The Fall of Rome: A Look in the Mirror

Russell Derrickson

20. October. 2015

In Sallust's description of Rome as accounted in The Conspiracy of Catiline, you can almost forget that the author comes from nearly 2 millenia ago. As Americans of the 21st Century, we live in a culture and society not very unlike the times of Sallust. America is a nation whose whose armies occupy the bulk of the world and whose might influences even more of it. We hold our culture above all others, and show remarkable disdain for any culture not readily willing to accept our own as superior. We were once knights in shining armor, come home from bravery on the fields of battle having saved the world from evil. Now we patrol those lands, guns pointed, expecting immediate compliance. If that compliance is not met, the consequences are severe and swift “...as though oppression were the only possible means of ruling an empire.”. As Sallust might say.

Through our great expansion, we too have become wealthy. We have much of the world's resources at our beck and call. As Carthage was the Roman rival, so with the fall of the USSR now “every land and see lay open”. There is nothing that a person in America can not obtain for the right price.

Sallust claims that things went awry “As soon as wealth came to be a mark of distinction and an easy way to renown,... virtue began to decline.”. This could easily be said of America as well. The internet was designed by the best and brightest America had to offer the world, only to be used primarily as a place to access pornography and pictures of tiny adorable kittens (hopefully not at the same time). We managed to uncover the mysteries of how the universe itself exists, and we used it to melt two entire cities in Japan.

We did eventually determine how to use that same power to bring warmth and heat into our homes, but that was only done at a price. Those who did not have enough wealth were left to the cold. Most of that and any other power we created has been used in the same manor as a TV. The world's greatest means of mass communication before the internet and it is mainly used to watch the lives of people whose only contribution to the world is the means in which they abuse the wealth gained by the generations before them.

It is not always entirely avoidable, even for those who wish to. Sallust eventually leaves politics entirely for as he himself admits “However I tried to dissociate myself from the prevailing corruption, my craving for advancement exposed me to the same odium and slander as all my rivals.”. He was unable to even act without falling prey to the exact same wrongdoings he hoped to stop. So now, you can't even get into a position to make a change without having already done deeds that automatically disqualify you from doing those good deeds. You have to get votes, you have to get on TV and in the next debate. You have to be heard and seen, and people don't tend to let you be heard or seen unless you are saying and doing something they want to let be seen. Our entire political process operates on the basis of the amount of financial wealth and power supports it.

Sallust leaves political life in order to continue earlier work as a historian. He felt that the only way he could lead a virtuous life was to separate himself from the political system and view the process as a whole. When he did, he concluded that it was inexorably entangled with accumulation and adoration of wealth.

This volume is an attempt to understand Sallust's culture and surroundings. It can, however, be used to warn future societies of the perils of the adulation of wealth and luxury. It shows very clearly what happens to a culture when the people's good is ignored for the goods of people. America could learn a few things from such an understanding less we suffer the same fate as Rome.