The Decline and Fall of Civilisations

by Kerry Bolton

  Spengler pointed out to our own Late West that a primary symptom of decay is depopulation. Polybius (born circa 200B.C.) observed this phenomenon of Hellenic Civilisation:

  “In our time all Greece was visited by a dearth of children and generally a decay of population, owing to which the cities were denuded of inhabitants, and a failure of productiveness resulted, though there were no long-continued wars or serious pestilences among us. If, then, any one had advised our sending to ask the gods in regard to this, what we were to do or say in order to become more numerous and better fill our cities,—would he not have seemed a futile person, when the cause was manifest and the cure in our own hands? For this evil grew upon us rapidly, and without attracting attention, by our men becoming perverted to a passion for show and money and the pleasures of an idle life, and accordingly either not marrying at all, or, if they did marry, refusing to rear the children that were born, or at most one or two out of a great number, for the sake of leaving them well off or bringing them up in extravagant luxury. For when there are only one or two sons, it is evident that, if war or pestilence carries off one, the houses must be left heirless: and, like swarms of bees, little by little the cities become sparsely inhabited and weak. On this subject there is no need to ask the gods how we are to be relieved from such a curse: for anyone in the world will tell you that it is by the men themselves if possible changing their objects of ambition; or, if that cannot be done, by passing laws for the preservation of infants”.88

  Greek historians were very conscious of the corrupting role of wealth and luxury in the decay of a culture, as we have seen in regard to their observations on Persia. They sought to draw lessons for their own civilisation. The warning was that the imperial stage of a civilisation is wrought with dangers caused by contact with foreigners. The victors are liable to be corrupted by those who were already too decadent to defend themselves.89 The Greek historians regarded Persian civilisation as the continuation of the Median civilisation conquered by Cyrus in 550B.C. To Strabo the feminised attire of wealthy Persians came from the Medes.90

  The Greek elite eagerly embraced Persian extravagance. Persian dress, art, products and aesthetics were associated with cultural status. This attitude seeped downward among the masses. While Herodotus and others tried to warn of the Orientalisation of Greek culture, there were many Greek poets and writers who referred admiringly to Oriental extravagance.91 Xenophon satirised the way Persian austerity was given up to gluttony, drunkenness, and ease even among the military.92 With the empire of Alexander the Great came a policy of multiculturalism, including intermarriage,93 Alexander affecting Persian dress and symbols94 in an effort to achieve ethnic harmony in the forming of a new world order.

  Sparta

  If any culture was ideally placed to resist the forces of internal decay it was Sparta. This came closest to Plato’s ideal state. Iconic as the epitome of austerity and discipline, where the hardest course was embraced as the best, women were esteemed as mothers, and men as soldiers. Luxury was eschewed, foreign influences rejected, and the accumulation of wealth was prohibited. There was no cash nexus to influence politics. Gold and silver were prohibited. Coins were made of heavy iron, which was worthless for trading. Mercantile activities were forbidden. Nothing was imported. Meals were communal, each Spartan being assigned to a table to which s/he contributed food from their own generous allotment of land. Black broth was the preferred meal of the older men. Homes were austere and furniture simple. The Spartans were regarded as the custodians of the Greek ethos and the bulwark against Persia. Plutarch wrote of the laws of the Spartans as an example for other Greeks. He noted that Sparta regarded booty from conquest as a corrupting influence:

  “It was forbidden them to be sailors and to fight on the sea. Later, however, they did engage in such battles, and, after they had made themselves masters of the sea, they again desisted, since they observed that the character of the citizens was deteriorating sadly. But they changed about again, as in all else. For example, when money was amassed for the Spartans, those who amassed it were condemned to death; for to Alcamenes and Theopompus, their kings, an oracle had been given: ‘Eager desire for money will bring the ruin of Sparta’”.95

