Your example does prove that they didn't lose the capacity to produce ornate helmets, but the helmet on the left was given to hundreds of thousands of soldiers and the same cannot be said of the one on the right. You're arguing that 40% of the helmets produced in a factory for soldiers had gold/silver plating?
During this period the Romans were running out of precious metals, the mines in Iberia were drying up. The denarius was being debased and replaced with copper or bronze, but they decided to put the materials formerly used in coinage and apply in as plating on helmets? Now, plating can be thin be very deceptive in terms of value. Modern coin companies reproduce "gold/silver plated" coinage and sell it for more than it's fair market value saying that the "plating" is 99.9% pure precious metals when in fact very little gold/silver is used in the making of the reproduction. With that, I don't want to speculate too much on your claim.
...but I do not believe the theory that states that "Roman civilization never fell", that the "Dark Ages weren't really Dark", and that "Civilization continued to progress from Antiquity through to the Renaissance unabated". It's clear that the pretty much every aspect of human endeavor suffered greatly. Literacy was common during the Roman period, I've seen several estimates from 20-30% or perhaps higher. It was used by common soldiers, farmers, and citizenry based on the level of vulgarity in the examples, while it fell to less than 5% throughout the Dark/Middle Ages only to return just prior to the onset of the Renaissance. Widespread banking was lost, for example, and only returned with the Crusades and inventions by the Lombards. There are numerous examples of lost arts, techniques, and inventions.
There is no doubt in my mind that this is an example of civilization "moving forward, then back" and will probably happen again at some point. Imagine if our society were to be hit with a massive disaster, another perhaps nuclear World War, a catastrophic natural disaster, the reemergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and so forth? Now some of those events are pretty low on the probability but given time, it's very likely that at least one, or several may hit which would violently throw our society, sophistication, and civilization back.
The Romans went through that. They were hit with epidemics, massive migrations, currency problems, and societal change that was too fast for them to adapt. The Dark Ages were pretty Dark. Yeah, there are some "flashes" of human brilliance during this period, but for the most part I'd much have rather lived in Europe during the 1st Century AD than anywhere during the 6-12th Century. Bathes, aqueducts, and a centralized, though rudimentary, global society.
If you read De Re Militari, Vegetius literally sounds like he's living in the present day. His message on the very first pages included basically the call to, "Avoid using soft men, who have grown accustomed to bathes and the pleasures of city life, and instead rely on the poor and peasantry who are already hardened by the rigors of life. " and to, "avoid using certain professions best suited for women." Crassus obtained his wealth by speculation in real estate. Caliguala built floating palaces on a lake. You had the aqueducts sewage, and plumbing in MOST Roman cities, and technological marvels, such as the Coliseum.
Yeah, the Dark Ages were dark. I think the decline started in the late 2nd century, and the problem is the "Dominate was a great place" people is that they really cannot identify a good date, or set of dates, for when civilization started declining. Some go so far as to say that it never did, which just does not make any sense. Frankly, it's my belief that the beginning of the end started with the the plague. Smallpox has been absolutely disastrous, and pathogens have played an absolutely massive role in delaying human development. Economic loss would be unfathomable in today's terms. Tear down that wall that separates you from ancient people, they were just like us, enjoyed the same pleasures, were just as vulnerable, and were not super men and almost as vulnerable as we to disaster, protected slightly by relatively rudimentary sophistication. War kills off men, oft marriageless, or those who have already had children, and these disasters killed off the women and citizenry that were the very foundation of their state. Romans assigned disaster to battles that not necessarily killed the most men, but those that killed the most nobles and those with societal importance such as Allia, when they realized that exposing such men to danger was fraught with consequence.
Again, I would absolutely not want to live in a time when everyone was dying around me, and I'm sure other people did not either. Can you give me your date for when you think Rome "started" descending into chaos and began transitioning into the Early Medieval Period? Before you mention the Byzantines, let me pre-empt you by saying they were merely holding on and sustaining themselves and NEVER thrived for if they had they would've EASILY reconquered Europe, but the Plague of Justinian put an end to that notion. Belisarius was fruitlessly undermanned compared to other Roman military undertakings. An very small force compared to amount of bodies the Romans threw at Hannibal, and that's why we steadily see the amount of soldiers in wars/battles in antiquity slowly shrinking from being able to replace a loss of 150,000 men at Carrhae/Cannae/Trasimene, and not being able to like a loss of JUST ~10,000 at Adrianople.
Simply put, Pax Romana was the height of civilization until the Late Middle Ages, and I'll just guess that their military equipment was very good. Ancient sources might have had less information about history prior to themselves, and thus did not know the full context in which they were living their lives. If Vegetius' thinks the military had gone to shit, I'm taking him at his word.
