Five Unusual Reasons Why Rome Fell...............Arion

A few years ago I served on a panel which discussed why Rome fell. The reasons we discovered actually had very little to do with its religion, military or the incurring expenses thereof. Here are a few of the reasons which we discovered:

1. Heavy use of lead. Ancient Rome used lead in many of its water pipes and drinking vessels. Understandable because lead is soft, plentiful, and easy to work with. It is, however, a terrible poison, and once inside the human body it never gets out. Lead was also used as a food seasoning (!), and as a base in many of their makeups (so was arsenic). The eccentricities of the Caesars and many of the citizens can be at least partially attributed to lead poisoning.

2. Ancient Romans did not know how to make wooden barrels. This may seem trivial, but consider the long-term implications. All foodstuffs--especially grains--had to be transported in clay pots and amphoras, which break easily. This meant that large amounts of food and water were lost, and had to be written off, leading to heavy losses in business and transport. Also, when transporting goods by ship, the materials could only cover one layer. Barrels can be stacked, amphoras cannot. This meant that ships were limited as to how much they could carry, which placed severe limitations on the size and effectiveness of their merchant fleet and the logistical abilities of their army and navy.

3. The Ancient Romans did not have steam power. This placed severe limitations on their industry, which was still considerable, and limited their considerable aqaducts to gravity-feed water transport. It also meant that they did not have steam-driven pumps which were able to de-water their mines. As such, although they had considerable metal-working technology, their mines were only able to go down about five or six levels. Beyond that, their hand-driven pumps could not keep up with flooding, so they had limited amounts of metal to work with.

4. Ancient Roman law stipulated that restaurants were not allowed to operate after dark. Ostensibly this was to keep men at home to eat with their families (yes, the Romans had Family Values crusaders, too!), and to keep drunken revelry at a minimum. But it also limited business deals to the daylight, which crimped their economy.

5. In Ancient Rome there were actually no police! Social control was largely limited to courts, public forums, and street gangs! Politicans formed agreements with local thugs, who kept things under control in return for a free hand in the local rackets. This left the individual citizen at the mercy of the local crime boss. Only someone who was brave enough to demand a trial had a chance at redress of wrongs. Army units were forbidden in the streets beyond small squads after the civil wars, when Sulla had been dictator.

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