day, its about people being responsible and thats why I am so pessimistic about the future. Humans have not proven that we as a race are capable of responsibly using the things our little minds can invent.

Great point. 25 years ago no one could have possibly predicted the benefit of personal computers or the internet. Then again, no one could have possibly predicted aids before it happened too. The many X factors that we cannot forecast may either contain our salvation or our doom. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

If you get AHM Jones' "The Later Roman Empire", then it will occupy your time for a while. Its very long and very detailed. And he gives equal weight to the eastern and western halves of the empire until the west was overrun. Even then, he gives and excellent detailed account of the various barbarian kingdoms that succeded the western empire. I have run accross much the same types of problems finding books as you describe. My suggestion would be to try Amazon and Alibris. They are both pretty good. Also try a Google seach by the author (first & last name). That could also possibly be of help. One of the frustrating things for me was seeing all of these cool books in the bibliographies that were only offered in French or German. I almost started to learn French just so I could have access to more information on the later roman empire. If I can be of any further help just let me know. It sounds like you and I are covering a lot of the same ground in our searches. Best of luck.

Exactly....... This is why I feel it is just a matter of time before we get hit with a nuke. We can be right 1,000 times. All they have to do is get it right once and some American city will be a pile of smoking, radioactive rubble. And when that happens, I believe the USA will snap and a lot of people outside of the USA will die. More than anyone wants to even consider. If the USA ever reaches a point where it can accept millions of American military casulaties, then no combination of countries will be able to stop us from exacting revenge to whatever degree we decide is needed. Thats why the USA will be so scary. If we ever snap as a nation, it will become a nightmare like no other the world has never seen.

The degree you get just starts you on a career path. Until we have some work expereince to show a prospective employer, its all about your degree and your GPA. Hiring authorities often find comfort in labels because they often don't understand the position well enough to know what they should be looking for once you get past the generalities. It might be surprising, but a 3.7 or higher in almost any field can often open doors. I have known Art History majors with a 4.0 who were hired to do back office technical analysis in mortgage companies. The logic behind it is that even the technical degrees such as accounting or finance often do not do much to prepare you for a real job and anyone with a 4.0 is a good prospect no matter what they studied in college. If your GPA is more in the average to above average range, then its more important that you have a technical degree. If they do not think you are a slam dunk from an intelligence standpoint, then they will often revert to the degree as a way to feel safe about you. As a guy who has hired lots of people, I can say that its sad fact that most managers and HR people have trouble seeing anything that cannot easily be quantified in a resume or in a brief discussion over the telephone. They look for labels like Accounting major, your GPA or something else even if the job is some financial job that wil not directly use their accounting education or expereince. My approach was to look for bright people who seemed to have a strong internal motivation. If you know the job you are managing well enough to train someone else, then it the best way to go. Everything becomes much easier as a manager if you surround yourself with bright people who are motivated to do their job well. If the tradeoff is that I have to put in a little extra work on the front end of the process, then its time well spent. Once you get some relevant work experience, however, your degree and your GPA will mean much less because the expereince gives the hiring authorities other comfortable labels to cling to. : P As for the idea of having a career in history without a graduate degree in history, I agree with what someone said earlier. I think a career as a writer of fiction is the most likely path. Heck, if I had the writing skills to pull it off, I would love to write alternative-history. Sadly, my writing style is more suited for business memos so I probably need to stick with my day job.

