There will always be happiness; there will always be pain. We must still maximize and minimize the two, but they will always vary with time. You will not stay in joy or sadness. Breathe in the moment, as it will always be temporary.
It took Rome anything between one and five centuries to fall. Damn, if you ask some people today it's possible to argue that the Roman empire still technically exists.
Some people argue that given that the church was effectively one of the arm of the empire then a part of the Empire still exist today. Not saying they are right or wrong but I understand the argument.
A lot of white Germans and nazis, even after the war. Denazification was a toothless affair. Look at how rich Otto Skorzeny was. Many of Hitler's generals were let off the hook, even a lot of the Waffen SS. On top of that you have the executives of arms manufacturers, steel mills, oil refineries, any company vital to the war effort.
"God I love rampant brigandry and not having clean water. Oh, if only trade routes would shut down and feudalism would grow from the ashes of our society! It's really too bad that ethnic supremacist polities didn't rule over my people sooner, I love being excluded from legal protections due to an insufficiently pure bloodline."
The decline and fall of the Roman Empire was fucking horrible for normal people, and it's bizarre to me that people think otherwise.
I apologize if this comes off as tetchy. I'm in an ill mood today.
What about those on the periphery, with minimal protection from the state both before and after the fall? For them, the only real difference was the tax collector stopped showing up.
Please don't take this as analogous to the modern day in any way. A modern village/town will break down rapidly without access to modern logistics, which was not the case then.
The slaves were much better off. Roman empire was a slave empire. That's the main reason it's celebrated in our empire. Europeans and the founding slavers of USA looked towards roman slavery as their ideal. Arguing for the roman empire is like saying that USA was better before the Civil War.
Today the worship of this slave empire remains a foundation of white supremacy.