The Dark Ages - Part 5 - The Plague

[en325]

Hagia Sofia, just got my trophy from it :D

[GoBlessYourSelf]

rome destroyed itself from within, immigrant jews and gypsies corrupted its former glory

[Abdikarimelmi]

@GoBlessYourSelf No, it's the germanic immigrants

[GoBlessYourSelf]

@Abdikarimelmi Germanic immigrants were some of the finest citizens of Rome. They were the best soldiers in Rome, even serving as elite imperial guards for hundreds of years. They were so good that even Xerxes of Persia made sure of it to have his own elite guards. Germanic scientists and scholars contributed immensely as well with their druid wisdom. Britannia was to Rome, what India was to the British empire; so so they also added substantial bounty to Rome.

[GoBlessYourSelf]

Rome was sacked by Germanic tribes not by immigrants, but by a foreign army-big difference

[badpanda84]

This sound suspicious like the book of relveations  -- one third of the populations died from plauge -- which is exactly what the bible says

[localfox1000]

"50% of population was killed." "10 people, 5 of them gone" no shit sherlock.

[Homoclassicus]

I don't if it's true, but I've read in a book that the Germanic invasion that led to the fall of the Empire wasn't the most devastating moment for culture, urban life and economy in Italy, but actually the Byzantine invasion, followed by destruction of many cities, was more decisive to depopulate and force people into rural life in Italy. According to that, the "Eastern Romans" would be responsible for destroying what remained of the Roman civilization, since the Germans were settling down.

[xtremejohnny69]

Didn't the rats that brought the plauge from Asia?

[TheExpertCritique]

notice how all these roman catholic historian experts are homosexual?

[theburdcotter]

@TheExpertCritique All the male line of my ancestors were either homosexuals or virgins. I'm the ony one that eats bush !

[Adyma1997]

@theburdcotter

....good for you.... O.o

[theburdcotter]

@Adyma1997 Well, I dont know if it's good for you but it certainly tastes nice. Well that needs clarification....it's an aquired taste. How bout you, what'd you like to snack on ?

[Adyma1997]

@theburdcotter

i wouldnt know, im 14... and a girl.

[theburdcotter]

@Adyma1997 You're 27 and girl or not, surely you've wondered about it ?

[Adyma1997]

@theburdcotter

i realy am 14, and i dont think i have.

[theburdcotter]

@Adyma1997 Apologys for my ignorant comments so

[Adyma1997]

@theburdcotter

i forgive you=//D

[andben68]

Nice video, but missing things like mentioning the Corpus Iuris Civilis, that became the foundation of law in all civil law jurisdictions.

[zosko1]

even though I'm atheist I do fully agree Catholic monks and priest saved our civilizations knowledge of literature, medicine and history in general and i am very thankful they existed

[HolyknightVader999]

@zosko1 The Syrian monks also donated generously to Muslim science as well. They created the arabic alphabet before Islam rose and translated Greek works into arabic; including their works of science and philosophy.

[zosko1]

@HolyknightVader999 Very true. While we were crawling around in the mud the Muslim civilizations in the Middle East were entering their glory days. We have to thank them for actually leaving the dark ages.

[HolyknightVader999]

@zosko1 Then again, as Christendom was leaving the Dark Ages, Islam was entering it slow by slow. The splintering of the Muslim empire led to a pissing contest of faith that destroyed the scientifically advanced Hellenistic Islam, and led to Islamic Calvinism and persecution of minorities, which of course, triggers the Crusades.

[zosko1]

@HolyknightVader999 That I partly agree Islam did stop leading the way as Europe recovered however I don't think it completely entered it's dark ages as the Ottoman empire was still to come and in the crusaders were pushed back by a United Muslim force. Not that I have any Muslim bias over christian as from the crusades until now the West has been the dominating force.

[HolyknightVader999]

@zosko1 The Ottomans were reviled by the Arabs. One reason the Arabs didn't give a shit about the crusades until recently was due to the fact that after the Crusader age, the Turks took over the Islamic world, which was a dark time for arab nationalists.