First of all, this entire thread is an exercise in speculation. I am not an expert in science or history. I'm just guy with too much time on his hands who likes to daydream about "What if scenarios". I'm just putting it out there to see if anyone knows anything that would either prove or disprove what I am about to suggest. Also if you want to comment on my speculations or take them in a direction that I have not considered, then that would be great too. I was watching TV last week (I believe the history channel or one of the discovery science channels) and they were talking about a mini ice age that we expereinced from 1350 to 1850. During this period, global temperatures were, on average 4 to 5 degrees cooler than today. That might not sound like a lot, but it was enough to dramatically affect the viability of crops like grains, grapes, etc. They also talked about how the preceding 500 years had been a period of higher temperatures. Globally the temperatures were 5-7 degrees warmer. During this period, I believe they talked about how wine growing in England was so common that French lords complained of it in some official document that have survived until today. If I remember correctly, they also mentioned something about 500 year cycles of things going from cold to warm. If anyone else actually saw this show, maybe you can give a more precise account of the things I am trying to describe here. The proof they offered was both scientific and historical. The scientific part was based on deep sea core samples that counted the numbers of various types of microbes in different layers. Supposedly these things are very sensitive to temperature and the ratios really change within certain narrow temperature ranges. So they basically count the various types of microbes in each segment of the ocean core sample and can make precise estimates on what the temperatures were like at different times. The historical proof was a series of documents like the one mentioned above where they describe crops being raised in areas where they would not be viable today in a manner that is consistent with the core sample temperature estimates. As for how this relates to the fall of Rome (at least in the west), here goes my theory. If these temperature fluctuations occur in approximately 500 year cycles, then it is entirely possible that somewhere between 300 and 400 AD an earlier mini ice age occured. If so, then a lot of things would have happened that could explain many of the events we all know about. First, the east germanic and asiatic barbarian tribes may have migrated towards the warmer mediteranian climates because their own regions no longer provided a viable environment for their pastoral societies. That might help explain why the pressures on the Roman borders became so intense when compared to the previous 3 centuries. Second, if regions like Gaul, Germany, Panonia and Britain became cooler, then its probable that the less developed agricultural methods of the time would have led to a breakdown in the economies of those regions. So instead of the general malaise that many people attribute to the western roman empire at this time, maybe it was an economic breakdown due to climate changes that impaired their ability to grow cash crops like wheat and wine. If you are a big roman landlord and your tennants cannot grow anything except turnips and cabbage because of the climate changes, then you will probably make a lot less income than you did when they could grow more marketable products such as wheat and wine. And, of course, tax revenues would go down dramatically since taxes in kind were common around this time. It might also explain some of the motives for the religous unrest of the period that eventually led to the rise of Christianity. If the climate had failed in many regions of Europe, then it is entirely possibly that many people could have attributed it either to the disfavor or impotence of the old gods. Just my speculation of course, but I think the social and economic unrest that would have followed a mini ice age starting in the the 4th century would have been a likely catalyst for religous upheaval within the Empire. So let me know what you guys think. Like I said earlier, this whole thing is an exercise in speculation. Maybe my assumptions are plausable and maybe they are not. But the possible ways this could help explain the motives for many actions we only know about in a general way such as the barbarian invasions of the empire are really exciting to me. It could help us attach a "why" to the "who and what" that history records. If you have any information that could either prove or disprove the climate fluctuations mentioned on the TV program then I would enjoy hearing your thoughts. Also, if you have any comment on how these climate changes might have affected the motives of the Romans or their barbarian neighbors to the north, I would enjoy hearing those as well.

Would it scare you if N Korea or some element tied to the former Soviet Union sold a nuke to the highest bidder? What if the highest bigger wasn't a state, but was a terrorist organization? What if that organization smuggled the bomb accross the US-Mexico border and set it off in San Diego? Don't they have a really big naval base? Like you, I agree the danger comes from nations with some form of nuclear weapons capabilities that would be motivated to turn over a bomb to a terrorist organization either for money or for some shared ideology. The thought of Pakistan going extremist is also very worrisome. FYI, I think a war involving nukes is for more likely with India vs Pakistan or maybe Iran vs Isreal than anyone else. No nation will nuke the USA unless they are looking to commit suicide.

I completely sympathize with your frustration. The later Empire is also my area of interest and its kinda the red-headed stepchild of the Roman history family. If you are looking for a light, fun read that gives a good but general account of events, then you cannot beat John Julius Norwich's 3 volume series on Byzantium. This book is more entertaining than a lot of fiction. I think Norwich is a treasure if for no other reason than his ability to make a dry subject come alive. If you want to get into a deep, technical study of everything from tax policy to governmental structure, then I would highler recommend AHM Jones' 2 volume set titled "The Later Roman Empire". His books read a little like a VCR manual, but he has great details in there if you are willing to look for them. Also Bury wrote a nice book on the Later Roman Empire. I'm not as big of a Gibbon fan as many others, but he probably wrote the most famous book on the subject. Most of the other books I have read on the subject are a very distant fifth place or worse. In my opinion they are not worth mentioning. If you want to get into any subject that is more specific and less of an overview, then let me know and I will see what I can suggest. Best of luck.

