Just for fun, I checked if any of the comments knew anything of history. Turns out, they did.

Comment 1:

Feudalism was based around land/ farming and was associated with medieval Europe. (ie- after the fall of Rome.) Feudalism is all about farming and they were sedendary peasants not travelling foragers.

Not exactly right, but mostly - feudalism is based on the lord-vassal relationship, but obviously, that deals with with farming land.

2. The emancipation of women and children in Rome. Huh? Rome did not have anything close to a 19th or 20th century concept of individual rights for women and children. (or men) Totally different understanding of rights and citizenship. There was no modern day understanding of “human rights.”

And places like colonial British North America had child support laws. The existance of those laws don’t necessarily tell you anything about the legal status of women and children. All they mean is that politcally connected fathers of daughers wanted compensation for the loss of her labor and the cost of raising the child. It was compensation for a transgression of the rights of fathers. Puritan Massachusetts and Conneticut had fairly generous divorce laws in place. Men were punished for fornication & bastardy and were docked money for child support. Do you think the Puritans were a bunch of feminists?

3. Rome was a slaveholding society throughout its history with all of the associated hierarchies. Whadaya mean a concept of individual/human rights?

4. The cause-effect of feminism and historical change are underanalyzed in this post. (And feminism/ human rights are not well defined.) The Industrial Revoloution and the growth of human rights are ignored. And, as we know, Rome never experienced that particular historical change.

By 1860 a women’s rights movement was well underway in the USA, operating in conjunction with the anti-abolition movement. It wasn’t 20th century second-wave feminism that profoundly changed the world in terms of child/women’s rights — it was the 19th century industrial revolution.

Comment 2:

seriously, i hate feminism as much as the next man (i mean man, not feminized reader of NYBT) and love Rome and roman culture as much as the next Italian (i am Italian myself), but this dude does not know what he’s talking about.

Material wealth is astounding (by ancient standards) but the rest is bullshit. Citizens do need to work. The only ones who do not need to work are a small fraction of the population (maybe 5%-10%) who enjoy aristocratic power or official positions and owns much land administered by their slaves or rented out. The rest of the citizens (I am excluding the slaves) need to work the land (80% of the population is made up by farmers) to have a livelihood. In Rome lives also a sizable number of ‘have-nots’ who either have to join the military or work as servant or thugs for the rich elite in order to survive.

Democracy? Rome was ruled by a small elite of aristocrats who constantly fought against each other causing repeated bloodshed in the city. The plebs only elect two tribunes who have veto power on some issues but no other power. The rest of the officials are members of the aristocracy.

Human rights? Difficult issue. Romans do not have human rights per se’ (political enemies constantly killed each other) nor a constitution that guarantees life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They had some political rights and there was a widespread use of courts to settle matters, but they have no developed idea of human right but rather of privileges, honors and duties associated with social positions.

Animal rights? Yeah, right.

Science? unfortunately Rome did not know science as it is, or ever really developed scientific method. The only thing they had is technical development caused by engineering and agricultural improvements (which again was unprecedented by historical standards but dwarfed by what the Anglos have done from 1600 on).

I stop here with a simple consideration: the fall of the Roman empire has probably more to do with the inherent instability of their political system (they were never able to find a system -or a culture- that guarantees pacific and stable transfer of power) and the technological problem of governing an empire that covered most of Europe and modern Middle East (think about it: the Empire went from Scotland to Iraq. Would a modern State be able to govern that, even with modern technology? I doubt it)