Civilization is precipitated by history, which is conducive to enhancing human adaptation and cognition of the objective world, the sum of humanistic spirit, invention and creation, and public order and good customs that conform to the pursuit of human spirit and can be recognized and accepted by the vast majority of people. In the history of the world, there have been many brilliant civilizations. But unfortunately, many civilizations are like ephemeral flowers, after the glory, quickly withered away, Rome is such a civilization.
In terms of territory, the Romans once sat on five million square kilometers of territory, which is evident in its strength.
But why would such a behemoth suddenly disappear?
From the first century BC to the fifteenth century BC, Rome lasted for sixteen centuries (here, the era of kings and republics is not counted, only the Roman Empire is discussed). Over the course of more than a thousand years, successive Roman rulers occupied vast territories that spanned the continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa. The rule of the Roman Empire could be divided into two phases according to its form of government:
In the pre-395 AD period, the Roman Empire was one and the same;
Since 395 AD, Theodosius I divided the country into two, leaving his two sons to rule East and West Rome separately. Since then, the Roman Empire has been divided into two regimes. The Western Romans survived for a short time, and in 476 AD the Germanic Odoacs staged a coup d'état and deposed the last Western Roman king, thus declaring the fall of the Western Romans. The Eastern Romans survived for a long time, and the State Ofe continued until 1453 AD.
So what is the reason for the decay of this behemoth?
Let's take a look at the reasons that are generally recognized by historians at present:
The first reason: a change in the form of government.
Before the formation of the Roman Empire, the Roman regime was a republic. That is to say, Rome at that time was not an empire where royal power was supreme, and national interests were more important than royal power. It can be said that the Romans of this period have acquired the basic rights of "citizens".
Those of us who were born in modern society may not understand how precious the status of "citizen" really is. At that time, if a newborn baby had parents who were Roman citizens with "red roots", then the lucky baby could enjoy citizenship as soon as he was born.
What are the benefits of a Roman citizen?
First, there is the right to vote, and all leaders are elected by Roman citizens.
Second, there is the right to property, where non-citizens have no right to private property and whose status is no different from that of slaves.
Third, the right to marriage, which only the marriage of Roman citizens could be protected by the government.
Finally, there is the right of inheritance, which non-citizens do not have the right to inherit from their parents.
In addition, only citizens can become clergy, or public officials, soldiers, or merchants.
These rights may seem to modern people, you know, the Western world at that time was in a slave society, and people without citizenship had no freedom at all.
The republican system had the advantage of having every Roman citizen full of identity and responsibility for the state, that they were the co-masters of the country, that they had the opportunity to participate in political affairs, that they could supervise and evaluate the officials they held, and that they could receive the protection of the law. In that era of feudal centralization, it was inevitable that such a country could prosper.
However, after the formation of the Roman Empire, the rulers consolidated their centralization. From then on, only rulers, bureaucrats, and armies had power, and the rights of citizens were infinitely diminished. Although some citizenship rights were retained, citizens were sacked by the ruling class and their quality of life plummeted. After that, more and more citizens became slaves of rulers or manor landlords. Therefore, the Roman Empire will continue to be in civil strife.
The second reason: the instability of the inheritance system.
In the history of our country, the "family world" symbolizes the beginning of an ancient dynasty. For totalitarian rule, the most important thing is the issue of succession. Although the major dynasties in China's history have experienced the era of "brother to brother", on the whole, it is still based on the inheritance system of "father dies and son inherits". Judging from the system of the Roman Empire, the country lacked a perfect set of inheritance laws.
After the death of the ruler, the patronage of the crown prince became a big problem. Because the succession was unclear, the Roman Empire often broke out into wars caused by the support of different crown princes by various military groups. In the darkest years of the Roman Empire, warlords were proud of their strength, and whoever had the biggest fist could decide who would succeed to the empire. In the Roman Empire, we can see many warlords deposing emperors and manipulating young emperors.
In some periods, there were even warlords who openly auctioned the throne as a commodity. Although there are various drawbacks in the system of "family world" in China's feudal dynasty, the inheritance system in China's history is relatively perfect, and the warlords manipulating imperial power are subject to etiquette criticism, while the Roman warlords have no such concerns. The endless civil wars of the warlords caused the Romans to suffer from the chaos of the war, so that the Roman Empire was in decline in constant internal friction.
The third reason, and the most important one, is the "plague."
In fact, man-made disasters were still avoidable, but natural disasters were impossible for the Romans at that time to resist. Through consulting the literature, the author obtained the information that in the sixth century AD, a large-scale plague broke out on the European continent, and after the looting of this plague, the population of The continent did not exist. Obviously, Rome (Eastern Rome) was not spared.
It can be said that this natural disaster was the main cause of the decline of the Roman Empire, so where was the source of this plague?
Northern China.