[zosko1]

@HolyknightVader999 Though in all honesty I don't think It was Religion that made the renaissance civilizations great. I do agree that the monks of the dark ages and middle ages were vital in the revival of western civilization. One other important thing to remember is that after the Romans were chased out of the Holy Land the Saracens that would soon replace them never really declined at all as they were the first people to use universities and hospitals way before us.

[HolyknightVader999]

@zosko1 Actually, religion did. Aside from the depersonalization of nature, you had the financial, secular, and ecclesiastic bulwark that was the Roman Catholic Church funding science and discoveries. When they pulled Galileo from the astronomy table, they put him to work in Physics. The Church of LEO X was more interested in science and arts than its original mission, or so Luther complained. Velisalius, the man who rejected Galen's biology, worked in Catholic italy and was Catholic.

[zosko1]

@HolyknightVader999 I do accept that many of the scientists were and inventors were deeply religious, however I do't it was religion that fueled their discoveries but more there own genius. for it was also religious scholars that clung on to what Galen and Hippocrates wrote and refused to accept the ideas of Velisalius and others after him.

[HolyknightVader999]

@zosko1 That counts for both Muslims and Catholic scholars. When the Church figured out the Aristotelian science they idolized wasn't that infallible, they allowed Velisalius and many other scholars to refute the old logic. Then again, the Church paid for many of those discoveries and arts with their own money. Which led to a rise in tithes and indulgences, which sparked the Protestant revolt.

[zosko1]

@HolyknightVader999 Once again mostly agree, while I do think a lot of those indulgences got lost in corruption in the church I still do understand that some of it went to a good cause. though I would say that there were many cases of people refusing to accept Velisalius' findings long after he found them, though that wasn't necessarily due to religion but more being stuck in old ways. Like I said I maybe an atheist but I do accept that religion has definitely done a lot of good.

[HolyknightVader999]

@zosko1 Most of them did go to a good cause. The lavish tithes that didn't go to science went to charity. Pope Leo X was avid in charity, and tolerant to Jews; he would be the kind of pope the materialistic west would today find satisfying. Only a portion of it went to the Bishops, and in fact, one of Luther's friends was one of the bishops receiving money from the indulgences since he was broke.

[zosko1]

@HolyknightVader999 I disagree there was far to much corruption in all intuitions at that time to trust that it all went to a good cause. It was good debating with you but I really don't won't to continue with a debate over a youtube comment section because I could literally keep replying until I die. So yes I think you make good points and I agree with you on many of them and than you for being Christ like and civil and allowing this to be a debate and not an argument. :)

[HolyknightVader999]

@zosko1 Actually it's on record on public databases. Leo X from wikipedia donated 6000 golden ducats and remembered many unfortunates; from the Jewish encyclopedia he defended Jewish rights. Even the pope during Galileo's time tried to defend him, but failed due to Gally's aggressiveness. Pope Benedict XIV befriended Voltaire. Pope Innocent XI campaigned for the rights of Protestants in Bohemia. Clement VII encouraged the conservative Copernicus to publish his Heliocentric work in public.

[UnitedKorean]

The Empress at 5:50 has got some nice body; nice long slender legs and the gap between them... Dribbling at the thought of giving her a lick all over.

[cillantro]

@UnitedKorean You speak like a true christian!

[masterchiefer123]

@UnitedKorean

woww..a virgin

[VivianFoster]

Need to see what lies beneath?Want to really wake up from the lies?Discover your true psychic abilities.It is time to take the blindfold off, THE-HIDDEN-SPIRITdotCOM



[Nano9teen]

yeah. i fell glad 2.

[zorinkima]

stupid american experts.

[Kino483]

love these historic vids bro keep up the good work

[InvictusSomnia]

If the Plague of Justinian/Bubonic Plague/Black Death never existed, the Byzantine Empire would have most definately been able to take back the Western Provinces. They had a Military Genius and a Superb Emperor and the only thing that had stopped the reconquests were the lack of troops and financial bankruptcy (Both due thanks to the plague)

Islam would have never risen, the Roman Empire would be completely/mostly reuinited and the stability of Europe would be restored.

