The MODERN ROMANS

The Decline of Western Civilization

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

Lessons of History Ignored …………………………………………… 4

CHAPTER TWO

The Home: Foundation of Greatness or Decadence ………………….. 8

CHAPTER THREE

The Failure of Ancient and Modern Education ………………………. 15

CHAPTER FOUR

Religion in Confusion ………………………………………………… 20

CHAPTER FIVE

A Mad Craze for Pleasure ……………………………………………. 25

CHAPTER SIX

The Economy in Trouble ……………………………………………... 32

CHAPTER SEVEN

Political Paralysis …………………………………………………….. 37

CHAPTER EIGHT

Militarism and a “Calculated Risk” ………………………………….. 41

CHAPTER NINE

The “Unseen Hand” in History ………………………………………. 48

Rome fell – a fact of history!

But why? The reasons have never been fully understood. The lessons have not been learned. Many of the same basic mistakes that weakened the once mighty Roman Empire before its toppling by barbarian hordes are now being repeated in America, Britain and the Western world.

You need to understand!

This booklet contains a shocking message – a warning for our day. And unless our peoples and nations wake up and immediately alter their course, they will – in modern fashion, and much more rapidly – suffer a similar crashing downfall!

CHAPTER ONE

Lessons of History Ignored

Massive public works … striking architecture … cosmopolitan cities … masters of advanced warfare … bureaucratic institutions … a melting pot … and more!

These descriptions are as valid of Rome’s past achievements as they are of ours in our dizzyingly sophisticated modern Western world.

In its time in history, the Roman Empire occupied a position of power and influence very similar to that held by the United States or Western civilization in our time. We know more about the Romans than any other great civilization of antiquity. And, interestingly enough, the Roman Empire covered an area approximately the size of the United States.

The United States and the Rome of past glory both started out as struggling, insignificant colonies of people ruled over by a monarchy. Injustices led to revolution and establishment of a republic. Still later, after extensive expansions, they both were torn apart by civil war. But then each settled down and rose to heights of undisputed world power and leadership.

The Roman superpower could boast, just like American or Western counterparts, of their possession of a highly developed system of law and justice, government and order, and, without doubt, production of goods and services. Western civilization, in fact, prides itself on its Roman legacy.

But Rome crumbled!

Like all highly developed and powerful empires fallen into the dust of their times, rich, affluent ancient Rome left us another legacy all but forgotten in our hectic times: a chronicle of human social and political folly, of worsening economic and military events that virtually guaranteed Roman civilization, or any other civilization on a similar course, a destiny of growing troubles, decline and eventual collapse.

Certainly, history buffs could point out significant and valid differences between space-age Western civilization and the Rome of past centuries. Absolute parallelism is not the object of this booklet. But giving a warning is!

Proud Romans became lulled by the belief in the seeming “eternity” and superiority of their system, in their long chain of rarely broken military and economic successes, as if fate had determined they should always come out on top despite repeated challenges to their existence. They extolled their fabulous material-technological achievements and standard of living. They prided themselves on their liberal and generous (to their thinking) largesse to nations conquered in war.

But the Unthinkable Happened

When Seneca, the Roman statesman, warned that Rome would fall, the people snickered. “Rome fall?” It could lose a few battles, but not the Empire. “Rome,” mused the average citizen basking in the height of world power, “is impregnable.” Rome was the world – and the world was Rome.

To speculate at the moment of unsurpassed material, economic and military achievements that glorious Rome could collapse to inferior barbarians was unthinkable. What Roman Jeremiah could have prophesied that the ravages of wars, taxation, mounting crime, race problems, moral decay, subversion from within, political assassinations and public apathy – not to exclude natural disasters – would one day bring Rome prostrate before less-developed nations?

But the voices of the ancient Roman scoffers are as still as the rubble of ancient Rome.

Christian in name at the end of the fifth century, the Empire in the West obviously didn’t have divine protection from the barbarian hordes that overran her. No nation that fails to fully respect and live by God’s true moral standards ever does!

The Affluence of Rome

Fortunately, Roman history is fairly well documented.

The Romans built a highly advanced society for their time. To them, it was even a “Great Society.” They developed and used many techniques and achievements common to our modern way of life.

They were the Americans and Britons (and Canadians, Australians, South Africans and Western Europeans) of their day. They were the ones who had wealth, a high level of culture, fantastic buildings, bureaucratic institutions, and sprawling cities.

“Prodigious engineers … high-rise apartment houses … the cosmetic arts … spectator sports … sightseers and tourists.” These also are words used to describe Roman activity in the second century A.D. – the time when Rome was at the height of its power.

They constructed roads all over their vast empire – roads surpassed only in recent times. Some are still in use today. Roman engineers built a road network equal to ten times the circumference of the earth at the equator! And they didn’t hesitate to cut through hills, tunnel through mountains, build sturdy bridges over rivers and valleys. Their “freeways” ran as straight and flat as possible.

They used concrete hardly inferior to ours and just as durable. They even developed a cement that would harden under water.

The Romans mastered the art of plumbing and built water-supply and sewer systems perhaps only slightly inferior to ours. Some of them still function. Sewer systems like the Cloaca Maxima in Rome were large enough to drive a wagon through. Some of the rich had furnaces under their houses with warm air circulating through pipes or ducts in the walls.

Water was everywhere, supplied by fantastic aqueducts over long distances. Hot-and-cold-water public baths were a must to the Romans. There were over 800 public baths in the city of Rome itself.

“Health-Club Hysteria”

Romans cherished body hygiene, physical culture and health. “Roman baths” with a country club atmosphere for the well-to-do are thoroughly documented, and the ruins are with us to this day. The well-to-do were travelers, inveterate sightseers and tourists. Nothing was quite so dear to the Roman heart as languid vacationing, health resorts, mountain spas, or seashore villas. One of the most obvious marks of affluence was the possession of one’s own personal vacation retreat.

But the cities became increasingly crowded, requiring the development of high-rise apartment complexes. Records show many of these became much like modern slums. Some buildings were so poorly constructed that, despite stringent Roman building codes, they menaced the health and safety of infuriated tenants. Rome, too, had its ghettos.

Street noises were unbearable, day or night, in Rome’s big cities. The rich fled to the countryside whenever possible.

