历史视角：罗马帝国的陨灭并不是文明的悲剧，反而是人类命运的转机（评论部分）

ChunkofWhat
A key pillar of this article's argument is that post-Roman Empire Europe enjoyed power plurality while the rest of the world was stuck with various forms of monopoly power.

本文论点的一大关键支柱就是，罗马帝国之后的欧洲享有权力的多元化，而世界其他地区则摆脱不了各种形式的权力垄断。

Is this really true? It seems to me that some governments that were empires in name were in fact just as pluralistic as Europe. Feudal Japan had a mostly impotent Emperor for the last thousand years. Even when there was a Shogun (and there often wasn't), the Shogan's power was as temperamental as that of the European kings described in this article: noble lords were the true seats of power. Being king/shogun required a delicate touch - you had to be careful not to ask too much of your vassals. History is not my best subject but I imagine there are similar stories for many of the non-European "imperial structures" described in the article.

这真的属实吗？在我看来，一些名义上属于帝国的政府，实际上和欧洲一样多元化。在封建制下的日本，其天皇在过去一千年中的大部分时间里，都是没有作为能力的。就算那时候有幕府将军（且经常缺位），幕府将军的权力也和本文所描述的欧洲国王的权力一样不稳定：真正掌权的是身为贵族的封建领主（大名）。作为国王/幕府将军，需要你具备一种精妙的手腕，你必须小心谨慎，不要对你的封臣要求过多。历史不是我最擅长的科目，但我能想像文中所述的很多非欧洲 的“帝国体系”也存在类似的情况。

Yeah I agree. The great Indian unifying dynasty Maurya had already fallen long before Rome and South Asia was a cluster of numerous states vying for power with rise and fall of fortunes for various player, it didn't exactly do anything revolutionary compared to other parts of the world.

（回）是的，我同意。大一统的伟大印度王朝孔雀王朝在罗马之前很久就灭亡了，南亚是一个由无数争夺权力的国家组成的聚合体，各种玩家的命运此兴彼衰，和世界其他地区相比，它还真没有干出什么革命性的事情。

I think people always tend to forget South Asia when they try to attribute Europe's rise in early modern period to the fractured nature of European polity incentivizing innovation be it military or other things but South Asia was also mostly divided in the same period with various powers vying for supremacy.

我认为，当人们试图将欧洲在近代早期的崛起归因于欧洲政体的碎片化属性时（这种政体激励创新，无论是军事技术还是其他方面都是如此），往往会忘记同一时期的南亚在大部分时间里也是分裂的，有各路势力在争夺霸权。

·
Yeah, but I think the author’s argument would be “you need the imperial structure first before plurality really matters.” India was obviously a pluralistic society, but it never unified under an imperial authority like Rome.

（回）是啊，但我认为作者的主张是“在多元性真正发挥重要作用之前，你首先需要有一套帝国架构"。印度显然是一个多元化的社会，但它从未在罗马这样的皇权下完成过统一。

I think it's a great point. Not to mention that even in the heyday of the Roman Empire the power of the emperor was not monopolistic. Examples abound of Roman emperors being checked by the Senate, or engaged in civil war, or overthrown, or outright murdered. There were always factions and regions to be placated.

（回）我认为这个观点很精辟。更不用说，即使是鼎盛时期的罗马帝国，皇帝的权力也做不到垄断。罗马皇帝被元老院制约，陷入内战，被推翻，或是被公然杀害的例子比比皆是。总有一些派系和地区需要被安抚。
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katamuro
the article also completely does not mention a very important thing that happened at the time and which actually lead to europe having so many different ways on how to live.
The migration period which happened between 300AD and 800AD, which actually caused the late Roman Empire's invasions by various "barbarians" meant that all across Europe people were churning around, moving about, mixing, fighting. People were displacing cultures and societies that lived there, mixed together, formed new ones and then fractured again as another group moved in. THIS is what is responsible for the pluralism that the author of the article is so in love with. The fall of the roman empire added to it sure but it was far from the main event.