During the Western Han Dynasty, when the Han-Hungarian War was in full swing, a Xiongnu caravan came to the border and sent a "gift" to the defenders of the Great Wall. This gift is a good breed of horses. At that time, the Central Plains war horses had poor staying power and could not adapt to the harsh climatic environment, and their practicality was much different from that of the Xiongnu war horses. The Han Dynasty sent people to the Xiongnu many times to introduce horse breeds, but unfortunately the Huns were extremely cautious about this, so that the Xiongnu horse breeds could not be introduced.
In the face of this generous gift, the Han defenders were thrilled, and they opened the pass and brought these warhorses back to the Central Plains to ask the emperor for merit. As everyone knows, before sending these warhorses, the Huns have already "poisoned" the horses, and this poison is the plague unique to the northern steppes. It was precisely because the Han army did not know the inside story that these war horses were introduced into the Central Plains, so that they "caused people to be infected."
We know that at the end of the Han-Hungarian War, the Han army won victories one after another, and even once invaded the hinterland of the northern Xiongnu, and the Huns had to migrate frequently north. In order to stop the footsteps of the Han army, the Huns thought of this poisonous plan. In addition to introducing plague horses to the Central Plains, the Huns also released sick and dead livestock carcasses in the upper reaches of the river, infecting the Han army downstream with the plague, and then the combat strength was completely lost or even completely destroyed.
Immediately afterward, this plague, which the Central Plains people had never heard of, exerted great power. The success of "biochemical warfare" was not even expected by the Huns. Before this, no Han chinese had ever been infected with this disease, so the Han people's bodies had no resistance to the plague. In that era of very poor medical conditions, the nameless plague from the steppe was like a tiger entering the flock, wreaking havoc on the central plains for more than three hundred years.
Let's see how the plague affected the course of Chinese history.
From the great division at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the first year of the Jinwu Emperor Taishi, during the turbulent period of 80 years, the population of the Central Plains fell sharply from 56.5 million to 5.6 million, and 90% of the population suffered disasters. Speaking of this, some people may argue that since it was a time of great turmoil, the main cause of the sharp decline in population must be war, not plague. But what kind of war would make the Han people almost extinct in just eighty years?
This obviously does not make sense. Therefore, the only thing that can cause such a great deal of lethality is the plague. Regarding the plague dropped by the Huns, there is no way for us to give a name according to Western pathology. People called it "typhoid fever", which is also used by modern Chinese medicine, and this title is more graphic. People infected with the plague will show these two symptoms:
One is that the body ulcerates, which is for "injury";
The second is that the high fever is not stopped and the bitter cold is for the "cold".
Modern people are infected with typhoid fever, as long as the right medicine is prescribed, it can be cured after a month of conditioning. However, at that time, people were suffering from this plague. However, some modern medical scientists combined with Zhang Zhongjing's "Treatise on Typhoid Fever" to conduct research and found that the typhoid fever that broke out in the Han Dynasty was different from the typhoid fever in modern Chinese medicine theory, which is a digestive tract infectious disease caused by Salmonella, which does not cause so many serious casualties.
Regarding ancient typhoid fever, let's look at a few details recorded in the historical records.
According to the Han Dynasty, this plague was a poison dropped by the Huns, and although this poison could infect horses, it would not make horses sick, but would only make horses a source of infection. The disease spread only in the north of the Yangtze River and never appeared in the south. From here, we can basically infer that this "typhoid fever" is "epidemic haemorrhagic fever", and the transmission route of this disease is similar to that of plague, but the pathology is different from that of plague.
Because rodents could not pass through the Yangtze River, the plague did not spread south of the Yangtze River. Now that the cause of the disease was clear, the strange behavior of the Wei and Jin people could also be explained. The Wei and Jin people's clothing is very frivolous, often wearing light clothes and clogs to travel, in fact, this is because they are full of injury and cold, after taking the "five stones" body fever, can only wear less clothes to relieve the fever.
In addition, epidemic haemorrhagic fever can make the skin sensitive and easy to abrasion, so wearing clogs can effectively prevent the skin of the feet from being worn out.
Returning to the point, since the Huns used "biochemical warfare" against the Central Plains Dynasty, it proves that this plague was very prevalent in the Xiongnu region. So, as the Northern Huns migrated westward, epidemic haemorrhagic fever was also brought to the European continent. According to foreign literature, since the second century AD, there have been plague outbreaks in Central Asia and West Asia, and the plague was introduced to Rome in the third century AD and spread to the European continent in the sixth century AD.
The truth came out, and it turned out that the biggest cause of the decline of the Roman Empire was the Hun plague. In the history of the world, although there are not many cases of "plague destroying countries", they have not happened.
It seems that the collapse of the Roman Empire was caused by "epidemic hemorrhagic fever".
Resources:
[The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", "Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever" a Thousand Years Ago, "Book of Han", "On Typhoid Fever"]
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