Ancient Rome’s Collapse Is Written into Arctic Ice

Re:Ancient Rome’s Collapse Is Written into Arctic Ice by zdragnar on Wednesday May 23, 2018 @10:52AM (#17134616)

> A team of archaeologists, historians, and climate scientists have constructed a history of Rome’s lead pollution, which allows them to approximate Mediterranean economic activity from 1,100 b.c. to 800 a.d.

I think that better explains the broad span of time. Then again, if you were writing for an audience 1300 years in the future with little to no genuine knowledge of our time period (other than popular myth and oral tradition) that probably wouldn't be a bad year to start with, since that's not terribly long after major explorations to the West from Europe (Columbus "discovered" the Bahamas around 1492).

Edit: formatting of the quote

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Re:Ancient Rome’s Collapse Is Written into Arctic Ice by caiocaiocaio on Thursday May 24, 2018 @09:09AM (#17143584)

Okay, let me rephrase that: A lot of the territory Rome ruled was conquered in Caesar's lifetime (Gaul, most of their core Asian possessions). Most of Rome's noteworthy cultural achievements happened after Caesar was dead. Caesar laid the groundwork for Augustus's form of government, which would survive in some form for nearly 1500 years. So starting an article about Rome's decline with Caesar is like writing an article about the decline of computer science and starting it with Turing.

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