[HolyknightVader999]

@InvictusSomnia That could have been easily done if he conquered Sassinid Persia instead. Belisarius could've flattened them, since he still beat the Persians despite Justinian starving him of troops. Had he won control of the Persian Silk road, he'd have all the money he'd need to conquer the west and build his massive basilica. Not to mention rebuild the empire after the plague. Islam would've been nothing more but a border skirmish to the might of the empire.

[InvictusSomnia]

@forgottenrebel88 I know, it's absolutely crushing if you truly known how close they were.

[mrsdropdeadbitch1521]

wow i feel bad for all those people

[salty4096]

the league of shadows brought about the downfall of rome by loading trade ships with plague rats. Ras al ghul mentions this in Batman begins

[saveyard]

When you see justinian walking into the aya sofia it makes feel so sad now the church is in islamic hands. Absolute total legend Justinian, if the plaque had not come the world would be totally different.

[enantiomer2000]

glad i don't have the plague.

[MrKiljeaden89]

damn :( too bad the byzantines didnt reconquer the west =(((((((((((((

[ImperialGuard9001]

@MrKiljeaden89 They reconquer the West at least parts of it

[MrsNorris55]

So ... if you 'depopulate' cities and wipe out whole towns and villages ... what exactly does that leave you with in terms of a successful conquest and a newly revived empire ...

Just wondering.

[TheProclaimator]

@MrsNorris55 A place to move in people from your OWN nation to settle who speak YOUR language....at leasat in theory

[1Historygenius]

@MrsNorris55 Your resources, money, food, water, and knowledger from these other town and cities go to yours making the cities you control the best.

[Downfacingdog]

Bubonic plague would not have spread so quickly had it not been for the rampant hypoascorbimia.

[MrAugustus88]

Infact the Byzantines did not withdraw Justinian's sucessor and nephew Justin II was defeated by the savage hordes of the Lombards led by king Alboin. Sill the Byzantines held parts of Italy, Spain and north Africa for centuries. It was the Normans and the moors who restricted the empire to the east.

[melbingkoy]

HAGIA SOPHIA WILL FOREVER BE A CHURCH........ NOT A MUSEUM AND DEFINITELY NOT A FUCKING MOSQUE

[ddd1953]

note to dewan, I´ve spent over 20 years in China and your statement is so wrong. The great problem with China is that it LACKS infrastructure! The same with India.

I can only guess you have an American education.

Oh, and be careful who you call a fool, fool.

[SkaldfraNorden]

@ all people that replied me

When I said ''most hedious thing'' I meant culture-wise. 1000 years after the invasion almost no one knew how to read and write properly, and there was needed huge labour just to try to reply to the Roman and Greek architecture in Renneisance age.

Of course it's better that there isn't slavery anymore, there isn't monopoly over human destiny, control over countries' economics (which is doubtful), but culture-wise... it was better during the Roman age

[Legolasas26]

0:30-0:32... the guy on the horse is thinking "maaaaaaaan.... what a shithole.."

[PyrrhusofEpirus]

-[The Byzantine Exarchate of Spain]

The Exarchate of Spain was centered around the city of Cordoba in southern Spain.

[PyrrhusofEpirus]

-[The Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna]

The Exarchate of Ravenna was surrounded by the Lombard duchies of Spoleto and Benevento with the main Lombard monarchy being centered at the city of Pavia. It stretched from the Byzantine held city of Ravenna to the Byzantine held city of Rome in a narrow strip of land.

-[The Byzantine Exarchate of Carthage]

The Exarchate of Carthage was centered around the main cities of Carthage, Hippo Regius and Utica.

