Roman Society In The Last Century Of The Western Empire

Excerpt from Roman Society: In the Last Century of the Western Empire A few words of preface seem to he necessary to explain the object of this book, and the limits within which the writer has wished to confine it. It is perhaps superfluous to say that nothing like a general history of the period has been attempted. That is a task which has been already accomplished by abler hands. The subject of this work is mainly what it professes to be, the inner life and thoughts of the last three generations in the Empire of the West If external events are referred to, it is only because men's private fortunes and feelings cannot be severed from the fortunes of the State. The limits of the period covered by this study of Roman society have not been arbitrarily chosen. The last hundred years of the Western Empire seem marked off both by momentous events, and, for the student of society, by the authorities at his command. The commencement of the period coincides roughly with the passage of the Gothic hordes across the Danube, the accession of Gratian and Theodosius, the termination of the long truce between paganism and the Christian Empire, and the reopening of the conflict which, within twenty years, ended in the final prohibition of heathen rites. It closes, not only with the deposition of the last shadowy Emperor of the West, but with the practical extinction of Roman power in the great prefecture of the Gauls. Perhaps even more obvious are the lines drawn by the fullest authorities for our subject. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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Reproduction of the original: Roman Society by Samuel Dill

The good news is: that faith in material goods really does bring prosperity to society. The bad news is: that self-same commitment to material things leads inexorably to the destruction of the civilizations it builds. Using theatre as a measure society's health, this book shows that Ancient Greece and Rome, Mediaeval Christendom and our own contemporary society all follow the same pattern: prosperity thrives on the conviction that the material world alone constitutes true 'reality'; but that very conviction leads to a rejection of the supernatural, undermines absolute moral standards, and leads to cultural and social disintegration.