Yes, long before us, the Romans managed to run into that giant headache called the “urban problem” – complete with the unbearable traffic congestion, drab city appearance, crowded and noisy living conditions, rundown tenements and slums, high rents, unemployment, racial tension, spiraling crime, a soaring cost of living and polluted air!

Various civic disturbances over some of these worsening conditions resulted in riots and conflagrations which literally destroyed whole towns!

Rome had her “long, hot summers,” too!

And her economy? Rome’s economy crumbled under the crushing twin burdens of taxation and inflation. This steady deterioration of Rome’s currency was symptomatic of the increasingly serious financial situation of the Empire.

Her morality? We shall soon see what happened to it – why the moral breakdown, and how it contributed to the downfall of a great, world-ruling empire.

Rome Never Had It So Good

But at the height of her power, everything looked different!

“If, at any time in history, a people could have looked confidently to the future, it was the Roman people of the second century of our era,” wrote Dr. Robert Strausz-Hupé, noted historian and international relations expert.

“Within the empire, law and order prevailed, and never [before] did almost everybody ‘have it so good’ … no foreign power could challenge her.”

But Strausz-Hupé asks: “Why did this … civilization decline at all? And why did it decline so rapidly that, within another 100 years, the Roman Empire was plunged irreversibly into anarchy and penury, ravaged by foreign aggressors and doomed to extinction?”

The same author says: “What can Roman experience teach us? Of course, it can teach us nothing if … we are satisfied with the … [notion] that the Romans of the second century were not Americans of the twentieth century, and that, hence what happened to them could never happen to us.”

But striking parallels between much of our Western civilization today and the Romans of yesteryear make such complacency very dangerous.

What average pleasure-oriented Roman, living for the day, ever dreamed his proud nation would some day collapse into the hands of inferior barbarians?

There were those who warned the Romans of the inevitable end. Rome had its prophets, its seers, its political satirists. But their combined jeremiad fell on deaf ears. Romans, as a whole, would not listen.

Will Americans, Britons, Canadians, Australians, Europeans, South Africans listen to the veritable torrent of shouts and warnings trumpeted by leaders in all aspects of national life?

And will these same peoples listen to the warning of the God they have forgotten? He has commissioned His servants: “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins” (Isa. 58:1).

We must listen if we are to survive. And in the following pages we present the example of Rome – its worsening internal problems and why it fell. More shockingly, we present parallel problems plaguing our Western world.

Said researcher of Roman history H. J. Haskell: “It required a century or more for the destructive forces in Rome to work out their effects. The modern tempo is faster. The history of the later Roman Empire carries a warning to present-day Caesars” (The New Deal in Old Rome, p. 232).

Will we heed the lesson of history, the voice of experience? Will we mend our ways before it is too late?

CHAPTER TWO

The Home: Foundation of Greatness or Decadence

Youthful rebellion … the generation gap … student unrest … juvenile delinquency … illegitimacy … sexual revolution … pot … escapism – these are the social problems plaguing today’s youth and modern society.

And fueling much of it is a radically changing family life-style. Some authorities even predict the disappearance of the traditional family unit.

Today divorces are a more and more commonly accepted part of modern living styles. Unhappy marriages by the millions are on the border of breakup. A high percentage of married women work outside the home – bringing both financial benefits and social conflict. Husband and wife roles are becoming blurred. Parents and children are increasingly going their own way, and many homes are becoming little more than boarding houses, merely providing a place to eat and sleep, and little else.

Rampant adultery, premarital sex, wife-swapping, a growing acceptance of homosexuality and perverted sex are all tearing away at stable home life and happiness in the Western world. No wonder! Every medium of communication disseminates the subtle message of “doing your own thing.” Increasingly, social leaders, psychologists, educators and even religious figures openly condone formerly condemned illicit sex.

The Roman Experience

Largely forgotten today is the fact that the home is the basic foundation of any society. It is the most influential element in national character. It lays the first ground-work for learning individual character, values, goals, morality, self-control and loyalty.

The early Romans basically understood this. And it was a force that helped Rome grow in power and stature.

In the book Rome: Its Rise and Fall, the author, Philip Van Mess Myers, notes: “First, at the bottom as it were of Roman society and forming its ultimate unit, was the family …. The most important feature or element of this family group was the authority of the father ….

“It would be difficult to overestimate the influence of this group upon the history and destiny of Rome. It was the cradle of at least some of those splendid virtues of the early Romans that contributed so much to the strength and greatness of Rome, and that helped to give her dominion of the world” (pp. 11-12).

This same strong family structure – with the father in leadership – was a foundation stone supporting the national power of the British Empire and the United States in their zeniths of greatness.

We use the word “was” because, as it did in Rome, this building block of national power, the strong family unit, is rapidly deteriorating!

Continued this astute historian:

“It was in the atmosphere of the family that were nourished in the Roman youth the virtues of obedience and of deference to authority. When the youth became a citizen, obedience to magistrates and respect for law was in him as instinct and indeed almost a religion. And, on the other hand, the exercise of the parental authority in the family taught the Roman how to command as well as how to obey – how to exercise authority with wisdom, moderation, and justice” (p. 15).

How similar to what one famous American crime fighter said is necessary to develop solid citizens. The late J. Edgar Hoover emphasized before the Special Senate Committee investigating organized crime in interstate commerce: “The home is the first great training school in behavior or misbehavior and parents serve as the first teachers for the inspirational education of youth. In the home, the child learns [or should learn] that others besides himself have rights which he must respect.

“Here the spadework is laid for instilling in the child those values which will cause him to develop into an upright, law-abiding, wholesome citizen. He must learn respect for others, respect for property, courtesy, truthfulness, and reliability. He must learn not only to manage his own affairs but also to share in the responsibility for the affairs of the community. He must be taught to understand the necessity of obeying the laws of God.”

The Power of Example and Teaching

Early Roman parents, far from being perfect examples of parenthood, nevertheless basically realized their responsibility in nation building. They didn’t leave the teaching of basic morals and responsibilities to others.

“The [early Roman] boy’s upbringing was founded on a profound conviction of the power of example, first of the father himself as a representative of virtues peculiarly Roman, but also of the great prototypes of Roman valour in the boy’s family and national history who were presented to him as men worthy of admiration” (E. B. Castle, Ancient Education and Today, p. 114).

Contrary to the situation in modern America today, the early Romans had exemplary heroes and living examples of what youth were expected to emulate.

