The Decline and Fall of Civilisations

by Kerry Bolton

  While allusions to “race” by Professor Frank are enough for “zoological materialists” to spin a whole theory about Rome’s decline and fall by the miscegenation of the “white race” with blacks and Orientals, we now know from genetics that despite the invasions over centuries, the Italians, like the Greeks, have retained their original racial composition. What Frank is describing, by an examination of the records that show a disappearance of the leading patrician families, is that Rome was in a spiritual crisis, as all civilisations are when they regard child-bearing as a burden. As Julius Evola pointed out the “secret of degeneration” is that a civilisation rots from the top downward, and as Spengler pointed out, one of the primary signs of that rot is childlessness. That there were Roman statesmen with the wisdom to understand what was happening is indicated by Augustus’ efforts to raise the birth-rate, but to no avail. Of this symptom of moral decay, Professor Frank wrote:

  “In the first place there was a marked decline in the birth rate among the aristocratic families. … As society grew more pleasure-loving, as convention raised artificially the standard of living, the voluntary choice of celibacy and childlessness became a common feature among the upper classes. …”112

  Even the emperors had ceased to be of the founding lineage. Tacitus commented that “emperors could be made elsewhere than in Rome. By the third century A.D. they were generally made elsewhere.” Trevor-Roper states that “there were not only military emperors from the frontier: there were also Syrian, African and half-barbarian emperors; and their visits to Rome became rarer and rarer”.113 By 100 A.D. the population of the Empire began to contract. Provinces of the Empire such as Dacia and Germany could not be held. With the population decline of Romans those defending the Empire were drawn increasingly from the “barbarians”; Gauls, Illyrians, Germans, and Sarmatians. By 400 A.D. most of the Empire’s towns and cities had contracted to half the size they had occupied in 150 A.D. From the end of the second century to the fifth the rural population also declined.114 The urban centres were in a continual state of population flux from newcomers compensating for the shortage of Romans. Stark comments that the Graeco-Roman cities “were populated by strangers”.115

  So far as Roman marriage existed the numbers of children sired were small. Infanticide was widespread. Children were left in the streets for any passers-by, but more often the infant would die from the elements or from preying animals. The state aim of three children per family, despite inducements, could not be reached. The excavation of a villa at the port city of Ashkelon found the remains of 100 new-born babies thrown into a sewer.116

  Abortion was common. Many women died as a result, and many became infertile. 117 Despite the dangers, women resorted to abortion frequently to dispose of the offspring of an illicit liaison; poor women due to economic limitations, and wealthy women to avoid too many heirs to the estate. Philosophers including Aristotle and Plato justified abortion to prevent overpopulation; and their intellectualising rationalised under-population.118 Just as there were many techniques of abortion there were also many methods for birth control. Anal intercourse was a popular method.119

  By contrast the Christian and Jewish communities continued to uphold marriage. Hence, they remained the only fertile communities.120 When Christianity gained the ascendency and laid the foundation of Western civilisation on the ruins of Rome, it did so because it had maintained its vitality. So far from Christianity being responsible for Roman decline and fall, as contended by Edward Gibbon, Nietzsche and others, Rome had been in a state of decay for centuries. Its final collapse cleared the way for the Western.

  Urbanisation, the magnetic pull of the megalopolis, the depopulation of the land and the proletarianism of the former peasant stock as in the case of the West’s Industrial Revolution, impacted in major ways on the fall of Rome. A. M. Duff wrote of the impact of rural depopulation and urbanisation:

  “But what of the lower-class Romans of the old stock? They were practically untouched by revolution and tyranny, and the growth of luxury cannot have affected them to the same extent as it did the nobility. Yet even here the native stock declined. The decay of agriculture … drove numbers of farmers into the towns, where, unwilling to engage in trade, they sank into unemployment and poverty, and where, in their endeavours to maintain a high standard of living, they were not able to support the cost of rearing children. Many of these free-born Latins were so poor that they often complained that the foreign slaves were much better off than they, and so they were. At the same time many were tempted to emigrate to the colonies across the sea which Julius Caesar and Augustus founded. Many went away to Romanize the provinces, while society was becoming Orientalized at home. Because slave labour had taken over almost all jobs, the free born could not compete with them. They had to sell their small farms or businesses and move to the cities. Here they were placed on the doles because of unemployment. They were, at first, encouraged to emigrate to the more prosperous areas of the empire to Gaul, North Africa and Spain. Hundreds of thousands left Italy and settled in the newly-acquired lands. Such a vast number left Italy leaving it to the Orientals that finally restrictions had to be passed to prevent the complete depopulation of the Latin stock, but as we have seen, the laws were never effectively put into force. The migrations increased and Italy was being left to another race. The free-born Italian, anxious for land to till and live upon, displayed the keenest colonization activity”.121

  The foreign cultures and religions that came to Rome from across the empire changed the temperament of the Roman masses who were uprooted and migrating to the cities; where as in the nature of the cites, as Spengler showed, they became a cosmopolitan mass. Frank writes of this:

  “This Orientalization of Rome’s populace has a more important bearing than is usually accorded it upon the larger question of why the spirit and acts of imperial Rome are totally different from those of the republic. There was a complete change in the temperament! There is today a healthy activity in the study of the economic factors that contributed to Rome’s decline. But what lay behind and constantly reacted upon all such causes of Rome’s disintegration was, after all, to a considerable extent, the fact that the people who had built Rome had given way to a different race. The lack of energy and enterprise, the failure of foresight and common sense, the weakening of moral and political stamina, all were concomitant with the gradual diminution of the stock which, during the earlier days, had displayed these qualities. It would be wholly unfair to pass judgment upon the native qualities of the Orientals without a further study, or to accept the self-complacent slurs of the Romans, who, ignoring certain imaginative and artistic qualities, chose only to see in them unprincipled and servile egoists. We may even admit that had these new races had time to amalgamate and attain a political consciousness a more brilliant and versatile civilization might have come to birth”.122

  What is notable is not that the Romans miscegenated with Orientals, but that the uprooted, amorphous masses of the cities no longer adhered to the traditions on which Roman civilisation was founded. The same process can be seen today at work in New York, London and Paris. Duff wrote of this, and we might consider the parallels with our own time:

  “Instead of the hardy and patriotic Roman with his proud indifference to pecuniary gain, we find too often under the Empire an idle pleasure-loving cosmopolitan whose patriotism goes no further than applying for the dole and swelling the crowds in the amphitheatre”.123

  The Roman Traditional ethos of severity, austerity and disdain for softness that Emperor Julian attempted to reassert was greeted by “fashionable society” with “disgust”.124 Parkinson remarked that “there is just such a tendency in the London of today, as there was still earlier in Boston and New York”.125 These “world cities” no longer reflect a cultural nexus but an economic nexus. In the Late West, during the time of the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of the bourgeoisie, it is what “old wealth” was calling with disdain the “new rich”, who did not have
the sense of noblesse oblige that had been passed on through landed families for centuries; who, as we might say, lacked “class”, no matter what their wealth.

  India

  India is the most commonly cited example of a civilisation that decayed through miscegenation, the invading Aryans imposing a High Culture on India and then forever falling into decay because of miscegenation with the low caste “blacks”, or Dravidians. However, genetic research indicates that the higher castes have retained a predominately Caucasian genetic inheritance:

  “As one moves from lower to upper castes, the distance from Asians becomes progressively larger. The distance between Europeans and lower castes is larger than the distance between Europeans and upper castes, but the distance between Europeans and middle castes is smaller than the upper caste-European distance. … Among the upper castes the genetic distance between Brahmins and Europeans (0.10) is smaller than that between either the Kshatriya and Europeans (0.12) or the Vysya and Europeans (0.16). Assuming that contemporary Europeans reflect West Eurasian affinities, these data indicate that the amount of West Eurasian admixture with Indian populations may have been proportionate to caste rank.”

