Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
That's not at all how Rome ended, though.
As far as I know, the only purely domestic peasant's uprisings that succeeded were the French and Russian ones. They're actually kind of exceptional events. Usually, it's struggles between different factions of elites (like with the slow balkanisation of Rome).
Edit: Haiti was a slave revolt, but I should probably include it.
Hm that's true. Rome had a lot going on towards the end and I can't pretend to be an expert, but certainly the elite's greed led to a financial crisis, and what I would consider to be a grave dehumanization of poor citizens (and the ongoing reliance on slaves) played a role. It didn't end the same way with a revolution, but the factors that led to its fall were all quite similar.
Rome didn't treat it's lower classes and actual slaves very well from the start, though. Nor did the rulers before them or the feudal splinter states after them. I've had an actual historian of Rome tell me point blank nobody has any idea why it started to decline. Historically, scholars have pointed at too much generosity with the privileges of citizenship and senatorial appointments of those from humble backgrounds.
I think it's fair to say that usually the peasants know they're being screwed. Very rarely, the aristocracy has been complacent enough it develops into an actual movement, but before the French revolution it always ends like the English peasant's revolt: it's crushed, and everything goes back to normal. It's kind of weird it's worked better since then, really.
(There was also more than one financial crisis in the Rome, but that's neither here nor there)