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The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome

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The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome” by Edward J. Watts explores Rome’s decline over 2200 years. Blaming individuals for sparking decline, it remains a cautionary tale.

Image courtesy of interviewee. December 8, 2023

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The speaker discusses the motivations behind their book, focusing on the use of decline as a political tool by politicians throughout history. They argue that claims of societal decline are often used to justify disruptive actions and to blame particular groups for social issues. The narrative of decline is shown to be prevalent in Roman history, where figures like Cato the Elder leveraged moral arguments to gain political power, despite the fact that Rome was experiencing growth and recovery.

The speaker highlights that Roman politicians have a longstanding tradition of invoking decline to rally support or justify shifts in political structure, as seen with Augustus and Justinian. Over time, the concept of Roman decline shifted from a call for renewal to a cautionary metaphor in modern discussions, often employed by politicians to garner support for policies that may otherwise be viewed unfavorably.

The key takeaway is that when decline is cited in political discourse, it often signals an impending justification for actions that could disrupt society, urging listeners to examine the underlying intentions and proposed solutions that follow the rhetoric of decline.

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00:00.065 --> 00:02.445
The thing that prompted me to write the book was,

00:02.925 --> 00:06.325
watching how ideas of decline have been particularly used

00:06.545 --> 00:09.925
as motivating factors by politicians in, in recent years.

00:10.465 --> 00:14.205
Um, and particularly politicians who wanna disrupt the way

00:14.205 --> 00:15.725
that societies have been functioning,

00:15.865 --> 00:19.965
and in many cases, blame other people for, problems

00:20.745 --> 00:22.885
and take policy actions

00:23.025 --> 00:24.285
and other sorts of actions

00:24.755 --> 00:27.085
that they direct against those people who they blame

00:27.145 --> 00:28.965
for causing issues in their society.

00:29.385 --> 00:32.325
And so, decline, as I saw it, became a, a weapon

00:32.555 --> 00:34.925
that people would use to destabilize the rules

00:34.925 --> 00:36.445
around the world in which they lived.

00:36.885 --> 00:40.725
I think what's so surprising to me is how profound

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and pronounced and widespread these claims

00:44.125 --> 00:45.925
of decline are across Roman history.

00:46.465 --> 00:48.365
Um, I mean, you see it at the very

00:48.365 --> 00:49.685
beginning of Roman literature.

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They're already making fun of people for claiming

00:52.205 --> 00:53.285
that Romans in decline

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and something radical needs to be done to fix it.

00:56.065 --> 00:57.645
And so it wasn't actually hard

00:57.645 --> 00:59.085
to find these examples at all.

00:59.385 --> 01:01.405
Um, as someone who reads

01:01.405 --> 01:04.085
and teaches across all of Roman history,

01:04.555 --> 01:06.005
they just jump out at you.

01:06.025 --> 01:07.565
You remember where you see them

01:07.565 --> 01:09.085
because they happen all the time.

01:09.565 --> 01:11.485
I think the central argument of the book is that Rome

01:11.865 --> 01:15.205
and Romans believed that they were always in decline.

01:15.825 --> 01:18.965
Um, but when we think of Rome, we think of the decline

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and fall of the Roman Empire

01:20.545 --> 01:23.525
to Romans decline was basically the beginning

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of a different sort of sentence.

01:25.745 --> 01:28.605
It wasn't decline in fall, it was decline in renewal.

01:29.145 --> 01:32.005
Uh, and so the ideas of Roman decline were introduced

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basically as a motivating tool to get people to agree

01:36.765 --> 01:38.685
to do things they otherwise wouldn't do.

01:39.145 --> 01:42.005
Um, Roman politicians who introduced the idea of decline,

01:42.185 --> 01:43.565
do it because they want

01:44.025 --> 01:45.765
to disrupt the way the society works,

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and they want to create victims who

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otherwise would be protected by the rights

01:50.225 --> 01:53.005
and laws of, Roman society.

