Firstly, thank you, Andrey Korotayev, for permitting the mention of my
name in this august forum (and apologies for mispelling yours in the header).
Over the years, I have evolved both conspiratorial and nonconspiratorial
theories to account for the aforementioned conditions of existence; but as
this wasted much time, I settled upon the strategy of Maximum Unspeakability.
The general-ish subject matter at hand is *noneconomic motives* in world-
system exchange, and behind exchange, production. This, technically, is
called *embeddedness*. For elaboration, consult the voluminous writings of
Mark Granovetter on economic sociology. For calculus-challenged, like me,
you may surely write to Mark Granovetter <mgranovetter@STANFORD.EDU>; he is
helpful to a fault (in case of systemcrash, etc, try granov@LELAND.STANFORD.
EDU>).
In a previous post, I mused (where "muse" is a fairy with wings, like the
White Rock Girl) about the indubitable facts that (a) Romans expanded aggress-
ively to the East, not merely against the hapless Parthians, but against the
far more formidable (Persian) Sassanids, even, as I put it, as far as regarding
with complaisance, apathy, or worse, the suppositiously Dire Peril of "the
Germans coming through the window." (b) The direction of expansion reflected
the control of greater or, when the Romans lost, lesser lenghts of the western
end of the Silk Route from China. The vast riches derivable from Silk Route
commerce, via Persia to the frontier, then via Euphrates riverboat or caravan,
was amply demonstrated by the Empire of Palmyra, "the city state which got
grandiosity delusions," and, by paying vast sums of money where it'd do the
most good, bribery qua economic good as yet inadequately theorized in terms
of the sinequanonish firstorder differential equations, took over one third
of the Roman Empire without striking a blow during 268-270. (Alas, it goes
to show you what happens when effeminate women are in charge; the Virile
Albanian, Aurelian, gave Zenobia of Palmyra what was coming to her, bondage,
golden chains from the kinkiest sexshop in Syria, and exhibited the lady in
a human zoo in Rome, selling tickets to get in. Those interested in that
sort of thing will find solid gold handcuffs, slavebracelets, and such, sold
in Neiman Marcus and wherever expensive femininity is pushed. Far more
importantly, Aurelian by decreeing the birthday of Sol Invictus of Emesa as
a legal holiday, compelled Jesus Christ and Mithra to have been born on the
same day, which is today called "market share.") [Note: Zenobia's likeness
formerly appeared on the Syrian Arab Republic One Hundred Pound note; however,
antiArab fanaticism precludes at this time my looking up in Section 3, Monkey
Business, of the NY Times to ascertain if it's worth the paper it's printed
on. The Syrian money, I mean.
(c) and most interestingly, the Roman wars against Persia, however indubi-
tably, indissolubly associated with Silk Route control, never broke out with
that control uppermost, or even, possibly, in the Top 40. Scholars considering
themselves part of Western Civilization, yet unsure as to what is meant by Top
40, sit tight, and a transistor radio will arrive on your doorstep: The sound
quality is atrocious, as this is called AM, albeit having nothing to do with
the prenoon hours; the Top 40 is played round the clock.
In short, The Decline And Fall of the Roman Empire is nothing but a Euro-
centric narrative, or worse (try, eurocentric selfdeceptive delusion cum
idelogical misrepresentation having the function of grandiosity facilitation
as in eg Rise Of The West.)
All the evidence for the above, and much much more, is found in:
Benjamin Isaac, The Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East, 1990.
Fergus Millar, The Roman Near East, 1993.
Neither of these authors denounce The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
as such. There are other ways to do it which Decent historians may use. Isaac,
for his part, takes out after the once-fashionable (at the height of the US
National-Security State) anachronism, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire.
There exists a "Classic Comic," ie, readable by a dyslexic in an hour, by
Arther (no typo) Ferrill, Prof of History, U of Washington (State), The Grand
Strategy of the Roman Empire.
The trouble with Littwak & epigones' conjectures, suppositions, and rational
calculations of strategic interest based upon ideological domain assumptions
wherein "interest" is embedded which are of extremely recent origin, is that
the basic concepts of the Grand Strategy doctrine did not exist in antiquity.
Such as, eg, Interstate Frontiers. Cost-benefit analyses. Accurate maps with
corresponding topographical knowledge. Cohesive and collegial General Staff
body charged with overall disposition of forces in proportion to salience of
needs or interests, strategic or tactical. Unquestioned and unchallenged
paramountcy of military-strategic imperatives in terms of the inner logic
of cost-benefit peculiar to the military art itself. There's more.
