“Rome didn’t fall so much as erode away, its many strengths squandered on in-fighting, mismanagement and personal aggrandizement/corruption. More telling for the present is Goldsworthy’s identification of expansive, sclerotic bureaucracies that lost sight of their purpose. The top leadership abandoned the pursuit of the common good for personal gain, wealth and power. This rot at the top soon spread down the chain of command to infect and corrupt the entire institutional culture.  As the empire shrank and lost tax revenues, the Imperial bureaucracies continued growing, much as parasites attach themselves to a weakened host.”

http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.de/2013/04/how-empires-fall.html

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