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Chapter 4: Empires after Rome.From a technical standpoint this subtitle is incorrect. In the far east an outpost of the Roman Empire did survive the invasion, which continued on for another thousand years. It became the Byzantine Empire. Its capital, Constantinople, came to be called "The Second Rome." In later years the Russian Empire had ambitions to succeed the Byzanine Empire, by which Moscow had hoped to become "The Third and Final Rome." It is evident that the axioms that had controlled the Roman Empire's policies, which had caused its self-destruction, were not reversed when the empire began to run out of steam. They were not even reversed in order to save the empire when its existence became increasingly precarious. Instead, the same defective policies that had caused the Empire to decay, became even more emphasized. Nor were these axioms defeated with the defeat of the Empire, itself. They continued to affect the succeeding empires long after the fall of Rome. Even the name of Rome continued to be sought, in spite of the pain and destruction that it had represented to humanity. After the Carolingen Empire collapsed, that had arisen out of the ashes of Rome, a new empire rose that would be called the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither really Roman, nor holy. It had merely adapted the same type of centralized structure of control that had characterized the Roman Empire so infamously. The rise of imperial domination that ended the Greek Classical Culture, was echoed by a similar rise of imperialism that began in the 16th century, which eventually defeated the modern period of renaissance that grew out of the Golden Renaissance in Italy beginning in the 15th century. The modern imperialism, that defeated mankind's last period of renaissance, was structurally different than the old Roman imperialism and the feudal empires that followed, though it was still feudalist in nature. It operated on a vastly different basis. A whole new type of feudalism emerged that had begun to develop in the background even before the Renaissance had fully unfolded. It would become the precursor of today's feudal, imperial, world-financial system. By the late 1400s Venice had become the chief force in commercial trade and in feudalist financial looting, for which Venice had earned such disdain among the rest of the European powers that the powers of Europe actually united in a common military effort, the League of Cambrai, to rid the world of Venice. Although the League was successful on the battle field, it's final victory was betrayed by the Pope who relented in response to intense Venetian diplomacy. Thus the primary looting empire and leading slave trader of Europe was saved from destruction. Venice responded with a counter-offensive, designed to prevent the reoccurrence of such an attack on its existence by the forces of the Renaissance. It was all done diplomatically, of course, by infiltrating the Reformation, and by starting the Counter-Reformation. The tactic was to create two powerful factions and to play them off against each other. This kind of tactic the Venetians had perfected long ago. It would be reused many times, thereafter, including the time when it became desirable for the British Empire to set the stage for World War I in order to prevent the greatest economic development project that was ever imagined up this point - a rail link from Europe to China and Japan. Against the background of the stirred up ideological conflict between the Reformation and the Counterreformation, both of which were promoted by Venice simultaneously, the infamous Thirty Years War erupted that devastated Europe over a span of almost 50 years. The military atrocities of this time were said to have been the worst ever committed, that were superseded only in the darkest days of the 20th Century. Entire economies had become erased, and the land destroyed to the point that it resembled a wasteland. In some areas three quarters of the population had been wiped out. || - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||
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