Parallels between Ancient Rome and Western Powers?

[The Original Happy Goat]

It seems people have identified a lot of reasons besides birth rates for Rome's population collapse. As for the comparison, I see two issues. 1) Rome was/is a city, not a country.

2) Rome had a birth rate issue and failed. We have a birthrate issue; therefore, we will fail. It’s flawed logic.

What's the obvious one that we missed?

Your #1 was closest to what I was thinking, which was simply that trying to compare a sedentary culture in a modern nation state to an ancient culture in the time long before major migrations ended is just ridiculous. But even deeper, the idea that those migrations were somehow responsible for the fall of Rome...I mean, the barbarians saved Rome. They gave us the Holy Roman Empire. France, Spain, England. It's tempting for classicists to look back and imagine the best of the West copied Athens and Rome and preserved some ancient genius, but they didn't. The West was founded by the barbarians.

 

[BradStevens]

Your #1 was closest to what I was thinking, which was simply that trying to compare a sedentary culture in a modern nation state to an ancient culture in the time long before major migrations ended is just ridiculous. But even deeper, the idea that those migrations were somehow responsible for the fall of Rome...I mean, the barbarians saved Rome. They gave us the Holy Roman Empire. France, Spain, England. It's tempting for classicists to look back and imagine the best of the West copied Athens and Rome and preserved some ancient genius, but they didn't. The West was founded by the barbarians.

You don't consider Roman and Greek culture, writing, law, etc. part of the Western tradition?

 

[DANC]

Well, yeah, but the empire had moved the capital and all that admin function to Constantinople and then in 476 Rome was sacked by the Germanic tribes. So of course their population fell in those 200 years.

Did you read the article?

That was the reply I got when I said Rome had been sacked too many times and people left for their own safety.