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The great myth of empire collapse
Societal downfalls loom large in history and popular culture but, for the 99 per cent, collapse often had its upsides
Armed men rounding up women to sell them into slavery or public crucifixions are today seen with dismay when done by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq but, as the historian Walter Scheidel observed, these were a normal sight in Rome during its peak. In the space of a century or two, the Mycenaeans (the palace-dwelling overlords of Greece) fell apart and gave way to the Greek dark age, the pharaohs of the New Egyptian Kingdom lost power, and the Hittite Empire fractured into a set of squabbling rump states. That is especially true of ‘post-collapse’ fiction, such as Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road(2006) and the Mad Max film franchise, where gangs of armed, barbaric, patriarchal men roam a landscape of dilapidated buildings, preying on the occasional ragtag band of survivors.
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