【龙腾网】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

正文翻译

（作者沃尔特·谢德尔为斯坦福大学教授，相关著作：Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity (2019)（《逃离罗马：帝国的失败与繁荣之路》）

评论翻译

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。

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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。

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。