As you say, military might provided for Rome's ascendance, and for its decent as well. That's the problem with empires. They look good in the short term, but they are only tenable for a few generations. Eventually the artificially skewed economic scheme collapses. Imperial ethics are doomed.
Everything is doomed. No society yet devised by man has not fallen. The Romans did fairly well though - between the Empire and the Republic, Rome dominated the Mediterranean for about 500 years. That's about 25 generations, give or take.
I'm not concerned with military victory. I'm concerned with cultural prevalence. For example, even though the Romans conquered Hellenistic society, Hellenistic culture prevailed and dominated Roman society.
It wasn't that simple. The Romans were famous adopters and adapters. Their culture naturally tended to absorb other cultures and make use of whatever the Romans found valuable there. The Greeks were philosophers, and many cultures found their philosophies useful. But their political system didn't take root anywhere but with them. So it's hard to say that their culture "prevailed."
In fact, that's true in a larger sense as well. Europe today is a melange, with a legal system borrowed from Rome, a philosophical system that still survives from the Greeks, a political system adapted from England and the United States, and a religion grafted on from ancient Palestine by way of Rome. So which culture "prevailed" in that salad?
This is why I called that a treacherous term: it doesn't really mean anything when you apply it to a culture. Every culture fails eventually, but all cutures survive in some form, even if it's only the shape they lend to other cultures.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2003-10-29 07:44 am (UTC)It wasn't that simple. The Romans were famous adopters and adapters. Their culture naturally tended to absorb other cultures and make use of whatever the Romans found valuable there. The Greeks were philosophers, and many cultures found their philosophies useful. But their political system didn't take root anywhere but with them. So it's hard to say that their culture "prevailed."
In fact, that's true in a larger sense as well. Europe today is a melange, with a legal system borrowed from Rome, a philosophical system that still survives from the Greeks, a political system adapted from England and the United States, and a religion grafted on from ancient Palestine by way of Rome. So which culture "prevailed" in that salad?
This is why I called that a treacherous term: it doesn't really mean anything when you apply it to a culture. Every culture fails eventually, but all cutures survive in some form, even if it's only the shape they lend to other cultures.