And strange though it may sound to many a modern woman, mothers and homemakers in early Rome were accorded great honor and esteem. Here is what Tacitus, a Roman historian of the early Empire, wrote: “In the good old days [of the Republic], every man’s son, born in wedlock, was brought up not in the chamber of some hireling nurse, but in his mother’s lap, and at her knee. And that mother could have no higher praise than that she managed the house and gave herself to her children ….

“Religiously and with the utmost delicacy she regulated not only the serious tasks of her youthful charges, but their recreations also and their games” (Tacitus, Dialogue on Oratory, 28, Loeb Classics).

At the age of seven the boy was released from the exclusive care of his mother to continue his education under the leadership of his father.

“The idea of entrusting the training of a future Roman citizen to the incompetent guidance of a slave was repellent to the Roman mind at this time” (Castle, op. cit., p. 113).

The Collapse of the Home

But the stable Roman family didn’t last. Changes rapidly took place in the social life of Rome. Tribute poured in from conquered nations. A growing commercial life made pursuit of trade and wealth the all-too-common objective – especially of the upper classes.

Increasingly, men of capability were away from their homes on business trips to some remote corner of the empire. Children and wives were left alone. Rapidly a snowballing moral change occurred. The Romans began to practice a “new morality.”

“Added to this initial cause of family disruption was the consequent easy attitude to the marriage tie, the increasing frequency of divorce, and growing freedom and laxity in women’s morals, all of which ended in a loosening of the old family unit in which the best in Roman character had its roots.

“Great as were the men who made history in these last years of the Republic, there was yet something lacking in moral stature among the Roman upper classes which had been characteristic of earlier generations. Personal aggrandizement was too eagerly sought and too readily achieved by the ruthless … and the old traditions of selfless service to the state were weakening” (Ibid., pp. 119, 120).

Roman men began to “play around” on business trips, in their offices, with neighbors’ wives. The institution of slavery did much to encourage loose and easy morals. It was now considered naïve to be honest in business.

Children Rule Their Parents

By the beginning of the second century A.D., Roman fathers, in general, had “yielded to the impulse to become far too complaisant. Having given up the habit of controlling their children, they let the children govern them, and took pleasure in bleeding themselves white to gratify the expensive whims of their offspring. The result was that they were succeeded by a generation of idlers and wastrels ….

“The fine edge of character had been blunted in the Rome of the second century [A.D.]. The stern face of the traditional ‘pater familias’ [the father of the family] had faded out; instead we see on every hand the flabby face of the son of the house, the eternal spoiled child of society, who has grown accustomed to luxury and lost all sense of discipline” (Jerome Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome, pp. 78-79).

A modern historian couldn’t better describe contemporary family life in the “developed” countries today.

Divorce, Roman Style

According to Roman authors such as Aulus Gellius, Valerius Maximus and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, divorces in early Rome were extremely rare – in fact, all but unknown.

But in the first century B.C. – about the time of Cicero – marital breakdowns, especially in the upper classes, had become so prevalent that divorce became “normal.”

“From this time on, we witness an epidemic of divorces, at least among the aristocracy whose matrimonial adventures are documented,” writes Carcopino (ibid., p. 97).

Regarding the Rome of the Antonine period (around A.D. 150), Carcopino quotes from Seneca, who witnessed the same problem a number of decades before: “They divorce in order to remarry. They marry in order to divorce” (ibid., p. 100).

The Roman writer Martial declared that marriage had become merely a form of legalized adultery!

Practically the same wording could be used to describe the American marriage-go-round today. Families are falling apart at the highest rate ever – even surpassing the post-World War II breakups of hasty wartime unions.

In 1974 alone, there were nearly one million divorces and annulments. More than a million children were directly affected by these proceedings. Statistically, there are almost two divorces every minute in the United States!

According to the Census Bureau, fifteen million Americans have been through a marriage breakup. Many U.S. counties and cities have nearly as many, or more, filings for divorce than marriage licenses granted during a year.

But divorce figures, as bad as they are, are only the tip of the iceberg smashing American family life. For every divorce, there are scores of unhappy, frustrated and unfulfilled marriages – held together by children, relatives, or business and social obligations. Even these reasons are rapidly being disregarded, due largely to our urban, mobile way of life.

At present rates, nearly every third home in the nation will at some time experience the tragedy of divorce. And divorce is a tragedy, despite all the claims to the contrary. The idea of an amicable or friendly divorce is a myth. Divorce is a tragic, costly, nerve-shattering experience! Why so much divorce? Too many marry the wrong person for the wrong reasons.

Dr. Clifford Rose Adams, professor emeritus of Penn State University, reported in June 1969 that government statistics showing that about 28 percent of all marriages end in divorce are misleading. He said:

“If you take in annulments and desertions [about 100,000 yearly] which are not included, the figure would be nearer 40 percent. Add to this what we call the morbidity marriage, where a man and woman may continue living with each other just for appearances or convenience while actually hating each other, and you find that only about 25 percent of marriages are really happy. The other 75 percent are a bust.”

Yes, family life in modern America and most of the Western world is falling apart at the seams. It is affecting (or infecting) the whole world, for that matter. Cynicism toward the family institution is in the air. As the feminist movement gains momentum and the youth of the Western democracies put forth the clarion cry of rebellion, the words of the ancient prophet Isaiah are strikingly appropriate: “As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths” (Isa. 3:12).

In verse 5 of the same chapter, Isaiah also says: “And the people shall be oppressed … every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.”

God shows the problem to be a result of a lack of right leadership. In today’s wide-open society all the wrong voices are heard. The most sensational and radical statements gain the greatest publicity. Righteous and God-fearing values are turned upside down and ridiculed by many. Far more popular are permissive lifestyles. Isaiah vividly describes our national sickness: “… Our sins testify against us … In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt …. Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter”! (Isa. 59:12-14) As we drift farther away from the true values of our Creator, we plunge deeper into a morass of family problems. Marriages break up. Children rebel. Adultery becomes commonplace and even “normal.” And as a result, our society is immeasurably weakened. Today we are beginning to pay a high price for acceptance of indulgent and permissive leadership.

God has commissioned His servants not only to warn the nations of their sins, but also to show the way that would lead to the establishment of true family stability. Notice it in Malachi 4:5-6: “See, I will send you another prophet like Elijah before the coming of the great and dreadful judgment day of God. His preaching will bring fathers and children together again, to be of one mind and heart, for they will know that if they do not repent, I will come and utterly destroy their land” (The Living Bible).