How exactly are they the guardians of truth and justice? lol A famous scientist in Pakistan sold nuclear secrets to a host of unfriendly countries. North Korean scientists developed weapons for the most evil (in my opinion) regime on earth. And Soviet scientists developed nuclear bombs that were probably pointed directly at you for part of your earlier life. The character or higher ideals of scientists will not protect us from anything when so many scientists can be bought and sold so easily.

Regarding all of these predictions, I think there is a real danger in putting too much trust in some linear extrapolation. Things just don't work that way over extended periods of time. History takes big bumps that throw the train off the tracks and take it in unexpected directions. As for the Islam vs the West thing, this is my single biggest worry for a lot of reasons other than the obvious ones. Yes the USA and many European countries will continue to be attacked by Islamic extremists. Yes it is likely that a nuclear attack is only a matter of time. The real question, however, is how this constant threat, insecurity and resulting rage will affect the outlooks of Europeans and Americans. Thats the real trick. Simply put, if the USA gets nuked I expect we will become a facist country with lots of religous overtones. Its also possibly that this will take on a racist tone as well. When CNN, Fox and the other broadcast news channels show the burned bodies of dead Americans and the burned but still living children that are screaming, confused and slowly dying, the American people will simply snap. We will do something stupid and probably kill a lot (tens of millions) of innocent people in the process. Civil liberties for American citizens will be eagerly traded for promises of security and dessenters will be attacked with a violent rage that comes from the misplaced aggression they are really feeling for their attackers. The military will become glorified in the media, churches and everyday life. Like I said, we will become a facist state and our primary job will be to kick the crap out of a large segment of the world's population. Say what you want, but that would be a very bad thing for not only the USA, but the entire world. We have thousands of nukes, thousands of advanced fighter, tanks and huge advantages in literally every category of military equipment. Once we reach a state of national rage where we can accept hundreds of thousands or even millions of American military casualties, there will not be any combination of countries that could stop us from killing our "enemies" by the hundreds of millions. Please understand that I am not saying this is a good thing. On the contrary, I am trying to say the opposite. Its the last thing I ever want to see. Still, its a strong possibilty if we get nuked. There are two types of people. Those who back down when you punch them in the face and those who get pissed off and go crazy when you punch them in the face. Countries like Spain and France will back down, but the USA will go completely off the deep end and try to exterminate anyone connected to those who nuked us and anyone who might be willing and/or able to duplicate their actions. While I do not think Europe has the potential for an episode of national insanity like the USA, I do see their attitudes changing over time. Anti-immigrant feelings are running high in Europe. If this persists long enough or if a really bad terrorist attack occurs, eventually the Europeans will start deporting Muslims and Arabs in mass. Violence against these groups will go up as well as discrimination until eventually there will also be a lot of voluntary immigration by Muslims and Arabs out of Europe as well. Just remember that tolerance and generosity are only possible in environments of security and prosperity. Insecure people eventually reach the breaking point where they become intolerant. When people lose their economic prosperity, their capacity for generosity will evetually break. If history teaches us nothing else, these common human behavioral patterns are pretty clear. We are not more evolved or enlightened. Not really. We are just more secure and more prosperous than those before us. If you take those ingredients away, then people will surprise you with some of the things they are capable of doing. As for the Muslims, I think the extremists will win the hearts and minds of their moderate brothers. I think they will eventually hijack Islam and spread their influence and beliefs through many areas that are currently moderate. And here is why. When they turn the USA into a crazy facist state intent on retribution and they turn Europe into a xenophobic and most likely racist set of nations, then the moderate muslims will have no other place to go. The tactics of the islamic fanatics are directed against the west, but the strategy is to turn their moderate neighbors and brothers towards their beliefs. We are simply the means of their achieving this strategic goal. By turning us into intolerant fanatics, they will make it much easier to convert their moderate islamic brothers into fanatics as well.

Yeah. And it definitely doesn't help with "the ladies" either. A solid knowledge of Roman history could more accurately be described as woman-repellant. lol If I ever found a woman who had a passion for late roman history, it would be a very short trip to love for me. As for someone so clueless as to not know about us droping atomic bombs on Japan in WW II, that is sadly not a surprise to me. Every year our young people become collectively dumber, fatter and more selfish. But hey, at least they have learned to feel good about themselves in a noncompetitive, judgement-free environment. Thats gotta count for something? Right?

