The Fall of Rome take heed that we do not fall to the same fate
By Melvin J. Howard
The Roman Empire's equivalent of the Federal Reserve started out in a Temple devoted to the Goddess Juno, the highest Roman Goddess, and not to any of the big brawny male gods. According to Jack Weatherford's book entitled "The History of Money", the Roman goddess Juno represented the genius of womanhood and was the patroness of women, marriage and childbirth. It is ironic that today the Federal Reserve, banking in general is primarily a male affair. Though the Federal Reserve has the obligatory affirmative -action on its Board it is presently unoccupied because either no females have been found appropriate for the girl seat, or have no desire to be on it.
The goddess Juno had a few last names depending on which job she was doing. For example she was Juno Lucina for protecting pregnant women and Juno Moneta as patroness of the Roman state. Moneta came from the Latin word Monere which means "to warn" because the geese that lived around the Juno temple honked loudly whenever invaders were nearby.
As patroness of the Roman state Juno Moneta had to preside over some stately activities such as the issuing of money. The Roman denarius coin of 269 BC was manufactured in the Juno Moneta temple and bore her image and last name "Moneta". This is where the name "money" comes from.
Jack Weatherford writes that Rome built the world's first empire based on money, rather than government, as the main organizing principle. Most of the real commercial growth of Rome occurred during the so-called Republican era, prior to the rise of Julius Ceaser in the 1st century BC, and the long line of Emperors (or dictators) to follow.
The early Roman emperors were aware of how commerce and markets could be used to enhance their imperial power. From Ceaser onwards the issuing of money was pretty much taken out of the hands of the followers of the Godess Moneta and control was passed to the ruling Emperor and minted coins bore his image. It was at this point that money was elevated from "medium of exchange" to "tool of empire" and so the trouble began with the Roman Monetary System.
Thereafter trade increased and Rome increased its wealth by conquering other lands and appropriating their resources. H.G. Wells wrote in "The Outline of History" that "Rome was a political and financial capital a new sort of city. She imported profits and tribute and very little went out of her in return. Wells then goes on to say of the speculative activity at the time "Men made sly and crude schemes to corner it, to hoard it, and to send prices up by releasing hoarded metals", speaking about the activities around money.
Roman Emperors got more money by conquering new lands and stealing their gold reserves, which they would then spend to conquer new lands. Increased spending sometimes required melting and reissuing more coins with the same amount of gold if not enough gold had been stolen recently. This led to devaluation of currencies and by the 1st century BC the Roman currency was already devalued to one forth the value of the earlier Moneta denarius. The Roman budget exploded following the conquest and robbing of many a European and Middle Eastern territory, including many of those same places that the United States has troops posted in today to ensure it's appropriation of modern gold - which is oil. Most of these budgets were then used to finance more military conquests, the permanent troops that needed to be posted in conquered lands, and "investment" in infrastructure in conquered lands.
By the time of the Roman Emperor Trajan, who ruled from 98 AD to 117 AD, the Roman budget exceeded its income from its profiteering and conquering activities. Rome was having some difficulty meeting all the expenses of having to keep permanent troops in occupied territories and numerous other expenses. The British Empire started having this same trouble in the 20th century too, which pretty much forced it to hand the Empire Baton to its friends in America.
Trajan the Emperor was quite the investor in infrastructure. He even built the world's first indoor shopping mall known as the Trajan Markets, and was responsible for huge investment in the Empire's travel and communications networks. Emperors of this time also liked to spend lavishly on "Romanizing" the conquered land with all the trappings of Roman culture that helped to amuse and occupy the people of conquered lands. This included the coliseums and amphitheaters that exported Roman entertainment throughout the empire. I suppose this had an effect of warming the people of conquered lands to the Roman Empire, similar to the export of American movies, television and other media. This also feeds back to help with mesmerizing people with the power of the Empire's currency.
With all these expenses and the increasingly sophisticated tools desired by the military forces it is no wonder the Emperors starting having massive budget shortfalls. They reacted in two main ways. One way was to tax the citizens of the whole empire, including all the provinces, more and more. The other way was to use the same amount of gold and silver to issue more and more coins. The latter only caused terrible problems of inflation as the greater money supply just forced prices up. The burdens of both of these tactics fall most heavily on the poor. And as with the broader American Empire the gap between the rich and the poor continued to widen as poor people were forced to sell off their real assets, animals, land, work tools, etc. - to pay their taxes. In the Roman Empire, as with the American Empire, speculative activity probably came to dominate productive activity, much of the latter being performed by slaves or low paid persons. Roman farmers and small traders got taxed to the hilt and the unstable prices led them to go out of business.
The real economic infrastructure that had made the empire successful was collapsing as a result of the policies implemented by the ruling emperors to fund the continued occupation of provinces and infrastructure spending. Unrest and tensions built throughout the Roman Empire and the rulers could no longer control it. They had already stolen everything from the citizens and the provinces, so they ran out of funds to keep the empire going. The Empire could not sustain itself. It imploded from inequality, recklessness and stupidity. The implosion of the Roman Empire was so complete that it took another one thousand years for the money economy to return.
Today we are at that very same crossroad this will be a defining moment in American history. Will we go the way of the mighty Roman Empire collapsing under its own weight and self-denial or will we re-invent and transform the country into the global leader with a conviction to stop the downward slide we find ourselves in today. Historians will write the final verse to this chapter. I wish I could turn to the end of the book and see how it turns out.