Older Marriages Breaking Up

A phenomenon now bothering the social scientists is the increasing number of marriages which are breaking up in divorce courts after enduring for 15 or 20 years and even longer.

It has previously been assumed that the longer a marriage lasted, the stronger the marital bonds. But a sampling of divorce statistics across the United States in a recent year shows 24 percent of marriages that ended in divorce had lasted 15 years or more.

Sexual affairs outside of marriage have become almost the rule rather than the exception, according to the Institute for Sex Research founded by the late Dr. Alfred Kinsey. It estimates that 60 percent of married men and 35 to 40 percent of married women have affairs with partners other than their spouses sometime during their marriage. Adultery shatters home, peace, love and stability!

Speaking out against the proliferation of adulterous relationships in modern Israel (the United States and British Commonwealth), God says: “How can I forgive you for all this? Your sons have forsaken me and sworn by gods that are no gods. I gave them all they needed [national affluence], yet they preferred adultery [both spiritual and literal!], and haunted the brothels; each neighs after another man’s wife, like a well-fed and lusty stallion. Shall I not punish them for this? The Lord asks. Shall I not take vengeance on such a people? (Jer. 5:7-9, The New English Bible)

Bitter Fruit of Delinquency

Nearly 500,000 illegitimate babies are born each year in the U.S. Thousands more are “covered” by abortions or hasty, unwanted marriages – marriages that often break up. Nearly one out of six births is illegitimate in the U.S. (among non-whites it’s nearly one out of three).

Venereal disease has reached epidemic proportions in the U.S. (and around the world) according to alarmed public health officials. V.D. is our number one reportable communicable disease (not considering virus flu or colds). It is our number two communicable disease killer. Well over two million become infected yearly with either gonorrhea or syphilis – youth accounting for 60 percent of the cases.

Juvenile delinquency reaches shocking new highs every year in the United States. Nearly half of all arrests for serious crimes involve juveniles under the age of 18. Joseph M. Kennick, past president of the National Conference of Juvenile Authorities, admits: “Somewhere along the way, as parents and as a nation, we went wrong in the rearing o four children. We are now paying for having produced a generation heavily populated with hostile, rebellious, and lawless youths who have no respect for themselves or for us ….

“Where did we go wrong? We went wrong in many ways – in the laxity of our discipline … in indulging and pampering our children, by lifting from their shoulders the burdens they should rightly carry.”

Yes, we are paying the painful penalty for permissive, indulgent child-rearing concepts. Children don’t just “grow up” to be respectable, useful citizens – they must be reared by positive teaching of basic rights and wrongs, by balanced discipline and right parental example. A child must have the teaching, example, love and discipline of a concerned parent who is willing to give him the right kind of attention. The failure in these major areas has been immense.

The Maker’s Instruction Book contains many instructions on proper child rearing. As an example, notice Proverbs 29:15: “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.”

Will yet another lesson that could be learned from Rome’s decline be lost on our peoples?

“Battle of the Sexes”

Along with the erosion of the father’s authority in the home, historians note the emergence of a “battle of the sexes” in Rome when the Empire became rich and affluent.

Upperclass Roman society (the average American would be “upperclass” by Roman standards) witnessed a growing force of wives who wanted to be “emancipated” from homelife. Some wives wanted “careers” of their own. Others didn’t want to have children for fear of “losing their figures.”

Wrote historian Carcopino: “Some evaded the duties of maternity for fear of losing their good looks, some took pride in being behind their husbands in no sphere of activity, and vied with them in tests of strength which their sex would have seemed to forbid; some were not content to live their lives by their husband’s side, but carried on another life without him ….

“’To live your own life’ was a formula which women had already brought into fashion in the second century …. It is obvious that unhappy marriages must have been innumerable” (op. cit., pp. 90, 93, 95).

Today’s “Feminist Movement” is not a new thing in history. Let’s not misunderstand. Women do need better rights. Work for women outside the home is absolutely vital for many. But never should it be at the cost of the deterioration of husband-wife or parent-child relations.

Women in Imperial Rome “did their own thing,” and the results were wretched marriages, divorce, growing juvenile delinquency. They had “come a long way” indeed! But where they went – the result – is not a very happy thought to contemplate.

And the same has happened since the close of World War II in America – “the land of working wives.”

The working wife has been singled out by many social authorities as a major contributor to husband-wife problems and child-rearing problems. Today over 40 percent of all U.S. Workers are women. Almost 60 percent of the female labor force are married women whose husbands are present in the home. And of that 60 percent, over half have children under 18 years of age.

The disintegration of the family as the basic unit of our social structure has not come about overnight. It has been a gradual and insidious deterioration – a veritable “fifth-column” movement attacking the stability of the home from within. The roles and relationships of father, mother and child have, in the process, become confused. Each has lost his identity and place. How can we expect such a condition to produce a common national and community problems?

Utter Confusion

In the Western “progressive” world, the sexes have, in some cases, begun to dress alike and wear their hair alike – or, in some cases, switch styles.

“Unisex,” “free sex,” “swinging singles,” “group sex,” “the Pill,” “sexual revolution” – these are the phrases magazine headlines are made of today. Utter confusion about sex, marriage and the family is rampant.

But where are all these changes leading us?

Many leading specialists who study family life admit that the family is changing profoundly. But they do not agree on what it is becoming or where it ought to go from here.

Some marital “experts” even predict that the very institution of marriage is “obsolete” and on its way out – perhaps to be replaced by the expression “pair-bound,” or some equally undefinable arrangement.

During at least one period, decadent Rome lapsed into a similar irresponsible outlook toward sex and marriage, especially among the ruling classes, who set the tone of life in the Empire.

“One cause of the decline in population [in the Empire] was the singular aversion that the better class of the Romans evinced to marriage …. Penalties and bounties, deprivations and privileges, entreaties and expostulations are in turn resorted to by the perplexed emperors, in order to discourage celibacy and to foster a pure and healthy family life.

“But all was in vain. The marriage state continued to be held in great disesteem” (Myers, op. cit., p. 447).

