ROME

There was no Greek Empire in Antiquity. They did it later, in Byzantine times, but not before Romans. They had Persian Empire in front of them, they were fighting wars on a regular basis, they had a fleet, colonies, triumphs of Marathon and Salamina ... Why no Empire?

VENICE

Venice became Venice because it's an ideal place for a port and shipyard: a well protected lagoon with several islands. Yet Roman Empire hasn't noticed the place until it fell in 476 into Dark Ages and even after that. The most revealing part about History is not that the Ancient Romans ignored the location, what's amazing is that Ancient Greeks and Phoenicians missed it too. Greeks, swimming from Greece, along the coast (as people used to do in old fragile ships), should've made Venice their first colony, the New Angoulême/Amsterdam/York of Italy. Yet ... Imagine North America colonized without establishing a city on Manhattan.

Actually I'm wrong here. Greeks did notice the place and established a colony, it all happened exactly as it should have happened: ... second half of the 6th and ... 7th century, Byzantine province of Venetia ... first historically attested doge ... served in the first half of the 8th century ... titles like hypatos, spatharios, protospatharios, protosebastos and protoproedros were granted by the emperor - the titles are in Greek because it's a Greek Empire.

SLAVS

Greeks didn't just go to Italy, they've encountered many Slavic tribes, and designed alphabet for them in 863. We know that Romans got their culture from Greeks as well, but we are being told that happened much earlier. Why? How did Greeks manage to ignore Slavic people right next to them while establishing close ties with Italians? If there were no Slavic people there yet - who was? Official story is that there was nobody there yet, so why haven't the Greeks (or Romans) populated Balkans instead? Those are some nice lands with nice climate, access to sea! Why conquer France, Britain, instead of just colonizing territories right next to you? Official story says they did, but later the Slavic tribes infiltrated the "weakened" colonies. I don't buy that since savage tribes can't take over the populated civilized territory: civilized population, especially cities, is way denser. Even if Slavs came and somehow conquered this territory, they would end up living in Greek/Roman cities and picking up their culture.

PROGRESS

Ancient Romans were bent on military conquest. Wars 24/7/365. You'd expect some military progress from an Empire that span from Britain to Egypt for few hundred years. Yet they finished in 476 with short swords and javelins they used 700 years before that. They failed to invent crossbow, windmill, gunpowder, plate armor, sea navigation, left no decent maps of anything, no scientific achievements, no math. Were they savages? No! They built, they wrote, they worshiped. Yet no military progress, as if they decided to stick to the old ways of doing things, like Amish. Some technologies we don't really see in Europe in medieval:

• steel - steel plate armor, crossbows and long swords appear only in late medieval
• wheel - no wagons in Europe until 1400+ century, - what were the mythical Roman roads built for?
• gunpowder - mixture this simple must have been invented in Roman Empire

Actually, I'm wrong again. Romans did invent steel, as shown on this Spanish battle scene of 1431. Look at those familiar short skirts and square shields in the bottom right corner. These "Roman soldiers" carry crossbows! And the knights in full body steel plate armor are shown as well. History gets it right, eventually, 1000+ years later:

Ancient Romans go farther on the grave of Pope Inocencio XI (1611-1689, only in Spanish wiki, unfortunately) where they use cannons (white marble plaque right under Pope's feet, bottom left corner):

These cannons, shamefully covered in English wikipedia article, tell us that "antiquity" was a genre, kind of like Fantasy is for us. Fantasy is based on medieval, but it's not real and it borrows a lot from Renaissance, which we perceive as medieval too, by mistake. Just like that in Renaissance there was a "Fantasy" called "Antiquity". Sometimes "artists" and "writers" overstepped the boundaries of a genre. In this case you can't even say that. E.g. cannons definitely existed in 1431, and they could've been present on the previous real Spanish battle scene alongside "legionnaires".

