The Sacking of Rome, 410 A.D.
Language, borders, culture.
Take them in any order. This is what defines a nation.
It is also one of those rare subjects on which one can truthfully assert that size doesn’t matter. One’s nation could be as large as the ten kingdoms that eventually merged to make up the empire of the Ch’in under the Song dynasty of the late 10th century A.D. Or one’s nation could consist of a single mountain crease in ancient Macedonia. Few required a line drawn on a map, and no one needed a cable laying on the ground to mark the border. You knew when you were within the boundaries of your nation, and when you were not. Travel far enough and eventually you’d run into people who spoke a language you didn’t understand. Cross a stream, and a harmless beckoning becomes a deadly insult.
The only constant in the universe is change, and to say nothing lasts forever is to simply parrot the inane. So why say it? Because it helps to put everything in perspective. The common refrain of the Englishmen used to be “there will always be an England.” Well, perhaps not. Prior to the First World War, the sun never set on the Union Jack. A hundred years later, the British Empire, having amputated itself into a near-cataonic state, has all but codified Sharia Law. Change happens.
But why? Why is this happening to them? And why is it happening to us here in the United States?
The answers can be found written on the corpse of the Roman Republic and Empire. Rome’s degeneration did not happen quickly. Even after the clay crumbles the iron holds together for a time, as we read in Daniel chapter 2.
One can point to a lot of factors that caused the fall of Rome, but they all lead to a lack of what the ancient Greeks called dynamic – the will to fight. Great nations rot from within before they are conquered from without. Rome was demographically altered by hordes of German tribes pouring over the Rhine, pushed by tribes expanding behind them. For a while, Rome tried to put legionary uniforms on the first waves in an effort to stem the flow. Soon, the Roman army was populated by mercenaries in all but name. The ranks of the Roman cohorts from the common legionary to the centurions, tribunes and legates were filled with German tribesmen who held no loyalty, no connection to the Roman values of familias, hearths, and altars. Add to this the obvious distain in which the patrician class held military service and soon you have a country that looses its dynamic. By the 4th century A.D., Rome’s legions had completely lost their will to defend her, and the Visigoths rolled over what was left of them and sacked the city.
Today, we are being demographically overwhelmed by multitudes of people with no understanding, and no willingness to understand concepts like freedom of speech, liberty, or private property. Multitudes insisting on the rights of residents and the privileges of citizenship, unwilling to accept the responsibilities inherent therein. Multitudes who’s highest moral imperative is to stress the social welfare system, oblivious in their relentless entitlement that their very actions will bring about the system’s collapse.
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