The fall of Rome has preoccupied many people for centuries. Untold books have been dedicated to the subject. Much research has been done and many theories have been offered, but we still lack a clear and definitive, as well as widely accepted, hypothesis about the end of one of the greatest civilizations the human species has ever concocted. The hypothesis that is closest to my heart is that Rome fell from within. It was exposed to many challenges, but the greatest challenge was lack of conviction in its survival in Rome itself, and especially among the ruling classes. By and by, they lost faith in themselves. There is quite a bit of evidence behind this hypothesis, but it is still far from the winning one.

What is even more surprising is that there have been no serious attempts to reconsider the fall of Rome and make an attempt to retrace the mistakes that led to its fall, at least in theory. Counterfactual ideas of this ilk have never been popular among scholars, to be sure. Given the accumulated knowledge about Rome, such an attempt would not be entirely uninteresting. If anything else, it could help guide attempts to retrace the mistakes that are leading to the imminent fall of our own civilization. But why would such an exercise be of any interest if the fall of our civilization were indeed inevitable? Would retracing mistakes not be entirely futile, anyway?

It surely would this time around, for there would be no way to go back in time and fix all the mistakes made over many centuries, but it could be of some value to future generations, so that they would not repeat them in their own time. Given the amount of time left till the fall of our civilization, following which such exercises will become impracticable if not also unimaginable, retracing and matching mistakes that led to the fall of both Rome and our civilization strikes me as a useful exercise still. Perhaps future generations can learn from past generations, for it is not yet time to lose faith in the evolution of the human species. Perhaps mistakes well understood can be averted in the fullness of time. Docendo discimus.