ROADS

There are so many Roman milestones found all over Europe. Some are inscribed, with a name of an Emperor. Why? To prove to everybody that it's a Roman one! Why would Romans need to prove that? There was no competing Celtic or Germanic road network. These are a clear example of forgeries to claim political authority over some region. It's not enough to claim the existance of Roman Empire, you need to mark the borders. That's why the myth of network of Roman roads was introduced. There is a Roman milestone in your garden! You were a part of a Roman Empire 1000+ years ago! Here is how much taxes you owe to Roman Catholic Church. The actual vast road network is nowhere to be found. There are some roads here and there but no proof it was ever a connected network and no way to date them other than emperor names on stones and Roman coins found under the road surface. Slaves who built the roads had coins on them. In addition to 16,000 other fake Roman coin hoards discovered by lucky archeologists.

NAME & LOCATION

Romi (ῥώμη) means power in Greek. What does Roma mean in Latin? It's a meaningless name of legendary guy Romulus, who had a brother named Remus. Rema (ρέμα) means flow in Greek. Fun fact: there is a constant flow of water through Bosphorus in Constantinople (aka Istanbul). Rome used to be called an Eternal City. Fan fact: Constantino-polis name kind of means the same, literally. The all roads lead to Rome proverb is medieval yet it doesn't make sense for an Italian capital. Its location is not geopolitically or strategically or even regionally important in any way. Mythical Roman roads where gone by that time. Finances flourished in Florence. Genoa and Venice were naval Empires. Milan was an industrial center. Naples was a capital of the South. Rome was ... nothing. What exactly would lead to rise of such place to any power? Compare it to the Constantinople which you had to pass through whether you crossed between Europe/Asia or Mediterranean/Black Sea. Constantinople is still a successful and busy city with population of 15 millions. Population of Rome today is less than 3 millions. Yet we have to believe the latter subdued the Mediterranean, which was already pretty busy by that time.

FALL

Let's accept that Vandals and Huns ruined the Empire and sacked Rome. It's yet to be rationally explained how. Tribal savages vs a city state? Maybe, if it's a small town with few thousand people in it. Tribal savages vs a country? No way. Tribal savages vs multi-million Empire on three continents? Historical fact! Seriously? If those savages were so hot - why don't we study them instead of those Italian loosers? Unfortunately tribal savages disappeard from History and left no trace. I'd expect them to at least write a book of memoirs "How We Sacked Rome" but I guess they were very modest.

The idea that light cavalry of nomads from the East could've caused mass devastation seems more realistic than the Vandal story. Maybe Roman Empire lacked horses/cavalry and they just couldn't catch the invaders. Official historians can't accept this, but let's say horses were rare/expensive enough for the poor Romans. Even in that case it's not clear why invaders would risk their lives and attack Roman settlements. Romans did have at least bows and arrows, spears, swords, city walls. What would nomadic savage horse-herders desire so much as to attack walled cities with a pretty high probability of dying in the process? The story does not add up even with the assumption of cavalry supremacy. Worst that could've happened, in theory, is the raids on Roman colonists in the Eastern Europe, which Empire would've addressed with development of their own cavalry force.

Just as with Venice, things did happen, just a bit later: Vandals Crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1204 and Huns Turks finished it in 1453. The legend of Rome's Fall is dramatized, simplified and omits a lot. And what did you expect from mythology "based on real events"?

DARK AGES

The problem with Dark Ages is not that we don't have much info on what was going in Europe since 476 until late medieval. The problem is that there is not much information on what was going on elsewhere in the world as well. Endless dynasties and wars from forged chronicles are not the information I'm talking about, I'd expect some fictional narratives, records of contacts with other cultures, notes on economy/technology/science, etc. There are some texts like that, sometimes. Once in 100 years somebody does something. Such rarity of events reveals how fake the whole chronology of events is. If somebody did something it should've had consequences, in real life. In fake historical narrative things just happen and that's it. Imagine Columbus sailing to Americas, returning, and that's it. It happened in China in 1405-1433! After that everybody just drank tea and watched sunrises and sunsets for hundreds of years.

