And while Rome had been weakening for many years, the decisive blow that lead to the fall of the city in 410 was betrayal from within. We’ve been warned: Yes, the nature of the population—loyal or not—matters a great deal.
What can a chronicler of barbarian invasions, writing in the 18th century, explain to Americans in the 21st century?What lessons can we learn today from the fall of an ancient empire? Plenty. Many.
Indeed, as immigration is a hot issue today, we might look to long-ago scholarship to remind us that the basic patriotic loyalty of the home population can never be taken for granted. In particular, if the demography of the population changes, its loyalties will change.
Edward Gibbon’s famous work of history, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes, from 1776 to 1788. And the first appearance of that work, of course,—in that evocative year of 1776—has led many to consider its significance to American history. Could America ever fall like that? Could America collapse like the Roman Empire?
Gibbon was English, and yet even after the American Revolution, his work was widely read in the new republic known as the United States; we know, for example, that George Washington included Gibbon in his library.
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