[PyrrhusofEpirus]

-Wars against the Sassanians: [526-532 CE] and [541-545 CE]

-Battle of Dara: 530 CE

-Battle of Nisibus: 530 CE

-Battle of Callinicum: 531 CE

-War against the Vandals under King Gelimer [533-534 CE]

-Battle of Tricameron: 533 CE

-The Ostrogothic War: [535-554]

-Siege of Rome: [537-538 CE] Flavius Belisarius' defense of Rome from the Ostrogoths under King Vitiges

-The Lombard Invasion of Italy: [568-572 CE]

[PyrrhusofEpirus]

The Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian: [Ruled from 527-565 CE]

[Caesar Flavius Petrius Sabbatius Justinianus Augustus IV]

The great Eastern Roman commander Flavius Belisarius [Lived from ca. 505-565 CE]

[PyrrhusofEpirus]

[The Soldier Emperors during the Third Century Crisis/Barracks Period]:

Claudius II Gothicus

Quintillus

Aurelian

Marcus Claudius Tacitus

Frontinus

Probus

Carus

Numerian

Carinus

[PyrrhusofEpirus]

[The Roman Principate]:

Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, Pertinax Maximus, Didus Julianus, Pescennius Niger, Clodius Albinus, Septimius Severus, Geta, Caracalla, Heliogabalus [Elagabalus], Alexander Severus.

[PyrrhusofEpirus]

Rome under Etruscan hegemony: ca. 753-509 BCE

The Republican Period of Rome: 509-27 BCE

The Roman Principate: 27 BCE-235 CE

The Third Century Crisis or the Barracks Period: 235-284 CE

The Roman Dominate: 284-395 CE

The Western Roman Empire: 395-476 CE

(1) The last de facto Western Roman Emperor: Romulus Augustulus [476 CE]

(2) The last de jure Western Roman Emperor: Julius Nepos [480 CE]

[bioshockftw123]

@dewan357 Yeah but after the Dark Ages Europe came back and then Britain a European country ruled the world. While today you chinks are filthy, dumb, poor animals! India is a 3rd world shit hole same for the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. You dumb ass chinks were in your golden ages for a couple hundred years but know America rules the world. You fucking chink piece of shit!

[dewan357]

@bioshockftw123 Your glory was brief! Our glory was long and once again India and China are going to rule the world! Both economies are going to be larger then the U.S. economy before 2040! Check reality fool. Besides China has more developed infrastructure then the West and India has the richest people in the world. Both are going to be developed countries in the next decade or 2! Check reality fool!

[Maguirearch]

Well it just shifted east didnt it...Teh Byzantines first to use the Fork for eating and other stuff

[xhagast]

Rome fell not because of the barbarians but because for two centuries after Marcus Aurelius EVERY GENERAL thought he could be emperor. They fought and ruined the empire. At the end it just collapsed. The barbarians were a joke. But when Rome's legions were themselves a joke, the joke was on Rome.

[ReaperEmpireProphecy]

the guy with the blue shirt really has a funny voice Its like the typical dumb guy in a cartoon..

[jony0544]

Mr. Snyder made World B watch this....haha

[Roachmins]

The bubonic plague was the first biological warfare they only use!

[allenronis]

HEY ASHER AND HIII MR. CASUSO CLASS

[asherrench]

hi allen!

[asherrench]

HI MR CARUSO'S CLASS!!!

[lumianic]

Roman should think deeply of where should they conquer,save their financial ability to build a great war in the far east plain and the mountain plain in east turkey .... not in the plains of britain!after the consturction of the north wall and south wall then they should build a canal unifying the east and the west,hasting trading activities,encouraging building of schools and library,not with fighting fighting,experimenting agricultural manufacture to support vast increasing population,Then...

[bladestormviking]

ok, i think we need to locate "parts unknown" and nuke it.

[lumianic]

Creating unified language ... that is what an unifief europe should be ... moving capital to the central europe as a central universe of europe with west capital,north capital,south capital,east capital as a boundary

[TheJaykaybay]

bladestormviking, Thats thee funniest thing i've heard all week!