01:53.285 --> 01:55.125
I think there are a few really good examples.

01:55.385 --> 01:58.325
Um, I think, the, one of the best is one

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of the very first ones that I use in the book.

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Um, this is a figure named Cato the Elder.

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And, in the aftermath

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of the Roman victory in the second Punic war over Hannibal,

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what we see is that the Roman state,

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the Roman Republic at that point was growing very quickly.

02:13.225 --> 02:15.685
Its, its economy was being revolutionized.

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Um, the amount of territory it controlled was,

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was much, much larger.

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People were becoming richer,

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and the society was recovering from the devastation of,

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you know, the better part of 20 years of warfare.

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And yet, Cato the elder ran

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as a politician who was denouncing Roman decline

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in this moment, when by any reasonable standard,

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you would look at it and say,

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the Roman State is doing better.

02:41.015 --> 02:42.485
Roman society is doing better.

02:42.815 --> 02:45.085
Roman incomes are doing better.

02:45.085 --> 02:46.605
Everything seems to be doing better.

02:47.345 --> 02:49.805
Uh, and what Cato used this to do was to say,

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look like maybe materially you're doing better.

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Maybe politically you're doing better,

02:54.185 --> 02:55.765
but morally you're doing worse.

02:56.465 --> 02:58.325
And he used the moral

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Argument about decline

03:00.065 --> 03:03.405
to then target his political opponents,

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once he won election on the basis of this campaign

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to reverse Roman moral decline.

03:09.025 --> 03:11.485
Um, and so what Cato shows is even in a moment

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where it doesn't look like anything bad really is happening,

03:14.355 --> 03:16.525
this argument can still resonate

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and it can still be used as a weapon.

03:18.435 --> 03:21.605
What Cato managed to do with this is he, he won election

03:21.605 --> 03:25.325
to an office called Censor, that he used to expel some

03:25.325 --> 03:27.125
of his opponents from the Roman Senate.

03:27.705 --> 03:30.485
Um, one of them he expelled in large part

03:30.485 --> 03:32.205
because he saw him kissing his wife

03:32.745 --> 03:35.725
to passionately in public in Rome, right?

03:35.725 --> 03:37.285
Which is not an offense

03:37.285 --> 03:39.125
that anybody would be particularly concerned about

03:39.505 --> 03:41.405
unless you're harping on moral decline.

03:41.425 --> 03:44.365
And then this looks like a horrible thing that just,

03:44.765 --> 03:46.085
reinforces what Cato's been saying.

03:46.505 --> 03:47.805
Uh, and so, you know, so

03:47.805 --> 03:50.565
what you see is this becomes a weapon to make kind of

03:51.205 --> 03:53.885
a whole bunch of problems for people

03:53.905 --> 03:56.245
who are not really doing anything in a moment

03:56.245 --> 03:57.925
that's not particularly problematic.

03:58.345 --> 04:00.685
But what Cato understood was the people around him

04:01.355 --> 04:02.405
felt disoriented

04:02.405 --> 04:04.805
because Roman society was changing so quickly

04:05.235 --> 04:06.685
that they didn't understand the rules,

04:06.945 --> 04:08.725
and they didn't understand their place in it,

04:08.725 --> 04:09.725
and they didn't understand

04:10.225 --> 04:12.045
how things fit together in a world

04:12.045 --> 04:14.725
that was rapidly becoming something quite different

04:14.725 --> 04:15.845
from where they had grown up.

04:16.265 --> 04:19.525
And so, a Cato was able to do is to, to give them a way

04:19.865 --> 04:23.445
to feel comfortable with their discomfort,

04:23.585 --> 04:27.565
to give them a mechanism to make them, understand

04:27.795 --> 04:31.485
that the discomfort was something that was legitimate and,

04:31.505 --> 04:33.165
and it was being caused by people.

