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How long did it take to recover from the collapse of the Roman Empire?
Can't say I'm going to miss the US either, but I'm not at all looking forwards to the pain that is going to come.
aspiring to genteel poverty
- Jake Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
This is often overstated. The parts of the Empire that collapsed into the dark ages were the parts that had never been civilized (as in, having a well-established and indigenous culture of cities, settled life, and state-level social organization). Minus Italy, the parts of the Empire that had long traditions of civilization survived and thrived in the post-Roman period. And Italy had been so destroyed by the Roman slave-economy that it hardly even counted as civilized by the time the empire ended, and what veneer of civilization that remained was destroyed in the Byzantine re-conquest.
Hm. Which ones would that be? Cities like London, Paris, Cologne, Marseille, Barcelona, Carthago, Cherchell, Carnuntum had that for at least three centuries, which I'd count as well-established, but there were Dark Ages at all places. These regions didn't just choose neo-barbarism on a whim, they were overrun by Germanic tribes who first pillaged then took control. But then in most places, in spite of the population loss, the existing majority populations with well-established settled life culturally assimilated their rulers (see the success of Church Latin, Athanasian Christianity, Romance local languages in France and Spain).
Italy had been so destroyed by the Roman slave-economy
What do you mean? Wasn't there slave economy on all parts of the empire? *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
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