[bladestormviking]

it just seems that the nastiest bad guys are always from or in parts unknown. we need to find this place and destroy it.

[HellesBringer]

Right, let's call everything that's different from us barbaric and try to destroy all of them. We can bully them into submission, but if they somehow manage to reverse the fortunes and hurle us into destruction instead the world will surely succumb into an ignorant transitional period of bleak darkness.

[MrPIROCAS]

@HellesBringer yes, romans were super racist (like almost ancient culture) but you cant deny what that empire was for that time

[mplee100]

u history freaks

[frtw4428]

Europe has always been inundated with plague: in the 3rd century, plague ravaged Rome under the rule of Marcus Aurelius. And we all know what happened in the 14th century. Plague had an inadvertent ally: Europeans never kept their homes, communities, nor themselves clean! All that filth is just a breeding ground for any contagion.

[bryngOneOn]

horrible to say but with the population quadrupling towards the end of the 21st century to about 50 billion hungry humans, a major pandemic may be the only thing that saves mankind from wiping itself out in a nuclear war over resources, so if you get the sniffles and reach for a hankie you can rest in the knowledge your saving the "attisssue" the planet.

[bryngOneOn]

plague is a senseless waste of life, but if there were never any major plagues, europe today would be like a desert, all it's resources consumed, no forests etc due to the population sizes running riot and when different societies are fighting over the scraps, major wars would take place and most likely there would be more killed by the sword than the bacillus. admittedly survival of the fittest society would have only the strongest alive, but most likely they'd be the most vicious & evil

[Justinian43]

if the plague would have never come, the empire would have defended their conquests better under the leadership of both Belisarius and Narses, but unfortunately if luck was for the romans at the beggining it changed against the romans at the end of the campaings. Justinian was maybe the last roman whole roman emperor since theodosius I.

[vtecivicsib18]

If the plague never came maybe the future could of been altered and you could of never been born so im all for the plague never happening

[Justinian43]

well considering you were born to offend random people online behhind your computer, no offence but the fate of the roman empire is more important than people like you being born and yes me too, the thing is that my life is starting and i have potential to do constructive things, you can still do something to change the world but otherwise i stick with the roman empire. It was an honor speaking to you, goodbye.

[malosalele]

Justinian made the same mistake as so many others, going beyond their capacity. Yes, the Army was powerful, but these newly conquered regions were devastated, not only by the war, which brought about Byzantine rule, but the wars and lordships of the various barbarians who had governed before. Why bother adding regions of dispair and poverty to your empire?

[rvgmuhs07]

It was not necessary, it was not practical. It was foolish, it was destructive. It was the noblest dream anyone harbored since the first dreams of Rome over a millennium before.

[thephilippe]

things like this have to happen graduatly, you need to give your newly conquered region's the time to addapt and restore themselves

[malosalele]

@thephilippe. True, however overextending is also problem. Stability is needed, how can these regions expand when they are governed by a cash strapped government on the other side of the sea.

[bladestormviking]

ask washington DC, they are doing it right now. the british also have experience on the subject.

[HolyknightVader999]

Especially with a cash stripped govt. taxing the hell out of its people. No wonder many Byzantines joined the Muslims.

[dixon97a]

Wrong plague fool. . .

[Iceclaw77]

ring around the rosie, a pocket full of possies

Ashs, Ashs we all far down

the ssong of the plague....

[5150RDH]

It was exactly the emphasis of nationality over race which enabled Rome to last as long as it did! As long as you paid your taxes & offered your sons into Roman imperial service, you were considered a Roman "citizen" & were thus entitled to the protection & individual rights of the Roman empire. This worked for centuries! The Romans learned this from Alexander the Great and it is still, to this day,a brilliant method of building a long lasting, cohesive world empire. Everyone feels they benefit!

[mongoose100989]

You know scientifically biologically naturally speaking people look the way they do because they are from certain parts of the world.

russia should really split up all that land. they got all kinds of asians, muslim and white people all in one. its silly.

Why do people put so much importance in nationality?