04:33.545 --> 04:34.925
And Cato could fix this

04:35.025 --> 04:38.445
and bring them back to a world that, was more similar

04:38.545 --> 04:41.045
to one that they, they felt they knew in Rome.

04:41.305 --> 04:43.685
Um, when politicians wanted to do that,

04:43.715 --> 04:45.685
they had a already made narrative, right?

04:45.685 --> 04:47.645
This narrative declined was always there.

04:48.305 --> 04:50.725
So, you know, Cato is doing this in the second century.

04:51.165 --> 04:52.765
BC Augustus uses this

04:52.785 --> 04:55.605
to justify the transition from a Roman Republic

04:55.705 --> 04:57.125
to a Roman empire.

04:57.585 --> 04:59.685
Um, the Emper Justinian 500 years

04:59.685 --> 05:02.805
after Augustus uses this as an excuse to invade Italy.

05:03.145 --> 05:06.045
Um, and re-con it from a, a group that saw themselves

05:06.045 --> 05:10.125
as Romans, but that, you know, Justinian did not,

05:10.405 --> 05:13.525
Charlemagne uses this as a war, war justification

05:13.625 --> 05:16.205
to begin a campaign against the Eastern Roman Empire

05:16.205 --> 05:17.365
based in Constantinople.

05:17.795 --> 05:19.285
This was always there.

05:19.865 --> 05:21.685
Um, and so I think a,

05:21.725 --> 05:26.365
a skillful politician not only manufactures particular ways

05:26.365 --> 05:28.125
to appeal to popular sensibilities,

05:28.585 --> 05:31.205
but they also understand what's already there.

05:31.545 --> 05:33.245
So they don't have to manufacture it.

05:33.245 --> 05:35.205
They can just tap into something,

05:35.205 --> 05:37.605
that's much more longstanding and much more powerful

05:37.675 --> 05:39.925
because people have, in a sense, been brought up

05:39.925 --> 05:40.925
to always think this way.

05:41.105 --> 05:44.925
So the Roman state ends in 1453 ad,

05:44.925 --> 05:49.045
and at that point, this idea of, of Roman restoration,

05:49.115 --> 05:50.125
more or less goes away.

05:50.265 --> 05:53.045
And by the 18th century when Edward Gibbon writes his famous

05:53.075 --> 05:54.645
decline in fall of the Roman Empire,

05:54.985 --> 05:56.045
you have a new sentence.

05:56.195 --> 05:58.245
It's not Rome declines and recovers.

05:58.245 --> 05:59.685
It's Rome declines and falls.

06:00.185 --> 06:02.645
And so instead of being a, a call to arms

06:02.785 --> 06:06.885
to fix Rome in society, Rome becomes a metaphor that points

06:07.025 --> 06:10.005
to, the inherent problems if you don't fix

06:10.005 --> 06:11.205
your current society.

06:11.785 --> 06:13.765
And so, in the modern world, this is kind of,

06:15.445 --> 06:18.245
metastasized from a Roman illness

06:18.555 --> 06:21.045
that affected only Romans living in a Roman state

06:21.425 --> 06:23.085
to an illness that affects everybody

06:23.085 --> 06:24.805
because Rome now becomes a metaphor.

06:25.345 --> 06:27.085
Um, and it's a metaphor that says

06:27.085 --> 06:30.245
that whatever's bothering you on this particular day,

06:30.505 --> 06:32.645
if we don't fix it, we can end up like Rome.

06:32.865 --> 06:34.285
We can fall like Rome

06:34.285 --> 06:36.645
because the decline we can see right now.

06:37.185 --> 06:39.805
We know where this goes because of the example of Rome.

06:40.385 --> 06:45.165
Um, and so what this means is anybody now can use a Roman

06:45.685 --> 06:48.285
metaphor, to try to call attention to something

06:48.285 --> 06:50.005
that's bothering them on a particular day.