Let's accept that Europe was thrown into darkness and despair and people forgot how to paint, make nice statues, build aqueducts, read and write too. OK, whatever, yet we have Eastern Roman Empire, aka Bizantium, doing just fine, for next 1000 years. Same 24/7/365 wars, same religion, emperors, armies, same mysterious lack of progress. You think Byzantines invented crossbows or windmills or discovered Americas or at least gunpowder? Nope. As a matter of fact they were conquered by people who had artillery while they lacked it. And it's the Greeks we are talking about here. The Greeks who invented everything plus more, including democracy and logic. Somehow they got dumb and dropped the ball since 476. Stress? Bad Italian influence?

Modern historians like to blame Christianity for the stalled progress yet somehow miss the fact that it was already stalled at least 500+ years before Christianity. According to offical history Romans failed to accomplish even what Alexander the Great accomplished before them. They never defeated the Persians! What did we inherit from Romans, culturally, other than names of planets and cumbersome Roman numerals? Would we miss much if Roman Empire never existed? For such a magnificent phenomenon it left surprisingly little trace.

RUINS

At this point somebody, no doubt, will mention countless ruins like these:

Fun fact: they are not countless, they are located in different countries, it's been 1000+ years. There is no proof they are "Roman" other than inscriptions, which could've been made by anyone. For an Empire that huge and that long-lasting, we should be seeing a second Europe. What we are seeing in total is something a single small country like Bulgaria could've accomplished. As much as I despise pyramids, mythical ancient Romans didn't even manage that much. Tallest Roman building was Tomb of Hadrian, about same height (50 meters) and size as Colosseum. The Great Pyramid is 146 meter high. Colosseum is a stadium for 50,000-80,000 spectators? Population of Roman Empire is estimated around 50,000,000 people! During several centuries of Imperial Glory they should've built 100 Colosseums all over Mediterranean! Most of what you see in historical centres of Europe has been built within 1700-1900, including grandiose temples, operas, palaces, roads. All of that was built without trucks, cranes, excavators. E.g. 157 meter high Cologne Cathedral completed in 1880.

It was all built in medieval and later. Colosseum was never finished (money ran out? religion changed?), later repurposed as "historical monument".

Encastellation is a special historiography term for 800-1200 (link is to Italian wiki since it does mention centuries) when the castles are built all over Europe. Castles are the most basic defense structures. Any buildings dated earlier than this, even in Greece and Italy, are misdated. Official explanation is that around this time Vikings and Saracens started annoying civilized Europeans. Somehow castles weren't in fashion when Germanic tribes and Nomads were doing exactly same centuries ago. Great Roman engeneering just didn't care enough. Roads, aqueducts, amphitheatres were way more important than defense of the Empire.

DEMOGRAPHICS

However bad life was in "Dark Ages", the 50,000,000 people big post-"Roman Empire" Europe, with even 10 "Black Death" scale events in a row, would still be overpopulated, like India, Egypt or Middle East, by medieval. Realistic projection of documented European 1800 demographics into the past "ends" in 1000.

INSCRIPTIONS

This plaque is installed at address 285 Via Nazionale, Torre del Greco, Italy: you can see/read it in Google street view. This is an acknowledged historic monument "EPITAFFIO": official translation to Italian (page 13). It commemorates victims of Vesuvius eruption of December 16, 1631.

The bottom "CIↃ IↃ C XXXV" date is in old format, modern style would be MDCXXXV (1635), the year plaque was installed. The top date "VIII et LX" ("8 and 60") refers to a plaque installed on top of this one that recorded the repair of the road in 1562, 68 years before the eruption, the next date is Roman style date "XVII kalends of January" (17 days back from January 1st) means December 16, the day of eruption. The style of text, dates and Latin are pretty old, so google translator fails to read all of it correctly but still does the job. You can also translate the modern Italian version I linked above.