这篇文章也完全没有提到当时发生的一件非常重要的事情，事实上此事也导致了欧洲出现了这么多不同的生活方式。
在公元300年至公元800年之间出现了一段迁徙的时代，事实上也导致了罗马帝国后期的各种“野蛮人”入侵的情况，这意味着全欧洲的人都被剧烈搅动，四处迁移，混血，打仗。各族群取代了原本生活在那里的社会和文化，混合在了一起，形成了新的社会和文化，然后，随着另一个族群的迁入而再次分裂。正是这一点肇发了本文作者如此钟爱的多元主义。罗马帝国的败亡当然会强化这一趋势，但它根本就不是什么主要事件。

kingsandlionhearts
If nothing else, it's definitely feeding into a eurocentric world view of history, with the assumption that other empires followed similar models, both before and after the romans. There were many great Chinese emperors and dynasties over the centuries but the power of the emperor depends, and at no point did it erase the difference in cultures in those areas (tho, often empires will TRY to homogenize culture - but that's a different essay )

如果没有别的可能的话，那这文就绝对是在灌注欧洲中心主义的历史世界观了，文中的假设是：在罗马人之前和之后出现的其他帝国都遵循类似的模式。几个世纪以来，中国出现了很多伟大的皇帝和朝代，但皇帝的权力多寡都是要看情况的，而且在任何时候都没有消除各地区的文化差异（虽然，帝国往往会试图让文化同质化，但那是另一个话题了）。

One thing, I believe, they are ignoring in favor of this argument is the complicated relationship between empire and culture. The Islamic Empire of the 7th c to the 16th c were a single empire, but people living in what is today modern day Saudi Arabia and Morocco are going to have different cultural experiences simply due to the fact of geography and local histories to those regions. No central monarch is going to change that.

有一点，我相信他们为了支持这种主张而忽略了一点，那就是帝国和文化之间错综复杂的关系。从公元7世纪到公元16世纪的伊斯兰帝国是一个统一的帝国，但生活在今天的沙特阿拉伯和摩洛哥的人，他们的文化经历是不同的，而这完全是因为这些地区的地理状况和地方历史。任何位居中央的君主都无法改变这一点。
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Also ignores that most empires have to employ bureaucracy at some level in order to manage huge geographic areas. Certainly they could be sent in from the capital (and that definitely did happen) but just as often administrators would be from the local population, just for ease in governing the people there. This is even true in the Roman model (esp in the early period). King Herod was a subject of the Emperor Augustus, but he was made king in order to keep Judea peaceful and appease the customs of the local people.

此外，还忽略了大部分帝国必须在某种程度上采用官僚体制，以管理广大的地理区域。当然，官僚是可以从首都派过来的（这种情况绝对会发生），但同样常见的情况是，行政人员会来自当地的人群，只是为了方便管理那里的人民。甚至在罗马模式中也是如此（特别是在早期）。希律王是奥古斯都皇帝的臣民，但他被任命为国王，是为了保持朱迪亚地区的和平，乃至迁就当地人的习俗。
（译注：朱迪亚即古巴勒斯坦的南部地区）

The reason this happened was because of these bureaucratic structures. Even if the top was in disarray, the empire would continue to function and it becomes especially important that local governments can adapt to local and cultural needs in order to keep peace and prosperity. Eventually they'd sort themselves out and the empire would keep going. This would not happen without a certain level of decentralized power being spread out among a puralized people.

之所以出现这种情况，是因为这些官僚结构。就算上层陷入混乱，帝国也能继续运作，而为了保持和平与繁荣，地方政府能适应当地人和文化的需要就变得尤为重要了。最终他们能解决好的，帝国也会继续前进。如果不把权力在一定程度上分给多元化族群，这些就不会发生了。
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I would personally argue the roman empire ultimately fell because of the breakdown at the most basic level of governance in Europe in particular (as the byzantine empire continued for some time - which is essentially the same empire).

我个人的主张是，罗马帝国的最终败亡，原因是最基本的统治崩溃了，尤其是其欧洲部分（因为拜占庭帝国继续存在了一段时间，本质上同属于一个帝国）。

MrSnert
It’s a very interesting take.

这是一个非常有趣的观点。

It’s now pretty commonly accepted that Europe’s fragmentation and ‘backwater-ness’ drove it to become more enterprising and innovative than well-established and vast authoritarian empires, and it’s a reasonably short step from this idea to the conclusion that the fall of Europe’s very own vast, authoritarian empire was ultimately a boon to the historic trajectory of the region, but it does still leave the question: why???