In the same way, respect for marriage and the home is at the lowest ebb at which it has ever been in the United States and Britain. Marriage, to many, means little or nothing. And in any society where marriage – which the Creator God intended to have utmost meaning – is treated so lightly, where a solid family relationship is no longer desired, that society is threatened with extinction.

Rome traveled this road. It weakened that society!

America, Britain and most of Western civilization is speeding along the same roadway.

CHAPTER THREE

The Failure of Ancient and Modern Education

Former President Johnson, addressing the National Education Association at Madison Square Garden in 1965, said: “Education, more than any single force, will mold the citizen of the future. That citizen, in turn, will really determine the greatness of our society.”

In the student revolt of the 60’s, one national leader warned: “We live in an age of anarchy both abroad and at home …. Here in the United States, great universities are being systematically destroyed.”

Even though momentarily fairly quiet, why are the centers of the dissemination of education seedbeds of civil disobedience, moral and sexual decay, looseness and drug experimentation?

Because there is something drastically wrong with modern education! Most of modern education teaches solutions to mankind’s problems by materialistic means – when man’s real problems lie in a wrong mental and spiritual approach.

Instead of disseminating knowledge capable of solving the nation’s mounting problems, education, itself, has become a major crisis! As much as any problem facing us, the problems of education – from kindergarten on up – are tearing away at the stability of the nation. Now ugly racial difficulties threaten major disruptions in our school systems.

Teachers, as well as students, are frustrated, angry, dissatisfied and are striking out!

Money Hasn’t Been the Answer

Unparalleled in history, Americans (and other nations) have poured billions upon billions of high priority taxpayer dollars into behemoth modern education facilities – from grade schools to multiversities.

Civil and government leaders have looked to modern education to equip and inspire youth with proper goals, values, knowledge, understanding and self-discipline to strengthen their communities and nation.

But something has gone wrong. Education has not produced what everyone hoped it would. Something is radically missing in modern education!

Modern education has failed to provide the right worthwhile goals and values that would inspire its youth to discipline themselves to meet national, community or personal crises or needs.

The Romans gradually fell into the same educational trap.

Contrary to later developments, education in early Rome was closely related to clear-cut goals and values. It was clearly character and purpose oriented. It was education to meet clear-cut responsibility toward the family, the community and the nation; a preparation to meet realities head-on with strength and ability.

Later, in the Republic, under the influence of Greek culture, elementary, secondary and higher schools of rhetoric and philosophy were established. The latter were based on the works of so-called “great” pagan authors, especially Homer. The Romans wanted to be as cultured as conquered subjects and vassals – especially Greeks. Therefore, they set up schools after the Hellenist type to rival those in the East at Athens and Rhodes.

Did Not Build Character

But gradually, with the influence of wealth, ease and commercial life within the Empire, character training became forgotten.

“The Roman Schools (leaving out of account the philosophers) did not profess to do anything more than inculcate a particular branch of learning. They did not claim to build character, to teach religion or patriotism or morality, and some ancient teachers were notoriously ill equipped for such teaching ….

“Yet there was certainly a feeling abroad that a school master should be something more than a mere instructor, that he should take the place of a parent, perhaps even supply that moral guidance that some Roman homes conspicuously failed to provide” (Roman Civilization, p. 208, section by m. L. Clarke, edited by J.P.V.D. Balsdon).

Looking at the education of Roman youths in the first century of our era, “we find several conditions of good education sadly lacking. The moral, social and intellectual climate was not healthy; there was no grand conception of the education of the whole man …” (E. B. Castle, Ancient Education and Today, p. 124).

“Character” Not Education’s Business

Failure to “educate the whole man”? Schools that have little or no emphasis on “character,” “morality,” “religion,” “patriotism”? How similar to the approach of much of modern public education.

Several years ago, an elder educator noted that American institutions of higher learning were turning out “splendid splinters” instead of well-rounded educated men and women. He said, “Nine-tenths of our faculties are bores, simply because they are nincompoops outside of their specialties.”

Following the pattern of later Rome, a state university professor (former a college president) said recently: “We’re not in the business of building character. I doubt if some of us are qualified.

“Colleges are not churches, clinics, or even parents. Whether or not a student burns a draft card, participates in a civil rights march, engages in premarital or extramarital sexual activity, becomes pregnant, attends church, sleeps all day or drinks all night, is not really the concern of an educational institution.”

Just develop the ability to absorb materialistic knowledge, is the modern concept of education.

Meanwhile, Morals and Values Collapse

Students are increasingly told there are “no moral absolutes,” no solid values to guide moral choices or decisions in life.

Is it then surprising that two out of every three college students think it is not wrong for men and women to engage in premarital sex – especially as long as participants say they are “in love”? Or that we have a V.D. epidemic among youth? One poll showed that even in those cases where participants do not claim to be “in love,” half of all those surveyed still accepted the idea of premarital sex.

Much of modern education has been in the forefront of the moral and sexual revolution! Modern education must take its share of guilt for destroying true values!

Irrelevant Education

“It gets pretty depressing to watch what is going on in the world,” said a University of California senior girl, “and realize that your education is not equipping you to do anything about it.”

She is not a radical. She has never demonstrated. She, and millions like her, will graduate with honors and profound disillusionment.

Recently, John Fischer, editor for Harper’s Magazine, wrote that the fragments of knowledge that most youth fritter away precious years to receive are only “bits and pieces which don’t stick together and have no common purpose …. The typical liberal-arts college has no clearly defined goals. It merely offers a smorgasbord of courses, in hopes that if a student nibbles at a few dishes from the humanities table, plus a snack of science, and a garnish of art or anthropology, he may emerge as ‘a cultivated man’ – whatever that means” (Harper’s Magazine, September 1969).

Useless Knowledge, Wasted Time

Now see the shocking parallel in the Roman record.

“On the whole we are compelled to admit that at the most glorious period of the empire the schools entirely failed to fulfill the duties which we expect of our schools today [written in 1940]. They undermined instead of strengthened the children’s morals, they mishandled the children’s bodies instead of developing them, and if they succeeded in furnishing their minds with a certain amount of information, they were not calculated to perform any loftier or nobler task.”

In other words, the bits of knowledge Roman children learned did not relate with any high ideal of personal character, national goals or system of values.

Continuing, the historian Carcopino writes: “The pupils left school with the heavy luggage of a few practical and commonplace notions laboriously acquired and of so little value that in the fourth century Vegetius could not take for granted that new recruits for the army would be literate enough to keep the books of the corps …. Popular education then in Rome was a failure” (Jerome Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome, pp. 106-107).