06:50.545 --> 06:51.765
Um, and you know,

06:51.765 --> 06:54.245
and this is why you see politicians across the world doing

06:54.245 --> 06:57.805
this, the biggest thing I hope readers take away is every

06:57.805 --> 07:01.765
time someone is talking about decline, pay attention to

07:01.765 --> 07:03.205
what they wanna do to fix it.

07:03.435 --> 07:06.965
Because the rhetoric of decline is used to justify something

07:06.965 --> 07:09.765
that's gonna disrupt society in a way that

07:09.765 --> 07:11.245
otherwise wouldn't be possible.

07:11.515 --> 07:12.765
It's creating an emergency

07:13.385 --> 07:16.645
and the need to respond to that emergency is so urgent

07:16.745 --> 07:17.805
and so profound.

07:18.265 --> 07:20.485
The things you otherwise wouldn't be willing to do,

07:21.285 --> 07:23.045
suddenly you're willing to consider.

07:23.465 --> 07:26.725
And so the rhetoric of decline should be a warning when

07:26.925 --> 07:30.805
somebody is using this, they want you to a sense

07:30.905 --> 07:32.645
or agree to do something you

07:32.645 --> 07:34.045
otherwise wouldn't be comfortable doing.

07:34.505 --> 07:37.245
Um, they're creating an emergency that may or may not exist.

07:37.825 --> 07:40.605
Um, and they want you to agree with them

07:40.785 --> 07:42.965
and to empower them to do something

07:42.965 --> 07:44.245
that under ordinary circumstances

07:44.305 --> 07:45.405
you wouldn't be comfortable with.

07:45.745 --> 07:49.845
So if you see decline, pay attention to the second part

07:49.845 --> 07:52.445
of the sentence because there's probably something following

07:52.445 --> 07:53.445
it that you're not gonna like.

00:00 - The thing that prompted me to write the book was, watching how ideas of decline have been particularly used as motivating factors by politicians in, in recent years. and particularly politicians who wanna disrupt the way that societies have been functioning, and in many cases, blame other people for, problems

00:20 - and take policy actions and other sorts of actions that they direct against those people who they blame for causing issues in their society. And so, decline, as I saw it, became a, a weapon that people would use to destabilize the rules around the world in which they lived. I think what's so surprising to me is how profound and pronounced and widespread these claims of decline are across Roman history.

00:46 - I mean, you see it at the very beginning of Roman literature. They're already making fun of people for claiming that Romans in decline and something radical needs to be done to fix it. And so it wasn't actually hard to find these examples at all. as someone who reads and teaches across all of Roman history, they just jump out at you.

01:06 - You remember where you see them because they happen all the time. I think the central argument of the book is that Rome and Romans believed that they were always in decline. but when we think of Rome, we think of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire to Romans decline was basically the beginning of a different sort of sentence. It wasn't decline in fall, it was decline in renewal. and so the ideas of Roman decline were introduced

01:32 - basically as a motivating tool to get people to agree to do things they otherwise wouldn't do. Roman politicians who introduced the idea of decline, do it because they want to disrupt the way the society works, and they want to create victims who otherwise would be protected by the rights and laws of, Roman society. I think there are a few really good examples. I think, the, one of the best is one

01:58 - of the very first ones that I use in the book. this is a figure named Cato the Elder. And, in the aftermath of the Roman victory in the second Punic war over Hannibal, what we see is that the Roman state, the Roman Republic at that point was growing very quickly. Its, its economy was being revolutionized. the amount of territory it controlled was, was much, much larger. People were becoming richer,

02:21 - and the society was recovering from the devastation of, you know, the better part of 20 years of warfare. And yet, Cato the elder ran as a politician who was denouncing Roman decline in this moment, when by any reasonable standard, you would look at it and say, the Roman State is doing better. Roman society is doing better. Roman incomes are doing better. Everything seems to be doing better.