What has no place in any Grand Strategy is commanders' egotripping. (In
former Communist states, substitute "cult of personality.") The latter,
however, is the foremost among what lame excuses for casus belli were
recorded. There follows the war. At the close of the war, there is Peace
made, intended, piously stated, to endure for a length of time anticipated
by nobody with any sense. In the Peace, as signed, is a provision moving
the place of uniquely approved, by Roman and Persian governments, trafficking
between Romans on one side of the line and Persian subjects on the other. Now,
I've just sort of read yet another book on the period, which has the inestima-
ble virtue of being, basically, about Spiritual Matters; warfare is mentioned
en passant, as the protagonists, Constantine The Great and his mouthpiece
Eusebius of Caesaraea, were up to their eyeballs in The Rise of Christianity,
hence might well do without needless distractions of Principalities and Powers.
Even if, by now, this was them.
We look, consequently, for the following telltale signs:
(a) War against "Barbarian" Germans, inconclusive and quickly forgotten.
(b) Serious, glory-conferring manly strife against the Persian foe.
(c) The occurrence of (b), preferably, in close temporal propinquity to (a).
(d) The motive for (b), especially where or wherein it occurs in the guise
of temper tantrums, spitework (ie, intra-elite or intra-oligarchical intrigue).
(e) Thrust of Roman military activity in direction of Persian capital,
Ctesiphon. Notably important when Germans are at the time coming through the
window.
(f) Roman annexation of territory, adding to North Mesopotamian base,
extending power eastward, even beyond the Tigris; or southward, to Ctesiphon;
or both. While the Germans are coming through door and window both, unless,
of course, they are fighting on the Persian front.
(g) Tsarist Ploys, ie, after 325, the posturing by the Roman Emperor as
Protector of All The Christians of the East, wherever these may be found,
whether they like it or not.
My sample, unwitting. source is Timothy D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius,
Harvard University Press, 1981; Fifth Printing, 1996.
Page 4. Carus, in 282, overthrows Probus (275-282), who is of course killed.
Two sons, Carinus and Numerianus, made Caesars. Plans for aggressive war on
Persia begin. Carinus, in West, declares victory over Germans, no facts about
war or peace survive. Carus and Numerianus marched to Ctesiphon "without
meeting serious opposition" due to Persian civil war; all three emperors
styled *Persici maximi*. Carus "killed by lightning" near Ctesiphon; Romans
retreat. Numerianus, sick, does not appear in public; found murdered in
litter in accordance with Roman political tradition. Diocletian seizes power,
November 284. Carinus quickly stomped in West.
Page 6. Diocletian makes sluggish war on Sarmatians. Turns with greater
interest to war on Persia. War with Persia, 287; Persians chicken out, send
tribute and lavish gifts; invite Diocletian to "summit meeting," yield
territory west and south of Tigris, give up all claim to Armenia.
Maximian, in Gaul, meanwhile, has rough going with Bagaudae peasant war.
Opportunistic German raids by Burgundians, Alamanni, Chaibones, Heruli cross
Rhine, invade Gaul. Victory declared. Germans appointed commanders of Germans
(Franks and Saxons) committing "harassment" on Northwest Gaul. No mention of
suit filed with EEOC or of lewd jokes, girlie calanders, &c. Maximian hangs
out in Milan, picks new leader against one or another of the Enemies; name
of Carausius. Soon rises, himself, to top of Enemies List.
Page 7. Carausius, in command of Britain plus Western Gaul, secedes from
Empire, 286. Rebels raid in direction of Italy, cause embarassing interruption
of installation of new consuls, 1 January, 287. Maximian smites rebels into
retreat, a skirmish of no consequence; then celebrates Triumph for himself.
Maximian devotes year 287 to inconclusive campaigns against Germans, who
obstinately refuse to stand and get decisively beaten. Franks, allied with
Carausius, make peace with Maximian, which makes no difference and changes
nothing; Frankish king Gennoboudes handed huge tracts of *agri deserti* near
Trier.
Page 10 ff. 287-296. Maximinus fails to suppress Carausius. 296, Carausius
murdered. Suceeded by Allectus, beaten by Constantius, 296.
Page 17. 296. Diocletian in East, where he always wanted to be: Persia
at war with Rome, scores initial successes. Narseh defeats Roman army, recovers
Mesopotamian territory lost to Rome in 287. Narseh forced to retreat, however,
notwithstanding tactical victory. Galerius blamed for defeat; "publicly
humiliated" in Diocletian's Triumph when latter rode in chariot whilst Galerius
was forced to follow on foot. This was a grave "head trip" by Diocletian. But
Galerius *gets even* with spectacular victory, capturing Narseh's wife, harem,
and treasury. Nisibis captured, 1 October, 298. Ctesiphon captured soon after.
Page 18: Treaty of 299.
(a) Persia cedes territory to Rome. Tigris now the boundary.
(b) Nisibis sole legal "place of commercial exchange between Roman and
Persian traders.
(c) Roman protectorate extended over all Armenia.
(d) King of Iberia (modern Georgia) to be Roman apointee; country becomes
Roman protectorate.