What do we see today? High schools and college graduates who cannot read, write or spell, who are unprepared to earn a living, who are often as unfit morally as they are physically.

Much to Unlearn

As for higher education, the Romans paid undue attention to rhetoric in training men for higher offices as lawyers and administrators.

“So, far from preparing young men for practice in the courts … the schools [of rhetoric] accustomed them to a thoroughly unreal atmosphere and sent them into the world with much to unlearn” (Roman Civilization, p. 209, section by M. L. Clarke).

Again Roman historian Carcopino tells us: “… The Romans saw no long-term usefulness in disinterested research … they made a collection of the results research had achieved, and lifted science ready-made into their books, without feeling any need to increase it or even verify it” (op. cit., p. 113).

In other words, Roman students gullibly swallowed anything poked at them as “knowledge,” but rarely ever checked its veracity.

The philosophic school of thought apparently even circulated the idea that there was no such thing as unchangeable truth. The Roman governor, Pilate, confronting Jesus Christ who brought up the matter of the concept of truth, retorted: “What is truth?” (John 18:38). Pilate was a product of Roman education. He, like many sophisticated students today, didn’t believe in unchangeable truths or values!

By the way, the answer to Pilate’s question about truth is found in the Gospel of John: “Thy word is truth” (John 17:17).

Undermined the Empire

With this education and the overemphasis on luxury living and materialism, the minds of Rome’s educated citizens were dulled.

“In this atmosphere of indolent contentment the privileged classes, and especially the urban middle class, came to find their ideals in pleasure, the pursuit of gain …. Creative genius dwindled … [which education should have sparked]. No new artistic discoveries were made … the pen, the graving tool and the pencil produced highly spiced work, able to attract and amuse the mind but incapable of elevating and inspiring it” (M. Rostovtzeff, Rome, p. 322).

Historians remark with astonishment that apart from a few religious writings, no outstanding literary works were produced in the 400s A.D. Yet that period was filled with monumental events.

There were few great men or works of literature to inspire others to high levels of accomplishment – no Abraham Lincolns, no Winston Churchills. And today, it seems the works most attractive and popular are publications of titillating sex, pornography or violence – not of character- or nation-building.

But Rome was indifferent: “Under the brilliant exterior of the Roman Empire we feel the failure of creative power … we feel the weariness and indifference which undermined, not merely the culture of the state, but also its political system, its military strength, and its economic progress” (Rostovtzeff, pp. 322-323).

Uninspiring materialistic education played a part in warping the time-honored values of the Roman Empire!

World Crisis, a Product of Wrong Values

A tree is known by its fruits. What have been the fruits of education – both ancient and modern? Has education solved mankind’s ills?

In 1964, Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, said at a conference at the University of Michigan: “We have more educated people than at any time in history; we have more people with college degrees, yet our humanity is a diseased humanity …. It isn’t knowledge we need; knowledge we have. Humanity is in need of something spiritual.”

Yet, paradoxically, God says: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge …” (Hosea 4:6). The lack being described here is not in material, scientific knowledge, however – it is in the knowledge of the true values. It is a lack of knowledge of God and His way of life. This kind of knowledge the world has rejected (same verse – last part).

A strong, durable nation needs much more than wealth and material, technological knowledge!

Obviously there has been a missing dimension in education. Education should answer the most important questions of all: What is man? Why is he here? What motivates him? What is the purpose of life? What is the way to peace? How should a nation use its resources? How should we deal with our fellowman?

Can a man or woman claim to be fully educated without knowledge of the God-intended purpose of life? Too often education answers: “There aren’t any ultimate values or answers …. We can never know absolutely.” Is there any wonder Western civilization is floundering directionless?

CHAPTER FOUR

Religion in Confusion

“We are adrift without answers …. We are witnessing the death of the old morality …. No single authority rules our conduct …. No church lays down the moral law for all.”

So wrote a senior editor of Look magazine a dozen years ago, reporting the major indications of the post-World War II American moral crisis.

An elder statesman of the National Council of Churches said at a meeting in Boston recently: “Beneath all the social unrest there is an even profounder unrest of the human spirit – a sense of meaninglessness; disenchantment, a search for ultimate meaning.”

Religion in general, like education and the home, has failed to give an answer to the most important question of all – the purpose of life.

Weak Influence of Religion

Never has the influence of religion been at a lower ebb in the United States. The same could be said of Britain (where many churches have been put up for sale) or any other nation in the Christian-professing world!

Yet 130,000,000 Americans claim a church affiliation.

Let’s note this paradox between church affiliation and church influence.

The majority of Americans feel religion is losing influence. Gallup polls for over a decade have reported a rapidly growing majority of Americans acknowledging the decline of religion in American life. In 1957, Gallup reported only 14 percent of Americans thought religion was “losing its influence” on American life. By 1967, ten years later, 57 percent held the same opinion. And by 1970, the percentage jumped dramatically again to 75 percent. Gallup reported that this “represents one of the most dramatic shifts in surveys on American life.”

A 1975 Gallup survey indicates, however, that current problems are causing interest in religion again. Still, there is the growing feeling among Americans, Britons, and others that religion, as commonly presented to them, is “sterile,” “outmoded,” “irrelevant” to today’s needs and problems. To youth it is especially meaningless, a part of the hypocrisy of the Establishment that drastically needs changing.

As one youth put it: “The Church has no meaning – a place full of old ladies in felt hats … boring sermons, meaningless prayers.” As a result, church membership is in a decline.

There is no lack of religious form and ceremony in today’s modern America and Britain. There is plenty of that. It is just that it does not seem to offer the motivation to change lives for the better. Today’s religions are not bringing peace (witness the Irish conflict!). Rather they only serve to deepen the divisions between people. People have a form of godliness, but they deny God’s power in their lives! (II Tim. 3:5).

Reporting on this trend, a clergyman and professor at George Washington University said in the early 1960s: “Never has Christianity been so ineffective and irrelevant …. The distance between professed faith and our daily performance is astronomical.”

In other words, despite an almost unanimous belief that “a little religion is good” for society, it hardly makes a dent in altering the massive problems of our time. It doesn’t change the way people live their daily lives. Why has this happened? It can partially be understood by studying what happened to ancient Rome.