  “As expected if the lower castes are more similar to Asians than to Europeans, and the upper castes are more similar to Europeans than to Asians, the frequencies of M and M3 haplotypes are inversely proportional to caste rank.”

  “In contrast to the mtDNA distances, the Y-chromosome STR data do not demonstrate a closer affinity to Asians for each caste group. Upper castes are more similar to Europeans than to Asians, middle castes are equidistant from the two groups, and lower castes are most similar to Asians. The genetic distance between caste populations and Africans is progressively larger moving from lower to middle to upper caste groups”... “results suggest that Indian Y chromosomes, particularly upper caste Y chromosomes, are more similar to European than to Asian Y chromosomes.”

  “Nevertheless, each separate upper caste is more similar to Europeans than to Asians.”126

  Citing further studies, “…admixture with African or proto-Australoid populations” is “occasional”.127

  The chaos that afflicted India was of religio-cultural type rather than racial. Despite the superficiality of dusky hues, the Indian ruling castes have retained their Caucasian identity to the present. There was no genetic destruction of Indian Civilisation by miscegenation with “blacks”.

  The Real Meaning of Varna

  The caste system introduced by the Aryans was based on their social hierarchy prior to entering India. Among themselves there were priests, warriors and commoners. To these were added the sudra. Because the word caste, varna, also means “colour”, it was assumed by 19th century Indologists in Europe that this referred to race, and that the breakdown of the race-based caste system caused the collapse of Indian civilisation. Varna is the symbolic (heraldic) colour applied to the castes. While sudra (labourers) were “black”, the colour was symbolic of unenlightenment; one might say, “being in the dark”. By contrast the brahmana priests were “white”. The warrior, ksatriya caste was symbolised as red, the colour often associated with the martial ethos in numerous cultures, after the identity of the “red planet”, Mars. The vaishya, or merchants, were symbolised with yellow (gold).128 Hindu tradition describes varna symbolically:

  Sattwa, white colour, shining, wisdom, light;

  Rajas, red colour, reflecting energy, motion;

  Tamas, black colour, covering ignorance, darkness.

  Varna derives from the root word Vṛtra वृत्र, meaning essence or quality. This would be apt in describing the traditional meaning and purpose of castes of a hierarchical society: to maintain character. It is not traditionally a “colour bar” in terms of preventing miscegenation. The colour or varna symbolised the character of the caste one was born into. It is based on the maintenance of “race” as understood by tradition, defined by Oswald Spengler as “duration of character”, and of “having race”, as having a certain élan. To the brahmanic civilisation “having race” was fulfilling one’s dharma or cosmic duty and ensuring ones ritual purity by correctly performing the prescribed rites of purification, embodied to the highest degree by the brahman caste. This is explained in the Bhagavad Gita, the primary Hindu text:

  “The duties of the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras—are distributed according to their qualities, in accordance with their guṇas (and not by birth).

  “Tranquillity, restraint, austerity, purity, patience, integrity, knowledge, wisdom, and belief in a hereafter—these are the intrinsic qualities of work for Brahmins.

  “Valour, strength, fortitude, skill in weaponry, resolve never to retreat from battle, large-heartedness in charity, and leadership abilities, these are the natural qualities of work for Kshatriyas.

  “Agriculture, dairy farming, and commerce are the natural works for those with the qualities of Vaishyas. Serving through work is the natural duty for those with the qualities of Shudras.

  “By fulfilling their duties, born of their innate qualities, human beings can attain perfection. Now hear from me how one can become perfect by discharging one’s prescribed duties.

  “By performing one’s natural occupation, one worships the Creator from whom all living entities have come into being, and by whom the whole universe is pervaded. By such performance of work, a person easily attains perfection.