The official explanation of POMPEIOS HERCULANUM ... line is that inhabitants of Torre del Greco associated themselves with people of Pompeii and Herculanum who died in 79 eruption. The actual explanation is obvious, those 3 cities were destroyed in 1631. Unfortunately archeologists find stuff there that doesn't fit into official History of 1631. That's why official explanations exist. Unless there is a date on an old plaque, statue or building with Latin inscription, it's automatically assigned to "Antiquity", which is strange, given that all educated people were supposed to speak Latin up to 1900 and inscriptions in Latin were extremely popular all over Europe (there is even one on a dollar bill).

AT O VIII ET LX POST ANNO XVII CALEND(AS) IANUARII PHILIPPO IV REGE FUMO FLAMMIS BOATU CONCUSSU CINERE ERUPTIONE HORRIFICUS FERUS SI UMQUAM VESUVIUS NEC NOMEN NEC FASCES TANTI VIRI EXTIMUIT QUIPPE EXARDESCENTE CAVIS SPECUBUS IGNE IGNITUS FURENS IRRUGIENS EXITUM ELUCTANS COERCITUS AER DISIECTO VIOLENTER MONTIS CULMINE IMMANI ERUPIT HIATU POSTRIDIE EIACULATUS TRANS HELLESPONTUM CINEREM PONE TRAHENS AD EXPLENDAM VICEM PELAGUS IMMITE PELAGUS FLUVIOS SULPHUREOS FLAMMATUM BITUMEN FOETAS ALUMINE CAUTES INFORME CUIUSQUE METALLI RUDUS MIXTUM AQUARUM VOLUMINIBUS IGNEM FERVENTEMQ(UE) UNDANTE FUMO CINEREM

SESEQ(UE) FUNESTAMQ(UE) COLLUVIEM IUGO MONTIS EXONERANS POMPEIOS HERCULANUM OCTAVIANUM PERSTRICTIS REATINA ET PORTICU SILVASQ(UE) VILLASQ(UE) AEDESQ(UE) MOMENTO STRAVIT USSIT DIRUIT LUCTUOSAM PRAE SE PRAEDAM AGENS VASTUMQ(UE) TRIUMPHUM PERIERAT HOC QUOQ(UE) MARMOR ALTE SEPULTUM CONSULTISSIMI MONUMENTUM PROREGIS NE PEREAT EMMAHUEL FONSECA ET ZUNICA COM(ES) MONT(IS) RE(GIS) PROR(EX) QUA ANIMI MAGNITUDINE PUBLICAE CALAMITATI EA PRIVATAE CONSULUIT EXTRACTUM FUNDITUS GENTILIS SUI LAPIDEM COELO RESTITUIT VIAM RESTAURAVIT FUMANTE ADHUC ET INDIGNANTE VESEVO AN(NO) SAL(UTIS) CIↃ IↃ C XXXV PRAEFECTO VIARUM ANTONIO SUARES MESSIA MARCH(IONE) VICI

CHRISTIANITY

Try find a crucifix or a cross in all the illustrations in these biographical articles of Isabeau of Bavaria (1370–1435) and Charles VII (1403–1461) Charles VI (1368-1422) - even the pictures with clergy have no crosses in them. Medieval was all about symbolism: heraldics, flags, dressing. No crosses anywhere, but one on a picture of Lady Isabeau burial drawn/printed in 1493.

Now review these tombs or Roman Popes Julius II (1443–1513), Innocentius VIII (1432–1492), Adrian VII (1459–1523). These aren't exceptional. Some graves are pretty modest, some very luxurious, some have crosses, some have anything but crosses. It's kind of hard to believe all of them belonged to the same Church, forget the religion. I've already noted in the article on steel that explicit prayer to Minerva in a book was OK in 1400+ Italy. Pope Leo X (1475–1521) is buried in Church named Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Name of the Church comes from the fact that there was Isis (Egyptian goddess) temple before, they confused her with Minerva, and called Church after Minerva. Sounds "reasonable", right? It was only built in 1370, after only 1000+ years of Christianity. There is still an Egyptian obelisk installed (in 1667!) in the yard. Have you ever wondered who built pyramids?

