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Notes -
"I totally could do it, if I wanted to, it's just that I don't want" sounds like pretty big cope, particularly when there's a horde of barbarians at your gates, getting ready to sack your ass.
I have to confess that unlike apparently all the dissident right types, I'm not that much into ancient Rome, so you'll have to forgive my ignorance. Was there some sort of mass famine leading up to the collapse? Otherwise what do you mean by "couldn't pay them enough to support a family"?
Rome wasn’t killed in a day.
The city was sacked by Visigoths in 410. But this was the consequence of a failure to secure the northern border in the 370s. That, in turn, had a lot to do with previous decades of usurpations and civil wars. You have to go back to Constantine to find a roughly stable period.
Basically, Rome was under almost constant internal and external pressures. Emperors kept debasing the currency and compromising with the barbarians and moving the capital, all just to stay afloat. And they did keep limping along for decades. The Empire didn’t fully collapse until 476, over a century after the barbarians reached the gates. That’s a lot of time for demographic and economic ruin.
I find "I totally could do it, if I wanted to, it's just that I don't want" much less likely than “you’re going to pay me in debased silver? Fuck you.”
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