  “It is better to do one’s own dharma, even though imperfectly, than to do another’s dharma, even though perfectly. By doing one’s innate duties, a person does not incur sin.

  “One should not abandon duties born of one’s nature, even if one sees defects in them, O son of Kunti. Indeed, all endeavours are veiled by some evil, as fire is by smoke”.129

  With reference to the Sanskrit gunas गुण (18: 41) which means the quality or character of something, one sees the ethical and moral basis of varna. The Mahabharata, of which the Bhagavad Gita is a part, reiterates that sudra are those who are not in accord with the dharmic law of the cosmos, regardless of their birth:

  “The devotees of the Lord are not Shudras; Shudras are they who have no faith in the Lord whichever be their caste. A wise man should not slight even an outcaste if he is devoted to the Lord; he who looks down on him will fall into hell”.

  “A man does not become a Brahman by the mere fact of his birth, not even by the acquisition of Vedic scholarship; it is good character alone that can make one a Brahman. He will be worse than a Shudra if his conduct is not in conformity with the rules of good behaviour”.

  The Mahabharata states of Krishna’s warrior companion, Arjuna the archer, that he “put his dark arm” around the river goddess Ganga to console her.130 Tulsidas Ramayana relates that when Sita is asked by village women “which of the two men is your husband”, she answers, “the dark one [Rama] is my husband, the fair one is my brother in law”. Vyasa, who composed the Mahabharata, was the son of a fisherwoman and a brahman father. Valmiki, author of the epic Ramayana, was a hunter who became a brahman through his wisdom. Aitareya, who wrote the Aitareya Upanishad, was the son of a sudra woman.

  It is apparent that the caste system designed to assure a hierarchy based on character, allowed for social mobility. The assumption among those who see miscegenation resulting in the decay of Indian civilisation is that this was caused by the undermining of a race-based caste system. Earnest S. Cox for example, wrote of the “Hindu religion which gave its sanction to caste to preserve the Caucasian”, but that “the illegitimate mixed breeds in India twenty-five centuries ago had increased until they were more numerous that the whites”, giving rise to Buddhism, which stripped Brahminism of caste and sought to “level the races”.131 To the contrary, the caste system became ossified during India’s cycle of decline, when character no longer determined status. As has been seen, genetic studies show India is racially much as it has been since Vedic times, so miscegenation cannot account for the decay of her civilisation, and Buddhism was very quickly a
bsorbed into a resilient Hinduism without impacting the castes.

  The Indus Valley

  Supposedly a civilisation that succumbed to Aryan invasions from Afghanistan, the civilisation of the Indus Valley, primarily in what became Pakistan, was a vast culture region extending across 30% of the Indian landmass, whose trade relations extended to Sumerian. Skeletal evidence from Indus indicates “proto-Mediterranean” with a “Negroid” element, “broad nosed” with a large brain case.132 A “Veddid or Australoid ethnic strain appears to be at the base of the Indus people”.133 The widespread Aryan invasion of Indus, and the skull-cracking of its natives,134 is a long-held but now discredited myth. The Aryans appear to have been contemporaneous with the proto-Mediterranean and Indus ethnoi rather than later intrusions. The brahmanic religion that became Hinduism is likely to have had its roots in the Indus civilisation rather than having been introduced by Aryan invaders. The Vedic literature could reach as far back as before 3000 B.C. 135

  Settlements of cultivators in the Indus Valley date to 7000B.C. The Indus Valley civilisation extends through 2500 B.C. to 1900 B.C., although the civilisation had decayed by 1300.136 What might be called the “Spring epoch” in Spengler’s scheme, occurred for the Indus around 2600 B.C. The features of the Indus High Culture include: well-crafted seals with animal motifs; town planning including, drainage; a system of weights and measures; distinctive ceramic and figurine styles, and the emergence of a social hierarchy.137