[2WorldWar2]

wow people back then were stupid.

they say god the all merciful killed 100,000,000 people because the empress was a whore??? wtf dumbasses

[Kythn]

not dumb, just mislead. if you brought a baby from then into our time and raised it as a modern person, I doubt you would be able to tell the difference between them and us.

[meka4996]

Today people still eat without washing hands... how clean is that???

[Alucardthedeadone]

@meka4996 people also forget to dry there hands too.

[viralshadow]

Can you imagine if a plaque like this would happen today. The death toll would be beyond horror

[arleen3]

You should check out fema coffins on YT. I am not sure how truth it is but it's really interesting.

[ImperialGuard9001]

I loved the beggining of this episode is just epic Roman Soldier at War Reconquering the Empire I love when Legion passed trougth the burned settlement I wonder what soldier at that days would be thinking is pitty this documentary serie didnt focuse more on the Wars of Reconquest of Roman Empire

[direwolf661]

@ImperialGuard9001 Yeah. It is difficult to imagine how physically fit and emotionally hardened a Roman soldier was. Them and the Spartans were the last real men

[2WorldWar2]

last real men? what so they soldiers now arent hardened and physically fit? did you ever even see the navy SEALs training before?

[direwolf661]

let me clarify. The Roman army was made up of citizens, so was Sparta. Not a "warrior class." So the "fat American" wasnt possible in Rome except amongst the elite aristocracy, a small minority. The "working man" of Rome was a soldier, not a massively fat plumber or cubicle worker.

[JediHobbit89]

This whole documentary really reminds me of the conditions in modern Africa both politically and the standard of living.

[aeginamasters]

BRING OUT YER DEEEEAD!!!!

Sorry, somebody had to say it xD

[VainEldritch]

@aeginamasters I'm not dead! I feel happy!

[PeterBluth]

@VainEldritch *Konks him on the head*

[ImperialGuard9001]

Dammm plague

[Lanparth]

I agree.

Hail Rome.

[biigzen]

those numbers are staggring...100,000,000 people,dead

[SkaldfraNorden]

One of the most hedious thing that happened to mankind is barbarian invasion!!! Just imagine where the human culture would be today if Roman Empire resisted the invasion

[ImperialGuard9001]

Large part of the blame for the Empire end was corruption bad leardship within the "barbarians" just ended a empire that was already dieing and many barbarians preserved the roman heritage

[BFGUITAR]

We would have been to the moon 600 years ago.

[AuroraCelest]

That is SO true! There was a scientist in the library of Alexander who discovered the steam engine many centuries before that one other guy had. Then the damn place burned down and many things were lost. Imagine: In 1492 Colombus explored the moon.

[pye3214]

@SkaldfraNorden Well u can't blame the barbarians. Rome had opressed them, and if you saw the first part, would see that they took the barbarian children for slavery in exchange for giving the villages food. I can see their reasons.

[HellesBringer]

They exchanged children for dog meat! The Romans were as much cruel, if not more, than the so-called barbarians. I like how all the people buy into their side of the story, but I guess that's what happens when we have only one point of view surviving and an audience who could care less.

[xxSilverPhinxx]

@SkaldfraNorden

The empire would've fractured into more parts anyways and that sort of cultural progress needs to be either ideologically and/or geographically unified to prosper.

[forgodandcountry]

@SkaldfraNorden the barbarian invasion was a rebellion of gaelic slaves so if the roman empire resisted we'd still have slavery and because nobody got rid of a corupt status quo which was stagnant we would still be in a dark age

[vasant85]

@SkaldfraNorden probably you and me wouldnt have existed?

[Donar331]

@SkaldfraNorden Women would still not be able to vote and democracy would not excist in any form and the biggest racists in history would still rule europe, where do you see the advantages? With the conquest of rome by germanic people a new age opened up that lead us to the democracy we have now.