(e) Five Persian satrapies between Tigris and Armenia become de facto
Roman protectorates.
------------------
There is much more, and it is just as boring. The question becomes, why
is it that, if military glory motivates conquest in the direction of the Silk
Road, which is no accident, why is this particular direction of expansion so
glorious?
The answer must lie in the character of Persia as a major power with an
organized, structured, hierarchical state and social order, basking, it might
have seemed from the Roman side, in the vast riches of the East. Great Kings,
King-of-Kings, with Ancestors in Hoary Antiquity, sitting on top of the route
to India onceuponatime stomped by Alexander The Great, emulation-object of each
and every would-be Roman conqueror in the same direction. In theery or in
principle, it would, should, have been possible, at least imaginable, to smite
such a foe in the central neural ganglion, ie, its power elite, ruling circles,
most sacred and holy mythosymbolic shrinery. As an enemy, the Persian possessed
that most highly prized character of being *almost as good*, though not all
that often, thanks be to Jupiter and the boys; and what's at least as
delightful, the Persian stands and fights like a man, not to say a man like
Our kind of man, but sort of, well, almost, uh....
The German, contrariwise, can neither be easily victorious nor easily
defeated, in the best of circumstances. In less ideal circumstances, the
German may even roll right over us, Romans, as if we weren't there at all.
But, suppose the best, anyway. Should we Romans win, what we have won is
boring wasteland, thinly populated; nearly so, in fact, as the *agri deserti*
on our side of the river. We've necessarily got to sit tight, wait for some
considerable mass of would-be marauders to assemble, then in the event of even
the most magnificent victory, in terms of Body Count, we're talking Vietcong
of Antiquity, remember, that's allowed in this sort of perpetual futility in
the guise of War, we can do no better than offer the survivors Honest Jobs in
our *agri deserti* which will get repopulated, were we Christians, we'd say,
"When hell freezes over."
At least, it may be supposed, the warfare over the Silk Route is not, in
direct fashion, motivated by glory appertaining to the silk qua silk. Thus
far, no cataclysmic heresy has cropped up to threaten World System Theory.
But suppose now we consider the defensible proposition that the vast bulk
of human commerce is not motivated by commercial considerations per se. That's
to say, it doesn't go on by reason of some instinct to truck, barter, exchange,
or make money (not yet invented when world systems got started, right, AGF?).
Commerce is *embedded* in culture, and is driven, prior to capitalist
times, by RELIGION, SEX, DRUGS, DISEASE, and *CHACHKAS*. [Note: An Afghan
carpet on a Jewish living room is a *chachka*, pricey, perhaps, but
*chachka* nonetheless. As another form of "embeddedness," *warfare drives
trade as much as trade drives warfare* or anything else.
SEX includes not merely sex practices, such as the accumulation of human
zoos of women by the elite (with concomitant consumption patterns impinging
upon trade); also, kinship, marriage, and whatever might be related thereto,
but long-distance trade in women, for example. The commodification of China
during the Song period (960-1279), for example, led to the mass-marketing and
long-distance transport of women as commodities in their own right, replete
with Brokers, Brochures, Catalogues, and the whole paraphanelia of what'd
be called "white slavery," except that the victims weren't white. This evil
has persisted for a thousand years, with the difference, today, in the Peoples
Republic, that it's not *nominally* illegal. Big ****** deal.
DRUGS subsume, not merely tea, coffee, opium, or *narcotrafico*, but half
the foreign trade of the Song dynasty maratime efflorescence, about a thousand
years ago. (Shiba Yoshinobu, "Sung Foreign Trade: Its Scope and Organization,"
In Morris Rossabi (Ed.), China Among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its
Neighbors, 10th-14th Centuries. University of California Press, 1983.
DISEASE is often considered as a variable of secondary importance; it is
rightly pointed out that the highest deathrates in pandemics are found among
those on the verge of starvation anyway, or enfeebled due to pressure of
population on resources. Yet, who dare cite a case of precapitalist society,
barely-subsisting on what passes for good crops in some years, with worse for
average performance. Life, until very recently, and then in the most scattered
locations, was, let's face it, crap.
The impact of commercialism itself may have impinged upon the nutritional
level attributable to pandemics. In China, peasants subsisting as tenants on
commercial estates selling food, fiber, and industrial crops to cities (where
bubonic plague death rates are invariably highest) died like flies from famine
with the absence of consuming populations, already dead. In relatively more
backward Europe, with smaller cities and lesser commercialization, rates paid
by landlords for wage labour rose almost immediately (Statute of Labourers,
1349).
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Sorry. This, I believed, was the last day I'd be able to use the computer,
hence I failed to write the smallest fraction of what was intended.
Now for the good news. I'm leaving Chicago, and with any luck, will not
be subscribing to any more e-mail lists.
Daniel A. Foss