Roman Religion

Early Roman paganism, superstitious and ritualistic (a fatal flaw), did produce one benefit: it closely united the ideals of religion and state – lending support to unified thinking and action. “To a Roman of the best days of the Republic, religion represented stability in the State and in the home; it was the foundation of public and private life …” (Roman Civilization, edited by J.P.V.D. Balsdon, p. 182).

With the ascent of the Roman Emperor Constantine in the early 300s A.D., Christianity became the favored religion of the Empire. But unity of faith eluded the Emperor. The new religious form demanded a higher standard of morality than ancient paganism, but it had no profound moral effect on the Roman citizen. “For the vast majority of ordinary men Christianity caused no fundamental change of attitude” (A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, p. 1063).

Let’s not misunderstand. The institution of universal religion received growing acclaim, converts, and political leverage. But the greater mass of individuals professing “Christianity” did not allow it to alter their basic corrupt cravings and materialistic values.

While the adoption of State-Endorsed “Christianity” brought the Empire a step closer to the ideal of unity, its conflict with ancient paganism made it a surface unity. And paganism did not lose out entirely! Religious strife and confusion abounded. “Christianity” absorbed more and more pagan traditions and philosophy (and surprisingly, many have been handed down to us today!).

To the average Roman any Christian moral teaching seems to have made little practical difference.

Besides this, corruption and abuse of power became widespread in the Church. Splits and schisms caused much conflict, bloodshed and disunity. Confusion and ignorance concerning doctrine were rampant – as they are today!

Sophisticated Rejected “Myths”

Hellenized education caused some highly sophisticated Romans to view weak ancient religious traditions as superstitious. “For the sophisticated Roman, myth was not enough …. The old beliefs were not forsaken in response to the challenge of a more profound understanding of higher spiritual values, but merely because they failed to satisfy intelligent people. When the appeal of a higher moral purpose is absent men seek their own sensual satisfactions” (E. B. Castle, Ancient Education and Today, p. 120).

And today, many educated have “seen through” the superstitious approach many people have toward religion, even in America and the Western world, and therefore reject religion entirely and fall back on liberal values of their own reasoning.

But another trend affected a greater majority.

The confusing, abstract religious concepts of the old Roman religion didn’t fill the spiritual void in the Roman populace. This was especially true among the rapidly multiplying free-slave class whose ancestral roots were in the Middle East rather than the Italian peninsula.

These people felt right at home with the imported Eastern sun cults and mystery religions which began to stream into the empire.

Samuel Dill, in his work Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, wrote: “The paganism which was really living, which stirred devotion and influenced souls … came from the East – from Persia, Syria, Egypt …. Foreign traders, foreign slaves, travelers, and soldiers returning from long campaigns in distant regions, were constantly introducing religious excitement, and then penetrated to the classes of culture and privilege” (pp. 74-76, 78).

Carcopino also noted the decay of traditional Roman religion.

He wrote: “The Roman pantheon still persisted, apparently immutable …. But the spirits of men had fled from the old religion; it still commanded their service but no longer their hearts or their belief …. In the motley Rome of this second century it had wholly lost its power over the human hearts” (Jerome Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome, pp. 121, 122).

Similar to Conditions Today

Many trends similar to those which affected Rome are with us today.

Religion is in a state of confusion and turmoil.

The Roman Catholic Church has been wracked with controversy up to its highest levels of authority. The hierarchy is deeply concerned over the increasing number of priests leaving the ministry.

Meanwhile, Protestantism – divided into hundreds of sects – is having its own “identity crisis.”

“We Protestants are tired and confused,” confessed Dr. Walter D. Wagoner, director of the Boston Theological Institute. He was writing in a widely circulated nondenominational magazine. He criticized the trend toward theological “faddism” exemplified by the short-lived “death of God” movement, espoused by some protestant theologians.

He complained of a widespread “spiritual malnutrition” among ministers and laymen alike. His conclusion? There is a growing awareness among Protestants that “we have no direction to go but up.”

The strong, but simple and clear-cut teaching of Christ and the apostles has been so watered down by modern religionists that it is too often a meaningless mishmash, irrelevant to the daily life of the average individual.

Too often the power and authority of God, the Bible and the Ten Commandments have been ridiculed, questioned, doubted by modern theologians and clerics. Educators have called the Bible “myth.” The spiritual base of the average layman has become a weak reed to lean on in these times of personal and national peril.

How can such religion of fuzzy, vague values and meaningless formality lend weight to solving the nitty-gritty problems of our times?

Religious Hypocrisy

Today, growing numbers of clerics are in the forefront of civil disobedience marches; they advocate “situation ethics” morality, condone premarital and extramarital sec relations, homosexuality, and other clear-cut Bible declarations of sin. Other thousands of clerics remain virtually silent about the sins of their parishioners or nation.

In much of today’s popular religion, there are no “sins” – just “behavioristic abnormalities” or “social maladjustments.” There are crimes against man, but not against God. A clear definition of “sin” or wrongdoing is lacking in our modern societies, although it is clearly explained in God’s revealed Word to man – the Bible. The apostle John states that “… sin is the transgression of the law” (I John 3:34).

It’s the age when millions of Americans have accepted churchgoing without bothering to learn much about it – just like the pagans who flocked – unchanged in heart – into the church after Constantine. Millions are ignorant of even the most basic tenets of their faith or the Bible.

Said one Bible translator: “It is one of the curious phenomena of modern times that it is considered perfectly respectable to be abysmally ignorant of the Christian faith. Men and women who would be deeply ashamed of having their ignorance exposed in matters of poetry, music, or painting, for example, are not in the least perturbed to be found ignorant of the New Testament” (quoted in Christianity Today, Aug. 30, 1963).

It’s the age of hypocritical religion.

“Mystic Revolution”

In the midst of pervasive religious and moral confusion, many are turning to astrology and the occult in hopes of finding the answers to the big questions in life: Who am I? Where am I going?

Many who have found little solace in conventional Christianity are now seeking spiritual enlightenment by attempting to “expand the mind,” explore the unusual, or experience some psychic thrill or sensation.

Ours is the age of marijuana, “speed,” LSD and other mind-scrambling drugs – of psychedelic music, bizarre art and fashions. Now we have the “mystic revolution.”