How many churches named after Jesus Christ are there in Rome? One. Built in 1584. 44 years after the Jesuits order was formed (1540). For previous 1000 years Roman Catholic Church had some other stuff to do. Have you noticed it's not named Roman Christian Catholic Church? Neither is any of Orthodox Churches, BTW. With these facts it's very hard to believe into 2000 years of Christendom. It's also very hard to believe into Christianity being only or even main religion in Rome 500 years ago.

Here is a scene with "legionnaire" battle in 1240 - catholics (not christians, just catholics) killing manicheans (aka cathars) in Verona:

The painting above is a bit anachronistic, it's been drawn in 1500+ and it places contemporary "legionnaire" soldiers with fine helmets, swords and halberds into 1200+. Here is 1400+ one where the machichean assasin "legionnaire" kills the organiser of 1240 massacre in 1252, by a different painter:

We are being told that Albigensian Crusade was finished by 1229 in France yet "legionnaires" are still fighting same cathars in Verona, Italy, dozens of years later. Very same happened in Roman Empire too! Manichaeism ... was briefly the main rival to early Christianity in the competition to replace classical polytheism. Under the Roman Dominate, Manichaeism was persecuted by the Roman state and was eventually stamped out in the Roman Empire. After being "stamped out" around year 300, after 1000 years of Christian Rome, they still existed in Italy! BTW, same people who "stamped out" manicheans persecuted christians too. Probably in the same 1240.

The two pictures above give you correct perspective on what the Catholic Christianity was, and why it become mainstream only after 1500? It was designed for soldiers. Armies grew, mercenaries were expensive, the idea of drafting an average commoner was very appealing yet how do you convince him to accept the fate and die for nothing? That's how popular Jewish sect that allowed proselytism and marriages with natives became an Imperial Cult of men sacrifice.

ACTUAL STORY

Ancient Rome had a Vesta Temple with the Eternal Fire burning in it and virgins took care of it. It was one of the main/core/oldest/holy temples of Rome, built by it's second king. Persian fire worship "Bible" was called Avesta, their temples, "by definition", had eternal fires in them. Parthenos is girls in Greek, it sounds very much like parthians (aka persians). This story about Rome was originally written in Greek, in Byzantium, about Byzantium, and translated later by somebody who had no clue that parthenos meant persians in that context.

Constantinople was the original Rome, a town in Persian province. There was a fire worship temple with eternal fire in it, of course, and there were persians (priests) taking care of it. In Persian the temple/fire like that would be called Farro-bag (page 32, literally glory-god, same root was origin of pharaoh). Probably it's the one later renamed to Church of the Virgin of the Pharos (769). This means provincial town of Rome became a transit point to Europe and worth a temple around 769, it was probably a fishing village before that. Given the unique location it got rich with the rise of European slave trade and naval transportation during Macedonian dynasty (867–1056), decided to go rogue and was renamed in 1054 by Constantine IX Monomachos. Antique mythology describes this as Alexander the Great of Macedon, transfer of the capital in 330 by Constantine and Great Schism of 1054. Why not earlier? Well, if there was any naval trade long before that, Columbus wouldn't have to wait until 1492.

Another important trigger was, probably the Iron Age. Persian Empire, being an Empire, most likely controlled tin/bronze market. Byzantium could only rebel if they found reliable cheap local source of metal for the army. This explains why steel appears so late.

Soon after that in 1096 European mercenaries (aka Crusaders) are invited to help fight off Persians and gain access to Suez Canal Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade. Eventually European savages mercenaries learn too much, sack Constantinople in 1204 and establish their own German Roman Empire where the "Roman" refers to Constantinople, of course, which they consider "theirs". Once that falls to Persian army nomadic warlord Empire of mysterious origin (lookup "black hole") the "Rome" is transferred to Italy with the Byzantine refugees who join the well established Greek colonies there. The Renessaince begins, simply because the Byzantine cultural elite moved to Italy. Before that the "antiquity" was going on in Byzantium. All the "antique" art, texts and architecture we find is either Byzantine or later, which explains "mysterious lack of progress": everything they achieved historians dated 1000+ years earlier.