现在为人们普遍接受的是，是欧洲的分裂和“闭塞落后”促使它变得比屹立已久的专制大帝国更富进取心和创新精神，而从这个想法，推出“欧洲自己的专制大帝国的败亡，对该地区的历史轨迹终究是有恩的”这个结论，算是合理的一小步，但它仍然留下了一个问题：为什么？

Why, unlike in much of Asia, or elsewhere, wasn’t one Empire quickly replaced by another? It’s not like the empires of Persia, the Near East, West-Africa, India or China never fell. They did, but Parthians succeeded Seleucids and were in turn followed by Sassanians; Ghana was succeeded by Mali, and in turn by Songhai; not to mention the long list of successive Chinese dynasties. The author doesn’t explain why this is the case, offering only that the Germanic kings were ‘bad’ at maintaining imperial institutions. That would just be the other side of a Weberian idea of an innate ‘ethos’ of a people or culture, and leaves a bad taste in my mouth at least.

为什么与亚洲大部分地区或其他地方不同，一个帝国并没有很快被另一个帝国取代？波斯、近东、西非、印度或中国的帝国也并不是从不灭亡啊。它们确实会败亡，但帕提亚人接替了塞琉古人，之后又被萨珊人接替；加纳被马里接替，之后又被桑海人接替；一长串前后衔替的中国历代王朝就更不用说了。作者并没有解释为什么会这样，他只说了日耳曼国王在维护帝制方面很“蹩脚”。这不过是韦伯式思想（关于一个民族或一种文化的先天“精神”）的另一面而已，至少给我的观感是不佳的。

We could point to natural geographical barriers or other reasons, but certainly the author doesn’t do so, leaving me with the sense that he inspires some interesting ideas but doesn’t ultimately ‘explain’ anything.

我们也可以指出天然的地理障碍或是其他原因，但作者肯定没有这么做，给我的感觉是，他激发出了一些有趣的想法，但终究没有对任何东西“作出解释”。

The Roman Empire was a vast swath of land that only really had one thing in common: Rome. What did Roman Britain have in common with Roman Egypt? They're geographically unrelated. Other civilizations like China are geographically confined and it both limited their spread and drew a border that other civilizations could not as easily cross, once these civilizations began to fill in their areas they became the very clear center of power and culture in these regions whereas by the time the Western Roman Empire fell there was no clear center of power and culture. The city of Rome was a shadow of its former glory. Roman territory was conquered and divided between different groups of people. There was no obvious locus of power or culture in post Roman Europe until Charlemagne, which was centered around modern Germany and France, not Rome.

（回）罗马帝国是一大片广袤的土地，这些地其实只存在一个真正的共同点：罗马。罗马的不列颠与罗马的埃及有什么共同点？在地理上它们八竿子打不着。而其他一些像中国这样的文明在地理上是受到限制的，既限制了其扩张，也划定了其他文明无法轻易跨越的边界，一旦这些文明开始填充其各个地区，它们就会成为这些地区中非常明确的权力和文化中心，而到西罗马帝国灭亡时，却不存在明确的权力和文化中心。罗马城只是其昔日辉煌的一个影子。罗马的领土被不同族群的人征服乃至分割。罗马之后的欧洲是没有明显的权力或文化中心的，直到查理曼大帝情况才有所改变，那时的中心是在现代德国和法国附近，而不是罗马。

>Other civilizations like China are geographically confined
Is that true? As I understand it China is just as chock full of mountains, forests, and rivers as Europe, plus a few deserts! On the other hand much of Europe is connected by a sea to the south. China has far more land-locked area than Europe - I would think that would make it more difficult to rule as a single empire.

（回）“其他一些像中国这样的文明在地理上是受到限制的”
真是如此吗？以我的理解，中国和欧洲一样充满了山脉、森林和河流，外加一些沙漠。而另一方面，欧洲大部分地区的南边都连着海。中国的内陆地区（被陆地四面环绕）比欧洲多得多，我觉得，因为有这一点，以一个统一的帝国去统治反而更难了。

Most of China's population is clustered on the coast and on the major rivers. The rest of China is pretty empty relatively speaking. There is a very clear center of power and if you control that, you have by far the largest number of people in the region under your control, which makes it easier to expand outward.