I'm with you guys on this one. I just think the current setup is less than ideal for a large "library". If we had something with the functionality comparable to Amazon.com or Alibris, then it would be more than enough. Just the ability to lookup by subject or author.

.......yeah. Me too. Why did they have to kill off Ceasar? He was my favorite character in the series. Just teasing.

I am from the USA. Specifically I live in a small city called Shreveport in the state of Louisiana. Sadly, no one here has even the smallest interest in Roman history. lol ........maybe some of your guys can relate to the looks I get when I even bring up Roman history with friends or family. I can watch their eyes glaze over and the life drain from their bodies before I even start the second sentence of whatever I am saying.

No problem. If you guys decide to act on this suggestion, then please let me know if I can be of service in any way. I will be happy to gather information on the books I mentioned above or do anything else you guys would like me to do. I do not always check this site on a regular basis so e-mail is probably the quickest way to contact me. Best of luck, Dan

I don't really know much about the mechanics of a website so I don't have much to add about modifying the format of the unrv books section. If you think you can do it, then it sounds cool to me. I just know the current format would be difficult to use if your database had hundreds of books. If you could modify the unrv books section to fit the needs of members who wished to search among hundreds of books to quickly find the ones in their area of interest, then I think it would work. We just need to make the format a little more robust. Too bad about the climate question being too late. If I would have had 3 questions (kinda like 3 wishes) I would have added the one about climate and also asked him if he knew how a non-academic could find copies of Dumbarton Oaks papers. Thats another thing that is driving me crazy. I read all of these books that reference really cool papers written by different authors through Dumbarton Oaks, but its nearly impossible to find any of these papers for sale on websites. And the staff at Dumbarton Oaks don't respond to my e-mails either. I kinda feel like they don't want me to have access to the information for some reason or another. Thats probably paranoid, but its how things feel sometimes.

This could be a great way to entice professors/authors to visit the website to drum up interest in the books they have written or maybe some of the books that were meaningful to them. They could write the synopsis for their books, do Q&A sessions with the members to drum up interest, provide links to their blogs or websites or maybe do some other things I'm not even thinking about right now. For the purposes of Q&A sessions, I would envision something of an event calendar so members would know in advance when a professor would be available. If a professor thought it was worth his time, he could even visit the site periodically to raise the profile of his published work. I don't know about you, but I think such an addition would be a nice break from yet another discussion about how history resembles a video game and/or movie. Of course if the authors are not available, we could do the work ourselves. If it would be helpful, I would personally volunteer to pull together the information for the following books to start things rolling: The 3 volume set on Byzantium by John Julius Norwich The Normans in Sicily by John Julius Norwich The decline of the ancient world by AHM Jones The Later Roman Empire by AHM Jones (2 volumes) Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces by AHM Jones The Greek City from Alexander to Justinian by AHM Jones A History of Rome Through the Fifith Century by AHM Jones A History of Etheopia by AHM Jones The Medieval Manichee by Steven Runciman The Berbers by Michael Brett and Elizabeth Fentress From the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple (he is an extremely cool guy who introduced me to authors such as Runciman and AHM Jones. He has his own website and actually responds to e-mails) Augustine of Hippo by Peter Brown Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire by Peter Brown Hannibal by Theodore Ayrault Dodge Scippio Africanus (Greater than Napoleon) by Liddell Hart Great Cities of the Ancient World by L. Sprague de Camp Black Sea by Neal Ascherson The Arabs in History by Bernard Lewis The Ancient Economy by Walter Scheidel & Sitta Von Reden Hannibal's War by J.F. Lazenby The First Punic War by J.F. Lazenby The Hellenistic World by F.W. Walbank History of the Byzantine State by George Ostrogorsky Hopefully I could do a lot more in the future. I have about 20 books on my list that I would like to read. Its just a matter of making the time. I think you might also want to add a subject category for historically-based fiction. And one last thing. Did you get my personal IM about how periodic climate changes may have possibly affected the economic and social patterns that led up to the fall of the western empire? I wish I knew were to go to test my theory on this subject. I am sure someone must have addressed it so I believe its just a matter of finding the work or works that discussed it.