Italian colonisation of France, Spain and British Isles is the partial explanation of medieval and Reformation and it involved alliance with German Emperor. Papacy was a formal legitimiser of German Emperor's power, just like Byzantium was before it felt (and nobody in Europe cared enough to help them).

The actual state of Papacy in 1400 is best described by use of forged decree by which ... Constantine the Great ... transferred authority over Rome and the western part of the Roman Empire to the Pope. The document was back-dated and presented to the public after the fall of Byzantium (it was useless while original Rome existed), and its authenticity was publicly critisized. The very fact that they had to play this kind of trick says it all.

The fall of Byzantium in 1453 helped Rome a lot. After Church claimed the authority it didn't have, they built a new luxurious office, aka Sistine Chapel (1483), hired a Swiss Guard (1506).

Forgery was acknowledged by Catholic Church around 1600. They acknowledged it when they didn't need it anymore after a serie of Italian Wars of 1494-1559 made Rome most powerful city on peninsula. So called "Warrior Pope" Julius II (1443-1513) personaly led armies. There are all reasons to think that he and Cesare Borgia are a "collective prototype" of mythical "antique" Julius Caesar. In real life "Julius" betrayed "Cesare". The Julius Caesar's Civil War as well as Gallic Wars are a myth based on the Italian Wars (Rome defeated the French influence in Italian politics).

Potential author of this mythology, probably mythical character himself: Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540–1609), son of Julius Caesar Scaliger. Joseph invented Ancient Egypt, Ancient Judea, Ancient Persia and Babylon. It's not that they never existed, but he planted them even farther than the fake Ancient Rome and Greece. I can't say if just his dad is fictional or both of them or it's a coincidence. There is also a chance that Pope Julius II and Cesare Borgia are (partially) imaginary as well.

The next step up for Rome was the Peace of Westphalia which weakened the main competitor to Rome's supremacy in Europe, the German Emperor of Holy Roman Empire.

After Catholic Church gained control over the religous discourse, education and science in Europe it forged the Ancient Latin Roman Empire legend and made it an organic part of Christian religious mythology. The opression of actual mixed Jewish-native "protestant" population during the "Reformation" was mythologized as persecution of Christians in the Ancient Roman Empire. This was de-facto an advanced version of same Constantine's "Gift" decree forgery I mentioned above. Yet this time it was supported by lots of paper and generations of "historians" and "scientists" with theological degrees. They did a really bad job, though: if you study history well enough, the fake narratives are easy to notice. Recently they undug baked papyruses in Herculaneum. After applying some cutting edge technologies, tomography and AI, they read them! It looks like they got extremely lucky: from texts they concluded that house belonged to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, father-in-law to Julius Caesar. Who can doubt the Greatness of Rome now?

Most of European history just doesn't make any sense. How hard is it to make people go to church on Sundays? They claim it took 200 years of civil wars! How long would it take for an army to conquer France? 100 years! Spain? 400 years! Etc. They stretched the History back into the past as much as they could to justify the fact that the mythical Latin Roman Empire got completely forgotten. They intentionally left Dark Ages "dark" for the same reason. This legend was (and still is) impressive for anybody who is too lazy to critisize it because it's just too much to critisize. Too many details, names, dates, "sources", etc.

The clarity comes once you realize that Church was the single real authority in European science by 1600. Given their professional habbit of selling lies for the Glory of God, given their history of forging documents, holy relics and legends of miracles, it would be very naive, in fact, to even suggest they didn't do something of a sort. It's like there is a thief in a bank, the safe is open, and nobody's watching. What would you expect?

Another good critical argument against their story is the fact that nothing alike happened within last 600 years of more or less documented history. It's either the Ancients were somewhat special people with super-abilities or ... a myth.