中国的大部分人口都聚集于沿海地区和主要河流上。相对而言，中国其他地区是相当空旷的。存在一个非常明确的权力中心，如果你控制了它，你便在该地区拥有了最多的人口，这也让对外扩张变得更容易了。

It should not take a military genius to see that whoever controls the big splotch of orange in the center of Eastern China has a massive advantage over everybody else until you cross the Himalayas. The vast steppes, deserts and mountains make the number of directions an invader can come from much more limited. China was only really vulnerable from the North and to a much lesser extent the South (which was generally not a problem). If you lived in Germany, you were at varying points in time vulnerable to being invaded from the North, the South, the East and the West. Population centers were much more spread out in Europe and subject to different invasions, whereas if you were invading China you would probably make a beeline for the rivers and coast and conquer most of it in one sweep. To get to the most populated regions of Europe, most invaders would need to fight their way through other, fairly formidable nations first like Spain, the Balkans, Poland which made conquering all of Europe more difficult as regional powers were all generally quite capable and faced the test of time. Regional powers in China were typically temporary because it was only a matter of time until one of them managed to steamroll the others. European nations had a very difficult time conquering each other generally and due to invasions by completely different groups during the fall of Rome they had no long lasting cultural lixs. The Anglo-Saxons had no cultural relation to the Visigoths. A Chinese warlord would see all of the major Chinese population centers as part of one region called China whereas Iberia and England were viewed as different places with different people.

我不是军事天才都能看出来，谁控制了中国东部中心的一大块橙色，谁就拥有了凌驾于其他人的巨大优势，一直到你翻越喜马拉雅山为止。广袤的大草原、沙漠和山脉使得入侵者前来的方向更有限了。中国真正容易受到攻击的方向只有北方，从南方攻来的严重程度就轻得多了（通常都不会成为问题）。如果你住在德国，你会在不同的时间点上，很容易受到来自北方、南方、东方和西方的入侵。欧洲的人口中心更加分散，会遭受各种不同的入侵，而如果你打算入侵中国，你可能就得沿着河流和海岸线走直线，一次扫荡就能征服中国的大部分地区。而为了到达欧洲人口最多的地区，大多数入侵者必须先以武力穿过其他一些巨难对付的国家，比如西班牙、巴尔干半岛、波兰，这就让征服整个欧洲变得更困难了，因为地区性强国大都很有能力，而且在时间中经受过考验。中国的地区性强国通常都是暂时的存在，因为其中的一个地区性强国成功碾压其他国家只是个时间的问题。欧洲国家的相互征服通常都很艰难。而且由于在罗马覆灭期间被完全不同的族群入侵，他们之间不存在绵延长久的文化联系。盎格鲁-撒克逊人和西哥特人在文化上没有联系。一个中国军阀，会把所有主要的中国人口中心，视为一个叫做中国的地方的一部分，而伊比利亚和英格兰则会被视为不同的地方，民族也不同。

The two most plausible ways for Europe to form a united identity would be Eastern Roman reconquest, which almost happened but failed, or a united France-Germany region like what we saw with Charlemagnes Frankish Empire, which also failed. Most attempts to unite Europe came from France and Germany, but the Eastern Romans made a campaign towards that obxtive far earlier. Alternatively, create an alt-history where the Western Roman Empire never falls. What needs to happen to form a solid European identity is that strong regional identities need to not become established at all and regional military powerhouses need to not ever be created, so it is only really plausible for a few centuries after Western Roman collapse. Napoleon and Hitler would never have created a Pan-European identity even if they succeeded in their conquests. Rome and the Franks are the best vehicle for that and they both failed to do it.

欧洲形成统一身份认同的两种最合理的方法，一是东罗马人的重新征服，这事儿差一点就成真了，但失败了；二是如我们所见的查理曼大帝的法兰克帝国那样，打造出一个统一的法国-德国地区，这也失败了。大多数统一欧洲的尝试都来自法国和德国，但东罗马人在早得多的时点上就朝向这个目标发起过征战。又或者，创造一个西罗马帝国从未沦亡的替代性历史。想要形成一个稳固的欧洲身份认同，需要发生的事情是：绝对不能让强大的区域身份认同逐渐建立起来，也绝对不能让区域军事强国建立起来，所以只有在西罗马帝国崩溃后的几个世纪中发生才算是真的合理。就算拿破仑和希特勒成功征服了欧洲，他们也绝对创造不出一个泛欧洲的身份认同。想要达此目的，罗马和法兰克人是最理想的载体了，可他们都失败了。
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X
This is the hidden factor the author is skipping over. It wasn't Rome's fall that led to European plurality, it was the shift from the Mediterranean as the seat of a centralized bureaucratic state that did it. This is because no one power could dominate the whole Mediterranean like Rome had after its fall, since the region was broken in two between Muslim and Christian states while Western European power was pushed beyond their reach in Northern Europe which had begun to cut down its forests and create a new densely populated region of localized power.
Other regions had major river systems that were either conquered by one state, or which regularly saw fractured powers fighting it out like in Europe. But unlike Europe, these rivers were vulnerable to outside invasions that tended to consolidate the whole area under one power with little in the way of geography to stop them. But an invader from the steppe or the Middle East couldn't feasibly reach the Rhine due to how far it was, and the major mountains and forests standing in their way.