And where did they find these narrators, while the roman empire was ruled by dictators the germanic people lived in freedom and women had a very important status and were consulted for important issues

[TempvsMortis]

@Donar331 That's only because of their level of social development. Most tribal societies start out matriarchal. The the women in Celtic lands had a lot of power too. But once the Germanic people invaded and gained power, it took them only a couple of generations to be just as sexist as the Romans, but with none of the education or political stability. Also, all German societies had slaves. Everyone in every society had slavery. Under Rome, there were black aristocrats as far away as England.

[ImperialGuard9001]

@TempvsMortis The difference wa that Rome had more Slaves than anny Germanic Nation or Tribe

[TempvsMortis]

@ImperialGuard9001 Of course, they were richer, and had conquered more people. The Germans enslaved their conquests just like Rome, and the fact is the Dark Ages was itself the enslavement of the Empire by Germans. That's what serfdom was, and many were slaves in the most obvious sense: carted away in ropes and cages. I find this whole attempt to posit Germanic moral superiority sort of bizarre. I'm Saxon, my ancestors committed genocide on Brittania.

[TheProclaimator]

@TempvsMortis ACtually most of the Roman population had been reduced to extremely servile status long before the Germanics invaded. During the 200s most common Romans placed themselves under the protection of rural warlords to survive. During the reign of Constantine the Great (like 320s AD) serfdom as we know it was created with the laws preventing those under protection of landowners from leaving their manors without their lords permission.

[TempvsMortis]

@TheProclaimator I'd known the Western Empire had started to decline into feudalism in the 3rd century, but I hadn't realized it was that quick. Although, to be fair, most of the decline occurred in France, England, and the Balkans, where there was an open border with Germanic tribes. Italy, Spain, and North Africa were still fairly centralized until the coming of Clovis, the Lombards, etc. There's an argument to be made that the feudalism of France was a result of the constant Germanic threat.

[ImperialGuard9001]

@SkaldfraNorden The blame of Colapse of Roman Empire was on Roman Corruption not Germanic Invaders that for most of their lives regarted Roman Civilization as superior and wanted some bit of it to themselfs

[TempvsMortis]

@SkaldfraNorden It did. It was called the Eastern Roman Empire. Eventually the Germanic kingdoms of the West got their shit together enough to finally destroy the Roman Empire. That was called the Fourth Crusade.

[freemikeg]

@TempvsMortis the fourth crusade was not the end of the eastern empire it went on for allmost another 200 years after that it didn't fall untell 1453 the fourth crusade ended in 1221

[TempvsMortis]

@freemikeg I know - the middle ages is basically the fall of the Roman Empire, from Rome to Constantinople - but there's the argument some people make that after the 4th Crusade, the government that took the capital back from the Crusaders was distinctly different from the Roman Empire. Before the 4th Crusade, Latin was the language of government, but after that, it was Greek. It lost its cultural and institutional links to the original Empire. I was just being fair.

[freemikeg]

@TempvsMortis ok i can respect that but still even tho it was not the same in cultur it was still the same institution in the way that it was still a from of government set up by the original empire one of the last to be put in place and it still had the same link of the state and the church of the late western empire it still had the architecture for the most part but....your right it my be the same in spirit but its far far from the real rome.

[tb3331]

@freemikeg The Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantium had a Hellenistic identity from the get go, as the majority of its inhabitants were Greek speakers. They replaced latin with ancient Greek as their official language long before the fourth crusade. The emperor Heraclius made Greek the official language in the early 7th century.

[freemikeg]

@tb3331 speaking greek is all good but being hellenistic is much more then just speaking greek it's cultur/language/philosophy/arc­hitecture and more by the 7th century all of that is gone save the language and is no longer hellenistic there is a new christian cultur/ christian philosophy/ and a move away from pagan style architecture to a more chrisian one but all of this came from rome at frist after the 4th crusade even that is no longer the case its the break of east and west. latin and greek

[majorfamily100]

@SkaldfraNorden probably still embracing slavery under a tyrannical rule full of religious intolerance

[Bothorth]

@SkaldfraNorden Things would be different. No reason to think it would be better or worse.