No problem. First, I would suggest a 2-tiered approach to categorization. The first would be period of time and the second would be a specific field of interest. For time I would do the following: Early Republic (from the beginning until the addition of Sicily) Late Republic (From the addition of Sicily until just before the reign of Augustus) Principate (obviously starts with Augustus and I suggest it would go to immediately preceding Diocletian) Later Empire (I would go with Diocletian to Justinian) Byzantine Empire (anything after the reign of Justinian) You might have a different preference in terms of breaking out the periods. This is just my suggestion. Of course there would be a need to allow for books that span multiple periods. So if your database is a flat file you will either need multiple fields or you will need additional values for each record to denote more than one of hte categories I have listed above. As for the categorization by area of interest, here is what I suggest: Military (most people's favorite subject here) Economic (would include everything from taxation to agriculture to trade and industry) Religous Archeaological Rome's neighbors (not all were barbarians as the Persians, Carthaginians and Hellenistic Kingdoms prove) And maybe a general category for things that do not fit neatly into another category. I would also suggest the ability to look up by author. If you want to think of this in terms of a flat file database, here is how I would see it. Book Title Author Publisher Historical Period Subject This sort of layout would easily allow people to seach by different criteria in a manner similar to the seach engines on a bookstore website. Once you have typed in your seach criteria, the database would list books that fit your preference. Then you could click on the selection to read a brief synopsis. Maybe you could even have a section where members could give brief reviews of the book. I would suggest a limit on the number of words for reviewers so the page would not become too cluttered. Also, you might want to have links to pages on Amazon or Alibris or other e-commerce sites that would actually sell the book. For example, the author I mentioned above has 4 or 5 different books available on Amazon. He may have additional ones on Alibris or some other website. I think it would be a nice additional step if, within the page with the synosis, I could click on a link to the specific page at amazon or alibris that lists this book.

Maybe no one else will think this is a good idea, but I want to put it out there for discussion. For as long as I have been reading about the Roman Empire, my single biggest obstical has been just tying to find books on particular subjects. For example, if you want to study a comparison of the various heretical faiths of the Latter Roman Empire, where do you go to look for information on this subject? What about the decline of the cities in the Latter Empire? What about changes in military tactics from the Principate to the Later Empire or a study of Persian military tactics of the 6th century? Its easy to find the fun, light overviews like the works of John Julius Norwich, but its not so easy to find detailed analysis of very specific aspects of Roman history. Of course you can try Amazon or Alibris or one of the other websites, but its really a hunt and peck kind of process. Searching by subject or keywords will not always help you get the desired result. Additionally, non-academics like myself have huge gaps in our knowledge and understanding that further impair our search. Maybe I am the only guy who has trouble finding all of the reading material he would wish to read on a particular subject, but I suspect there are others who would also like to find a solution to this problem. The solution I would like to suggest is something that could be done with minimal effort on this board. I would like to suggest we have a section where members could go to look up all of the listed books by subject and/or author. For example, in our ask the professor thread I learned about the works of J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz. Liebeschuetz wrote some very good books on a relatively obscure area of Roman history that I have had a lot of trouble learning more about. The website could invite various academics to add to the list. They could either suggest their own books or other books they thought might be worthwhile. By adding to the unrv listing and maybe even adding a brief review of the book, they can piggy-back off of the website's highly targeted traffic flow. Heck, its really free advertising of the authors of the listed books. This really would be a win-win-win scenario. The authors could improve the sales of some lightly traded books and guys like myself and many of the members here could more easily answer our own questions if we had better access to the information. And the website will make out like a champ because this feature could easily become an additional attraction that draws people here. Let me know what you guys think.

Thank you very much. The most difficult aspect of studying this period for non-academics like myself is simply finding the material to read and your help in this matter is appreciated. I am already looking forward to reading these books and others books written by Liebeschuetz. In particular, "Antioch: City & Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire" looks like a fun read too.

Professor, could you please talk a little about the decline of the cities in the latter Roman Empire? Specifically, could you discuss how the growing centralization of the Imperial beaurocracy (with its many forms of corruption) and sieuzures of civic lands by a string of Emperors led to an environment where people wished to avoid service in their local city governments? Also, at the risk of sounding like I am asking a follow up question, can you recommend any good books that cover this subject in greater detail than the works of AHM Jones?