  The founding laws of Lycurgus (circa 800-900B.C.) were eroded over centuries. The small Spartan strata was denuded by continual warfare, until during the last days of Sparta there were just 700 Spartans remaining. Plutarch states of the decline:

  “Yet, nevertheless, when Lysander had taken Athens, he brought home much gold and silver, and they accepted it, and bestowed honours on the man. As long as the Spartan State adhered to the laws of Lycurgus and remained true to its oaths, it held the first place in Greece for good government and good repute over a period of five hundred years. But, little by little, as these laws and oaths were transgressed, and greed and love of wealth crept in, the elements of their strength began to dwindle also, and their allies on this account were ill-disposed toward them. But although they were in this plight, yet after the victory of Philip of Macedon at Chaeroneia, when all the Greeks proclaimed him commander both on land and sea, and likewise, in the interval following, proclaimed Alexander, his son, after the subjugation of the Thebans [335BC], the Spartans only, although they dwelt in an unwalled city, and were few in number because of their continual wars, and had become much weaker and an easy prey, still keeping alive some feeble sparks of the laws of Lycurgus, did not take any part in the campaigns of these or of the other kings of Macedon who ruled in the interval following, nor did they ever enter the general congress or even pay tribute. So it was, until they ceased altogether to observe the laws of Lycurgus, and came to be ruled despotically by their own citizens, preserving nothing of their ancestral discipline any longer, and so they became much like the rest, and put from them their former glory and freedom of speech, and were reduced to a state of subjection; and now they, like the rest of the Greeks, have come under Roman sway”.96

  Rome

  Another often cited example of the fall of civilisation through miscegenation is that of Rome. However, despite the presence of slaves and traders of sundry races, like the Greeks, Italians now are substantially the same as they were in Roman times. Arab influence did not occur until Medieval times, centuries after the “fall of Rome”.

  The genetic male influence on Sicilians is estimated at only 6%. The predominant genetic influence is ancient Greek.97 The African Haplogroup L have a less than 1% frequency throughout Italy other than in Latium, Volterra, Basilicata and Sicily where there are frequencies of 2% to 3% .98

  Sub-Saharan, that is, Negroid, mtDNA have been found at very low frequencies in Italy, albeit marginally higher than elsewhere in Europe, but date from 10,000 years ago. A genetic study shows, “….mitochondrial DNA studies show that Italy does not differ too much from other European populations”. Although there are small regional variations, “The mtDNA haplogroup make-up of Italy as observed in our samples fits well with expectations in a typical European population”.99

  The Roman Empire falls to decadence in its final years.

  Hence, an infusion of Negroid or Asian genes during the epoch of Rome’s decline and fall is lacking, and the reasons for that fall cannot be assigned to miscegenation. What slight frequency there is of non-Caucasian genetic markers entered Rome long before and long after the fall of Roman Civilisation. There was no “contamination of Roman blood”, but of Roman spirit and élan.

  Alien immigration introduces cultural elements that dislocate the social and ethical basis of a civilisation and aggravate an existing pathological condition. The English scholar Professor C. Northcote Parkinson, writing on the fall of Rome, commented that the Roman conquerors were subjected “to cultural inundation and grassroots influence”. Because Rome extended throughout the world, like the present Late Western, the economic opportunities accorded by Rome drew in all the elements of the subject peoples, “groups of mixed origin and alien ways of life”. “Even more significant was what the Romans
learnt while on duty overseas, for men so influenced were of the highest rank”. Parkinson quotes Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, referring to the Roman colony of Antioch:

  “…Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendour of dress and furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch. The arts of luxury were honoured, the serious and manly virtues were the subject of ridicule, and the contempt for female modesty and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the capitals of the East…”100

  Roman historian Livy wrote of the opulence of Asia being brought back to Rome by the soldiery:

  “…it was through the army serving in Asia that the beginnings of foreign luxury were introduced into the City. These men brought into Rome for the first time, bronze couches, costly coverlets, tapestry, and other fabrics, and - what was at that time considered gorgeous furniture - pedestal tables and silver salvers. Banquets were made more attractive by the presence of girls who played on the harp and sang and danced, and by other forms of amusement, and the banquets themselves began to be prepared with greater care and expense. The cook whom the ancients regarded and treated as the lowest menial was rising in value, and what had been a servile office came to be looked upon as a fine art. Still what met the eye in those days was hardly the germ of the luxury that was coming”.101

  The Greek historian Polybius (200-118 BC), his own civilisation having decayed into what the Romans regarded with contempt, noted how Rome’s wealth and success was affecting young Romans:

  “some of [the young Roman men] had abandoned themselves to love affairs with boys and others to consorting with prostitutes, and many to musical entertainments and banquets and all of the extravagances that they entail ... infected with Greek weaknesses during the war with Perseus. So great in fact was the permissiveness and hedonism among young men that some paid a talent for a male lover and others three hundred drachmas for a jar of caviar.

  “… This aroused the indignation of Cato, who said once in a public speech that it was the surest sign of deterioration in the republic when pretty boys fetch more than fields, and jars of caviar more than ploughmen. It was just at the period we are treating of that this present tendency to extravagance declared itself, first of all because they thought that now after the fall of the Macedonian kingdom their universal dominion was undisputed, and next because after the riches of Macedonia had been transported to Rome there was a great display of wealth both in public and in private”.102

  Here we see from Polybius’ description a Rome full of hubris, self-assured through its material comforts that the old Roman ethos was no longer required, with a few such as Cato and Scipio who sought to warn of collapse.

  There was no sudden collapse of Rome, no apocalyptical invasion by “barbarians” that resulted in its death. As is typical of the cycles of decline and fall the process is long, and therefore only really even noticeable by the particularly perceptive, whose warnings are typically unheeded or ridiculed, as in our own Late West.

  The Collapse of Rome

  Rome was in an advanced state of decay by the end of the second century; over two hundred years before the official “end” of the Empire in 476 A.D. As an imperial power Rome was abandoning provinces, beginning with Dacia and parts of Germany. Cities were declining. There was no further significant construction of the great monuments of Roman power after the end of the second century.

  The Rome of this epoch is more notable for constantly collapsing, poorly built high rise tenement slums. These insulae, rising five, six, seven, and some eight and nine storeys high, homed most of the one million inhabitants of Rome by 150 A.D. Juvenal commented of the insulae:

  “We’re living in a city that’s propped up with little more than matchsticks: and they’re the only way the rent-man can keep his tenants from falling out, as he plasters over the gaps in the cracks and tells them not to worry when they go to bed (even if the place is just about to fall around them!). It’s wrong for people to have to live in fear of house-fires and buildings collapsing all the time. Right now your next-door-neighbour is calling for the fire-brigade and moving his bits and pieces while your own wee garret is smoking and you doing nothing about it. If the folk at the bottom of the stairs panic, the chap who’s trapped and the last to burn is the one in the top attic just under the roof that keeps the rain off himself and the pigeon’s nest…”103

  Augustus established building codes, and Nero, after the great fire of 64 A.D., also used the opportunity to establish strict building regulations and paid for the reconstruction himself. By the fourth century there were about 46,600 insulae in Rome and only about 1,800 private houses, while the population had declined to around 700,000.

  The decline in architectural style and methods of construction is a dramatic feature of the final epochs of civilisation that have been noted by archaeologists from Indus Valley to Mesoamerica.

