The Bourgeois and the Plebes

When I was back in Mr. Blair's 7th grade World History class, I remember being surprised at his description of the Roman Empire in the periods of its decline. His general position (necessarily general; he was teaching a bunch of 12 year olds) was that the Empire had become amazingly stratified, where there was the privileged class who spent most of their time pontificating and/or dealing with amorphous abstracts - art, politics, philosophy, law, etc. - and the rest of their time lounging in steam baths being catered to hand and foot.

In contrast to this elite, there was a remarkably small merchant and artisan class, and then a vast mob of the lower-class. The precursors of modern tenement buildings, packed to overflowing with people. Unskilled workers and slaves in cases where they were employed at all. This persisted for centuries: by dint of being lower classes, the lower classes lacked the structure to organize into any sort of legitimate political bloc. Besides, the consensus was that they really felt no great impetus to organize, since the Roman policy of panem et circenses (google it) kept them fed, entertained, and voting for endless continuation of benefits. Rome was, in fact, the precursor of the modern wellfare state.

Right up to the point that it all went up in flames, at least.

As I was hearing these lessons, even back before I turned into the bastard-coated bastard with hard bastard center that I am today, I wondered how the ruling classes could allow that level of stratification to exist? Even at the time, it occurred to me that a social model based on hand-outs and blood-sport entertainments had no sustainability. And how was it that there existed no substantial middle-class which the lower-class could aspire too? How could the overall leaders of the Empire not see what what was coming when there existed neither social mobility for the capable, nor economic flow other than Legion-enforced imperialism? Although the Empire persisted for centuries under that social model, it seemed clear that it did so partially because the Roman lower-class populace was unarmed, but mostly because the 500-year supremacy of the Legionary military system meant that Rome could have all its tangible needs met imperialistically, regardless of whether the need was Egyptian wheat for the masses or Persian luxury goods for the emperors.

Did the Romans really think that they could go forward into perpetuity, buying the votes of an ignorant public with nothing more than promises of a decent hand-out diet, and weekly spectacles of chariots and gladiator games? Where they so busy trying to keep a doomed system afloat that they didn't have time to consider the long-term results? Or was the leadership just so busy enjoying luxury and opulence that they truly didn't give much of a damn at all about the masses, except for the expectation that the plebes remember their place and keep their complaints to a minimum?

These thoughts occurred to me as I was spending a weekend lounging on the pool deck at Red Rock Resort and Spa, sipping beer and snacking on over-priced finger-foods delivered by scantily clad girls. It was a good time, and I heartily recommend it, even if there was no steam-room in evidence. I specifically recommend the fruit plate with the honey-yogurt dipping sauce. There were even gladiator games going on over the weekend, although we didn't watch them; since the Fertita clan owns both UFC and the Red Rock Resort, they were piping in a live video feed from Oakland.

Has humanity developed at all in the last 2000 years, or are we just recycled situations, and variations on a theme?