According to a professor of sociology at the University of Washington: “Sociologists argue that in a stable society religion provides the necessary answers to the great questions of life, death and man’s fate. But when stability is upset, persons experience a sense of being lost, and, in a peculiar state of receptivity, they turn desperately about, looking for new answers.

“Some are looking for new answers within the framework of organized religion. Hence such trends as ‘speaking in tongues,’ ‘underground masses,’ or the introduction of jazz and contemporary dancing into religious services.”

But for the most part, the seeking of “new answers” is conducted outside the church, and has fueled the upsurge in interest in astrology and the occult.

It was this way in Rome, too, at the time when the mighty Empire was crumbling.

“Predictive astrology, like divination and occultism, generally tends to take hold in times of confusion, uncertainty and the breakdown of religious belief. Astrologers and assorted sorcerers were busy in Rome while the empire was declining and prevalent throughout Europe during the great 17^th century waves of plague. Today’s young stargazers claim to be responding to a similar sense of disintegration and disenchantment …” (Time, March 21, 1969).

Some sources estimate that ten million Americans are “hard-core adherents” to astrological forecasting. Another 40 million, it reported, dabble in the subject. Said one magazine: “It appears clear that what was once regarded as an offshoot of the occult is a rapidly evolving popular creed.”

In Canada, the story is much the same. Robert Thomas Allen writes in the October 1969 issue of Maclean’s Magazine: “… Canadians are going in for what is probably the biggest revival of astrology since the fall of Babylon.”

“Colossal Increase” in Britain

In Britain, the new “psychic” age is perhaps more entrenched than anywhere else in the Western world. A leading London consultant in psychosomatic medicine says: “There is undoubtedly a colossal increase in interest in mysticism of all kinds …. The unmistakable trend is for more professional people to pursue a search for a glimpse into the future.”

The respected Sunday Times in Britain estimates that over two-thirds of Britain’s adults read their horoscopes. Of these about a fifth – or several million – take them seriously.

Some estimate that over a third of the adult British public believes in fortune-telling and nearly half in telepathy. Today, the finest bookstores in any town have racks reserved for books on astrology and the occult.

Yet in spite of all this, no answers are forthcoming. Millions of moderns – like the ancient Romans – admit to the “irrelevance” of traditional concepts and beliefs. They know organized religion has no power. Eastern mysticism and the occult are bruised religious reeds that confused, uncertain and fearful moderns are often leaning upon. But they are not providing the sought-for spiritual support.

Just as ancient Rome welcomed Eastern mysticism and occult practices, so the United States and Britain are following suit. All the same symptoms of religious and spiritual sickness are present. Speaking of the last days, God says of the modern House of Jacob: “… They be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers [foreigners]” (Isa. 2:6).

CHAPTER FIVE

A Mad Craze for Pleasure

We live in a society where “anything goes.” The consequences are manifested in a society of escapists, gripped in history’s greatest pleasure binge, in excessive cravings for luxury and ease, in materialistic lust and money-worship!

“Anything goes” shows itself in entertainment obsessed with sexploitation, violence and the depths of human perversion. It is found in a drug-inundated culture that is ill at ease outside a continual state of drug-induced euphoria or “kicks.”

We have our “anything-to-make-a-buck” business ethic, our “New Morality” (or rather immorality), our loose-living hippie subculture, our white-collar thief and the shoplifting housewife.

We see the “anything goes” philosophy in the furtive support of a multibillion-dollar organized vice and pornography industry, in the topless and bottomless nightclubs and restaurants, in the subtle message that preaches, “crime pays – just don’t get caught.”

“Live It Up – Now!”

Our commercial society shouts and screams its materialistic goals and values at every corner, on our billboards, with nearly every flip of a magazine page, with many a TV broadcast. The tempting message says, “Live this way”; “live a little more”; “it’s the ‘in’ thing”; “don’t worry, everybody does it” or as Madison Avenue says, “Happiness is ….”

What is happiness supposed to be?

“Happiness is,” continues the unrelenting bombardment, “buying our car … purchasing this style of clothing … eating this food … drinking this beer … seeing this movie … taking this trip … indulging in this sporting activity.” Or it is “joining our gang … popping this pill … freaking out … pot … speed … free love … the Pill.” As if this were life’s ultimate achievement!

“Indulge yourself” … “you owe it to yourself” … “buy now, pay later” … “live it up – now!” goes the swan song of an indulgent society. And millions ignorantly throw caution to the wind. In an age of selfish materialism, few seriously question whether all this rapid consumption of indulgences is really good for them, or where it will all lead!

Only the strong can resist the temptation to immediately overindulge themselves; only the wise with a strong sense of values can see through the superficiality, sham, deceit and emptiness of much of it.

Only those with an eye on the lessons of history understand the subtle dangers of careless, excessive self-indulgence, self-seeking and hedonism, while the nation faces the greatest problems in its history, demanding the greatest effort and sacrifice. However, millions would rather play, escape and indulge themselves in temporary, selfish goals.

What does history teach us about such trends? Again, let Rome tell her story.

The Roman Pleasure Binge

As mentioned earlier, with the conquering of many nations, wealth, trade and fortunes were to be made. But with wealth came a crucial problem.

A Roman historian explains: “The ‘Pax Romana’ brought many blessings; it made possible the greatest luxury, the most active commercial life the world ever saw … though a few savage tribes might ravage the frontiers, the quiet interior provinces were destined to perpetual peace and prosperity [so the Roman citizens thought] ….

“And so in this dream of the absolute fixity of the Roman system, men went on getting, studying, enjoying dissipating – doing everything except to prepare for fighting until Alaric sacked the Eternal City …. And so the barbarians at length destroyed a society that was more slowly destroying itself” (William Stearns Davis, The Influence of Wealth in Imperial Rome, pp. 314, 317, 330).

What were the Roman’s highest social values and goals?

“… The excessive desire for wealth without regard to methods or to duty toward posterity … the downright sensuality were accomplishing their perfect work. The economic evil was at the bottom. First Italy, then a vast Empire, devoted itself for centuries to a feverish effort for getting money by any means, and to spending that money on selfish enjoyments. Other things went for little ….”

“Their fall was great … while the lesson of their fall lies patent to the twentieth century” (ibid., pp. 334, 335).

Mad Craze for Pleasure

The noted Roman historian Edward Gibbon commented on the pleasure-crazed ruin of the Roman character i