以下是被作者遗漏的隐藏因素。导致欧洲多元化的并不是罗马的灭亡，而是这个中央集权官僚国家所在的地中海发生的转变。这是因为没有任何一个强国可以在罗马灭亡后像罗马那样主宰整个地中海，因为这个地区被穆斯林国家和基督教国家一分为二了，而西欧强国被逼到了他们无法企及的北欧，北欧已经开始砍伐森林，并打造出了一个新的人口稠密的本地化强国区。
其他地区的主要水系要么被一个国家征服，要么像欧洲一样经常出现各路碎片化的势力以武力定其归属的情况。但和欧洲不同的是，这些河流很容易受到外来入侵者的攻击，这类入侵往往会将整个地区统一在一个强国之下，几乎没有什么地理因素可以阻止他们。但来自大草原或中东的入侵者想要到达莱茵河是没有可行性的，因为距离太远了，而且有大山和森林挡住了他们的路。

WhiskeyTigerFoxtrot
This is revisionist history being pushed for the purpose of creating a narrative analogous to the U.S losing its place as the forefront of power.

你这是修正主义历史观，你力推它的目的，是创造出一种类似于“美国失去了权力前沿的地位”的叙事。
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Borigh
Man, I hate this argument. I am positive that even during the Carolingian Renaissance, your average person would strongly prefer to be living in the middle of the reign of Antoninus Pius

天呐，我好讨厌这种主张。我很确定，即使在卡洛林文艺复兴时期，普通百姓也更愿意生活在安东尼·皮乌斯皇帝统治的中期。
（译注：卡洛林文艺复兴（Carolingian Renaissance）发生于公元8世纪晚期至公元9世纪，是由查理大帝及其后继者在欧洲推行的文艺与科学的复兴运动）

Tell that to the 30 to 40% of slaves in Italy proper, or the 15% throughout the empire.

（回）去跟意大利本土的30到40%的奴隶说这话吧，或是整个帝国人口中15%的奴隶。

The life of most serfs, which was 90%+ of Europe was not much better than a Roman slave

（回）大部分奴隶的生活，也即欧洲90%以上的人口，并不比罗马的奴隶好多少。
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Constantine made it illegal to kill slaves.

（回）康斯坦丁大帝规定了杀害奴隶为非法。

In Russia it wasn't until Catherine the great that serfs couldn’t be executed for no reason by their lords

（回）而在俄罗斯，直到叶卡捷琳娜大帝，主人才不可以无缘无故地处决奴隶。

eqVnox
What does "humanity" mean here. Asia had and still has a lot more people than Europe and the existence or inexistance of Rome means diddly squat to them.

你说的“人类”是什么意思。无论是过去还是现在，亚洲的人口都远多于欧洲，罗马是存在还是不存在，对他们来说没有任何意义。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Today's China has an impact on many countries of the world. I guess the fall of ming dynasty was a lucky break as well

（回）今天的中国对全世界很多国家都产生了影响。我猜，明朝的灭亡也是一种命运的转机。

Akitsan
Blasphemy, when Rome fell all real men cried.

简直亵渎神明啊，罗马灭亡时，所有的真汉子都哭了。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

GenericPCUser
This whole thing reads like another drop in a long line of scholarly debate that tries to day "Actually, Europe was a super special, unique place in all the world and nowhere else even compares."
To call it Eurocentric is almost redundant. The only difference is that this brand of Eurocentrism is based on praising the feudal period rather than the imperial period.

整篇文章读起来就像是一长串学术辩论中的一部分，这些辩论试图证明“事实上，欧洲是一个在全世界超级特别且独一无二的存在，其他任何地方都无法与之相比。”
说它是欧洲中心主义都显多余。唯一的不同是，这个品类的欧洲中心主义是基于赞美封建时期，而不是帝国时期。