  No More Romans

  Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper comments of this epoch undergoing “a fundamental structural change which the great emperors at the end of that century, and Constantine himself at the beginning of the next, did but stabilise”.104 From the third century the empire had lost its moorings, and the capital was no longer Rome but “wherever warring emperors kept their military headquarters: in the Rhineland, behind the Alps or in the East; in Nicomedia or Constantinople, in Trier, Milan or Ravenna”.105

  The moral decay of Rome resulted in the displacement of Roman stock, not by miscegenation, but by the falling birth-rate. Such population decline is itself a major symptom of culture decay. The problem that it signifies is that a people has so little consciousness left as to its own purpose that its individuals do not have any responsibility beyond their own egos. Augustus, who sought to reverse the population decline, addressed the Roman nobles:

  “How otherwise shall families continue? How can the commonwealth be preserved if we neither marry nor produce children? Surely you are not expecting some to spring up from the earth to succeed to your goods and to public affairs, as myths describe. It is neither pleasing to Heaven nor creditable that our race should cease and the name of Romans meet extinguishment in us, and the city be given up to foreigners,—Greeks or even barbarians. We liberate slaves chiefly for the purpose of making out of them as many citizens as possible; we give our allies a share in the government that our numbers may increase: yet you, Romans of the original stock, including Quintii, Valerii, Iulli, are eager that your families and names at once shall perish with you”.106

  Tacitus remarked that regardless of state efforts to encourage the birth-rate, “childlessness prevailed.”107 At the beginning of the second century Pliny the Younger wrote that his was “an age when even one child is thought a burden preventing the rewards of childlessness.” Plutarch observed that the poor had lost the confidence to sire children.108 By the middle of the second century Hierocles stated that “most people” seemed to regard children as interfering with their lifestyle.109 Marriage was no longer regarded as a crucial institution and was considered another burden to a hedonistic existence. As early as 131 B.C. the Roman Censor Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus proposed to the Senate that marriage be made compulsory, as so many males were opting to remain unmarried. A century later Augustus Caesar quoted Quintus in proposing his own marriage laws, but met no more favour in the Senate than had the Censor. Prostitution was so widespread it became a substitute for marriage. Roman cities also abounded with male prostitutes as homosexuality and bi-sexuality had become common.110

  These attitudes seem very “modern” and very familiar to our own present Western societies, with the abortion and birth control that have resulted in no Western societies having a birth-rate above replacement levels; where aging populations are replenished with immigrants from Africa and Asia to augment the workforce and maintain the taxation levels, while natural birth increases that do take place within Western states are from migrant families. There is presently no reason to suppose that the
second and third generation children from migrant parents are acculturating as French, German, English, etc. They settle as elements foreign to the culture organism.

  Professor Tenney Frank, foremost scholar on the economic history of Rome, also considered the results of population decline, from the top of the social hierarchy downward:

  “The race went under. The legislation of Augustus and his successors, while aiming at preserving the native stock, was of the myopic kind so usual in social lawmaking, and failing to reckon with the real nature of the problem involved, it utterly missed the mark. By combining epigraphical and literary references, a fairly full history of the noble families can be procured, and this reveals a startling inability of such families to perpetuate themselves. We know, for instance, in Caesar’s day of forty-five patricians, only one of whom is represented by posterity when Hadrian came to power. The Aemilsi, Fabii, Claudii. Manlii, Valerii, and all the rest, with the exception of Comelii, have disappeared. Augustus and Claudius raised twenty-five families to the patricate, and all but six disappear before Nerva’s reign. Of the families of nearly four hundred senators recorded in 65 A. D. under Nero, all trace of a half is lost by Nerva’s day, a generation later. And the records are so full that these statistics may be assumed to represent with a fair degree of accuracy the disappearance of the male stock of the families in question. Of course members of the aristocracy were the chief sufferers from the tyranny of the first century, but this havoc was not all wrought by delatores and assassins. The voluntary choice of childlessness accounts largely for the unparalleled condition. This is as far as the records help in this problem, which, despite the silences is probably the most important phase of the whole question of the change of race. Be the causes what they may, the rapid decrease of the old aristocracy and the native stock was clearly concomitant with a twofold increase from below; by a more normal birth-rate of the poor, and the constant manumission of slaves”.111