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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Nerva, post: 2774585, member: 87761&quot;]The exact balance of factors is debated, but I think there&#039;s broad agreement that the Roman Empire was extremely resilient and collapsed because of a number of challenges that it couldn&#039;t deal with at the same time. Loss of the surplus from the North African colonies was a particularly important context, in my view. Their loss also made it harder to control the Med. So any number of small things done differently might have saved the empire - or at least delayed its demise. </p><p><br /></p><p>But through its long history there wasn&#039;t much dynamism. They kept doing the same thing the same way. Production was left to slaves so there was no commercial revolution, and the great scientific leaps were made by the Greeks. Something like modern science seems to have existed for a short and brilliant period, but that was before the Romans. So probably more of the same: no great collapse into the dark ages, but no industrial revolution either.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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