During this period the Romans were running out of precious metals, the mines in Iberia were drying up. The denarius was being debased and replaced with copper or bronze, but they decided to put the materials formerly used in coinage and apply in as plating on helmets? Now, plating can be thin be very deceptive in terms of value. Modern coin companies reproduce "gold/silver plated" coinage and sell it for more than it's fair market value saying that the "plating" is 99.9% pure precious metals when in fact very little gold/silver is used in the making of the reproduction. With that, I don't want to speculate too much on your claim.
...but I do not believe the theory that states that "Roman civilization never fell", that the "Dark Ages weren't really Dark", and that "Civilization continued to progress from Antiquity through to the Renaissance unabated". It's clear that the pretty much every aspect of human endeavor suffered greatly. Literacy was common during the Roman period, I've seen several estimates from 20-30% or perhaps higher. It was used by common soldiers, farmers, and citizenry based on the level of vulgarity in the examples, while it fell to less than 5% throughout the Dark/Middle Ages only to return just prior to the onset of the Renaissance. Widespread banking was lost, for example, and only returned with the Crusades and inventions by the Lombards. There are numerous examples of lost arts, techniques, and inventions.
There is no doubt in my mind that this is an example of civilization "moving forward, then back" and will probably happen again at some point. Imagine if our society were to be hit with a massive disaster, another perhaps nuclear World War, a catastrophic natural disaster, the reemergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and so forth? Now some of those events are pretty low on the probability but given time, it's very likely that at least one, or several may hit which would violently throw our society, sophistication, and civilization back.
The Romans went through that. They were hit with epidemics, massive migrations, currency problems, and societal change that was too fast for them to adapt. The Dark Ages were pretty Dark. Yeah, there are some "flashes" of human brilliance during this period, but for the most part I'd much have rather lived in Europe during the 1st Century AD than anywhere during the 6-12th Century. Bathes, aqueducts, and a centralized, though rudimentary, global society.
If you read De Re Militari, Vegetius literally sounds like he's living in the present day. His message on the very first pages included basically the call to, "Avoid using soft men, who have grown accustomed to bathes and the pleasures of city life, and instead rely on the poor and peasantry who are already hardened by the rigors of life. " and to, "avoid using certain professions best suited for women." Crassus obtained his wealth by speculation in real estate. Caliguala built floating palaces on a lake. You had the aqueducts sewage, and plumbing in MOST Roman cities, and technological marvels, such as the Coliseum.
Yeah, the Dark Ages were dark. I think the decline started in the late 2nd century, and the problem is the "Dominate was a great place" people is that they really cannot identify a good date, or set of dates, for when civilization started declining. Some go so far as to say that it never did, which just does not make any sense. Frankly, it's my belief that the beginning of the end started with the the plague. Smallpox has been absolutely disastrous, and pathogens have played an absolutely massive role in delaying human development. Economic loss would be unfathomable in today's terms. Tear down that wall that separates you from ancient people, they were just like us, enjoyed the same pleasures, were just as vulnerable, and were not super men and almost as vulnerable as we to disaster, protected slightly by relatively rudimentary sophistication. War kills off men, oft marriageless, or those who have already had children, and these disasters killed off the women and citizenry that were the very foundation of their state. Romans assigned disaster to battles that not necessarily killed the most men, but those that killed the most nobles and those with societal importance such as Allia, when they realized that exposing such men to danger was fraught with consequence.
Again, I would absolutely not want to live in a time when everyone was dying around me, and I'm sure other people did not either. Can you give me your date for when you think Rome "started" descending into chaos and began transitioning into the Early Medieval Period? Before you mention the Byzantines, let me pre-empt you by saying they were merely holding on and sustaining themselves and NEVER thrived for if they had they would've EASILY reconquered Europe, but the Plague of Justinian put an end to that notion. Belisarius was fruitlessly undermanned compared to other Roman military undertakings. An very small force compared to amount of bodies the Romans threw at Hannibal, and that's why we steadily see the amount of soldiers in wars/battles in antiquity slowly shrinking from being able to replace a loss of 150,000 men at Carrhae/Cannae/Trasimene, and not being able to like a loss of JUST ~10,000 at Adrianople.
Simply put, Pax Romana was the height of civilization until the Late Middle Ages, and I'll just guess that their military equipment was very good. Ancient sources might have had less information about history prior to themselves, and thus did not know the full context in which they were living their lives. If Vegetius' thinks the military had gone to shit, I'm taking him at his word.
Christopher Vidrine, 30