02:47 - and what Cato used this to do was to say, look like maybe materially you're doing better. Maybe politically you're doing better, but morally you're doing worse. And he used the moral Argument about decline to then target his political opponents, once he won election on the basis of this campaign to reverse Roman moral decline. and so what Cato shows is even in a moment

03:11 - where it doesn't look like anything bad really is happening, this argument can still resonate and it can still be used as a weapon. What Cato managed to do with this is he, he won election to an office called Censor, that he used to expel some of his opponents from the Roman Senate. one of them he expelled in large part because he saw him kissing his wife to passionately in public in Rome, right? Which is not an offense

03:37 - that anybody would be particularly concerned about unless you're harping on moral decline. And then this looks like a horrible thing that just, reinforces what Cato's been saying. and so, you know, so what you see is this becomes a weapon to make kind of a whole bunch of problems for people who are not really doing anything in a moment that's not particularly problematic. But what Cato understood was the people around him

04:01 - felt disoriented because Roman society was changing so quickly that they didn't understand the rules, and they didn't understand their place in it, and they didn't understand how things fit together in a world that was rapidly becoming something quite different from where they had grown up. And so, a Cato was able to do is to, to give them a way to feel comfortable with their discomfort,

04:23 - to give them a mechanism to make them, understand that the discomfort was something that was legitimate and, and it was being caused by people. And Cato could fix this and bring them back to a world that, was more similar to one that they, they felt they knew in Rome. when politicians wanted to do that, they had a already made narrative, right? This narrative declined was always there. So, you know, Cato is doing this in the second century.

04:51 - BC Augustus uses this to justify the transition from a Roman Republic to a Roman empire. the Emper Justinian 500 years after Augustus uses this as an excuse to invade Italy. and re-con it from a, a group that saw themselves as Romans, but that, you know, Justinian did not, Charlemagne uses this as a war, war justification to begin a campaign against the Eastern Roman Empire based in Constantinople.

05:17 - This was always there. and so I think a, a skillful politician not only manufactures particular ways to appeal to popular sensibilities, but they also understand what's already there. So they don't have to manufacture it. They can just tap into something, that's much more longstanding and much more powerful because people have, in a sense, been brought up to always think this way.

05:41 - So the Roman state ends in 1453 ad, and at that point, this idea of, of Roman restoration, more or less goes away. And by the 18th century when Edward Gibbon writes his famous decline in fall of the Roman Empire, you have a new sentence. It's not Rome declines and recovers. It's Rome declines and falls. And so instead of being a, a call to arms to fix Rome in society, Rome becomes a metaphor that points

06:07 - to, the inherent problems if you don't fix your current society. And so, in the modern world, this is kind of, metastasized from a Roman illness that affected only Romans living in a Roman state to an illness that affects everybody because Rome now becomes a metaphor. and it's a metaphor that says that whatever's bothering you on this particular day, if we don't fix it, we can end up like Rome.

06:32 - We can fall like Rome because the decline we can see right now. We know where this goes because of the example of Rome. and so what this means is anybody now can use a Roman metaphor, to try to call attention to something that's bothering them on a particular day. and you know, and this is why you see politicians across the world doing this, the biggest thing I hope readers take away is every time someone is talking about decline, pay attention to

07:01 - what they wanna do to fix it. Because the rhetoric of decline is used to justify something that's gonna disrupt society in a way that otherwise wouldn't be possible. It's creating an emergency and the need to respond to that emergency is so urgent and so profound. The things you otherwise wouldn't be willing to do, suddenly you're willing to consider. And so the rhetoric of decline should be a warning when

07:26 - somebody is using this, they want you to a sense or agree to do something you otherwise wouldn't be comfortable doing. they're creating an emergency that may or may not exist. and they want you to agree with them and to empower them to do something that under ordinary circumstances you wouldn't be comfortable with. So if you see decline, pay attention to the second part of the sentence because there's probably something following

07:52 - it that you're not gonna like.

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