Race and the Fall of the Roman Empire: Lessons for Today By Brian Simpson
With the American empire now set to fall, quickly, the population largely dumbed down to Joe Biden level of intelligence, it is appropriate in this series of articles to consider the fall of Rome, and especially from a racial angle, which is now taboo.
In a classic paper “Race Mixture in the Roman Empire,” American Historical Review, vol. 21, 1916, Professor Tenney Frank argued that ancient Rome collapsed because the native Nordic stock eventually interbred with slaves and migrants from the east:
https://racialrealism.wordpress.com/2018/03/27/race-mixture-in-the-roman-empire/
“But the existence of other forms of “race suicide”, so freely gossipped about by writers of the empire, also enters into this question, and here the inscriptions quite fail us. The importance of this consideration must, nevertheless, be kept in mind. Doubtless, as Fustel de Coulanges (La Cité Antique) has remarked, it could have been of little importance in the society of the republic so long as the old orthodox faith in ancestral spirits survived, for the happiness of the manes depended upon the survival of the family, and this religious incentive probably played the same rôle in the propagation of the race as the Mosaic injunctions among the Hebrews, which so impressed Tacitus in a more degenerate day of Rome. But religious considerations and customs – which in this matter emanate from the fundamental instincts that continue the race – were questioned as all else was questioned before Augustus’s day. Then the process of diminution began. The significance of this whole question lies in the fact that “race suicide” then, as now, curtailed the stock of the more sophisticated, that is, of the aristocracy and the rich, who were, to a large extent, the native stock. Juvenal, satirist though he is, may be giving a fact of some social importance when he writes that the poor bore all the burdens of family life, while the rich remained childless.
There may lie here – rare phenomenon – an historic parallel of some meaning. The race of the human animal survives by means of instincts that shaped themselves for that purpose long before rational control came into play. Before our day it has only been at Greece and Rome that these impulses have had to face the obstacle of sophistication. There at least the instinct was beaten, and the race went under. The legislation of Augustus and his successors, while aimed at preserving the native stock, was of the myopic kind so usual in social law-making, 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 Aemilii, Fabii, Claudii, Manlii, Valerii, and all the rest, with the exception of the Cornelii, have disappeared. Augustus and Claudius raised twenty-five families to the patriciate, and all but six of them 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 upon this problem, which, despite the silence, 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.”
It is exactly the same set of processes at work here. And the fall and collapse would occur regardless of the native population being Nordic, since the issue is of the socially corrosive effects of ethnic and cultural diversity, which has been shown time and time again to undermine societies.
Of course, the Tenney Frank thesis has been criticised over the years, with objections such as the claim that the foreign population of Rome was small, and mainly Europeans:
https://italianthro.blogspot.com/2011/01/tenney-franks-orientalization-refuted.html
However, there is considerable evidence of both the decline of the native stock to breed, as today, as well as the influx of migrants from numerous places, other than Europe, as noted by Martin Nilsson, “The Race problem of the Roman Empire,” Hereditas, vol. 2, 1921:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1601-5223.1921.tb02635.x
“The bonds of matrimony were slackened, the birth and education of children were felt to be burdensome. In ancient times the parents had a right to expose children whom they did not desire to educate. Where the supply of food is scarce among primitive peoples this may be excused. Among a civilized people, when economic egotism has obliterated the natural feelings of the parents, it is nothing but, legalized infanticide. This stain on ancient culture, however, did not have any considerable influence on the number of the population, Most of the exposed babies were picked up by slave-hunters; they lived, though in the debased condition of slaves. A more important feature was that the educated classes were decimated in this manner. The ancients also knew other less revolting means of checking the birth-rate, the effect of which may safely be supposed to have been much greater. These expedients are often mentioned in, the medical literature of the period, and many seem to have looked on them as some extreme feminists do to-day.”
And as for race and immigration, Nilsson says:
“In some cases it is possible to show whence the men came who took the places of the Roman elements of the population. The old Roman nobility had been severely dealt with in the proscriptions at the end of the Republic. AUGUSTUS tried earnestly to save what was left, but without succes8. The old families died out in the first century A. D.'. The correspondents of PLINY the younger do not bear the' old famous names. In their stead prgvincials enter the senate, at first from the most Romanised provinces, Southern Spain (Baetica ), South-East France (Gallia Narbonensis), later on from Africa (Tunis), and Asia Minor. The first consuls who originated from Spain appear in the last years of the Republic and were followed by several others during the first ,century A. D., the first consul from Gallia Narbonensis is found in the reign of TIBERIUS, the first from Africa and Syria in the reigns of V&ASIAN and DoMITxaN respectively. From TRAJAN onwards even the emperors were provincials. TRAJAN aid his successor HADRIAN were Spaniards, ANTONINUS PIUS belonged to a Gallic and … SEPTIMIUS SEVBRUS was a native of Africa, his successors were Syrians. It was difficult for a man belonging to the Greek port'ion of the Empire to attain a high position, because a knowledge of Latin and Roman law was needed for this, and such a knowledge was not common in the East, which prided itself on its own ancient culture. Nevertheless after the reign of HADRIAX numbers of Orientals appear in high places; the western world seems almost to be worn out. …
The mixed character of the population of the capital is attested by many ancient authors. We can hardly imagine the extent of the admixture; only Constantinople, the most cosmopolitan city of the world, can give us an idea of it. CICERO calls Rome a city created by the confluence of the nations, four centuries later the emperor CONSTANTIUS wondered at the haste with which all the peoples flowed together to Rome. LUCAN, the poet and friend of NERO, says that Rome was populated not by its own citizens but by the scum of the world. The Oriental element seems to have been very conspicuous. A famous passage in JUVEXAL states that the poet cannot like this Graecised Rome, but th& the least part of the scum is composed of Greeks: the Syrian Oroiites has flowed into the Tiber, with foreign languages and foreign manners. …
What has been set forth as to this point may convey the impression that an inverted selection took place, and in reality there was something like it. The peoples that had created the ancient culture and the Roman Empire diminished in number, and the gaps were filled up by provincials. This process led to a sinking of the culture, in proportion as the less civilized provincials ousted the old citizens, and lessened the coherence of the Empire, which depended on the people that had created it. …”
For another defence of Tenney Frank’s thesis see:
For material on the destructive impact of diversity upon ancient Rome:
http://www.amerika.org/politics/watch-the-genetic-deterioration-of-rome/
http://www.amerika.org/politics/why-rome-did-not-notice-it-was-falling/
http://www.amerika.org/politics/how-diversity-killed-rome/
As argued at the above site, what fell Rome is now chopping away at Western civilisation, and it is only a matter of time before the great tree falls, unless some black swan event occurs. The US election, all-round, has shown that modern people have become so dumbed down, that they may no longer we able to recognise how dumbed down they are: witness Joe Biden.
http://www.amerika.org/politics/the-dunning-kruger-effect/
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