On this date in 1969 the initial withdrawal of American troops from South Vietnam began as ordered by President Nixon a few weeks earlier. This first phase involved 25,000 troops from the approximately 540,000 currently in that country. By the fall of 1971 troop levels were down to about 190,000. The last American forces left by early 1973. South Vietnam fell to the North Vietnam communists in April 1975, ending a thirty year civil war.
After completing my July 4 post on President Coolidge's speech on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I went on to read and listen to a couple of other historic speeches celebrating America's independence. One of these was Frederick Douglass' magnificent 1852 oration What To The Slave is The Fourth of July? While doing so I came across on YouTube an NPR presentation of the speech, produced in 2020 and recited by descendants of Douglass. It is highly edited to be deliberately simplistic and misleading in order to ensure NPR listeners miss the point more than Michael Bay missed the mark when he made Pearl Harbor. As a reminder, at the time, NPR still received taxpayer funding so you paid for this piece of agitprop. Since then NPR has continued its descent into madness, naming authoritarian Katherine Maher as its CEO (for more on Maher read The "Real Trouble").
I've written of Douglass several times over the years; about his relationship with President Lincoln as well as the misuse to which he's been subjected to in our current educational system (Lincoln Douglass); on his Freedman's Monument Speech in 1876; as part of a prior July 4 post (citing to his 1852 speech); after reading his first autobiography (see Readings On Slavery). Douglass was a courageous and thoughtful man who could eloquently express complex and provocative ideas. His story should be known to all Americans.
The 1852 speech had two purposes. One is a lengthy, searing, and accurate indictment of American slavery and the complicity of white American society in its horror. It is to this topic that the NPR edited version of the speech, which has 1.6 million views and 2,700 comments, is exclusively devoted to (the NPR version also contains a coda, the reflections of Douglass' descendants regarding today's America, a topic to which I will return to after discussing the speech). The second, ignored by NPR, is Douglass' case that the Constitution is a "glorious liberty document . . . entirely hostile to the existence of slavery". The reverence with which Douglass regards the Constitution (and the Declaration, as he states elsewhere in the speech) would undermine what NPR is trying to accomplish. It also decontextualizes the speech though it is important to understand why Douglass is making this argument. And it adds a false contextualization placing it as somehow linked to the death of George Floyd and the riots and protests that occurred in its aftermath.
The speech was given on July 5, 1852 at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, NY, the city Douglass moved to in 1847, an event organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. Two years before, slavery became "nationalized" with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act as part of the Compromise of 1850, heightening sectional disputes over slavery, as many in the free states who had not been engaged in the slavery issue now felt they had been made complicit by the passage of the Act. More importantly for purposes of the 1852 speech, Douglass had split with the mainstream of the abolition movement and its leader and his former mentor, William Lloyd Garrison, over the interpretation of the Constitution. Garrison's organization, the American Anti-Slavery Society, the leading abolitionist group, had taken the view that the Constitution was a pro-slavery document and the only solution was to dissolve the Union and for the free states to form a New Union under a new Constitution. In 1851 the Anti-Slavery Society passed a resolution denouncing any paper opposing this belief.
After escaping slavery Douglass initially agreed with Garrison but as he studied the Constitution and the Declaration came to the conclusion they were anti-slavery documents and had broken with Garrison and started his own newspaper the North Star to promote his views. It was to address this controversial dispute within the abolitionist movement that Douglass spent so much of his speech on this topic. In the Coda to the NPR version one of the young people asserts that Douglass was speaking to those who already agreed with him but, in fact, the purpose of the Constitutional argument was to persuade a divided audience. For more on contemporaneous views of the Constitution consistent with Douglass' reading see Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States 1861-1865 by James Oakes and Natural Law and the Antislavery Constitutional Tradition by Justin Buckley Dyer.
Douglass' speech can be broken into three parts.
The first section expresses hope that America, as a young nation, can find the correct course of action and to express admiration for the Founding generation.
The second to highlight contradictions and hypocrisy regarding white Americans and slavery. The excerpts in the YouTube video are only a sampling of the examples given by Douglass.
The final section expresses his belief that the Constitution is a glorious liberty document that provides the blueprint for the end of slavery.
At the end of the post you will find excerpts from the first and third sections.
As you can see all of the excerpts in the NPR video are from the second section with the exception of one passage from the conclusion of the speech; "Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have
this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this
country". The following sentences are not included; "There are forces in operation, which must inevitably, work the downfall
of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of
slavery is certain." The video contains nothing from Douglass' conclusion explaining why he does not despair, because it would undercut what NPR is trying to sell you.
And that brings me to the context in which the video was made and the significance of the coda portion.
The video was posted on YouTube on July 3, 2020 and it was specifically linked to the death of George Floyd several weeks before. NPR's description reads:
In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide protests for racial justice and systemic reforms in the wake of George Floyd’s death. That June, we asked five young descendants of Frederick Douglass to read and respond to excerpts of his famous speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”. It's a powerful, historical text that reminds us of the ongoing work of liberation.
The description notes that the video consists of excerpts but the title of the video and the description if you do a Google search implies it is the full text. The description also pulls a sleight of hand. Douglass' speech is about slavery and its relation to the Constitution but NPR links it to the "ongoing work of liberation". Like the video, NPR never directly states what that work is, nor its relation to Douglass' speech and the propositions set forth there. Instead the description and the video artfully avoids any discussion of Douglass' proposition as it must because NPR's viewpoint is that the U.S. was defective from its founding. The video is edited and put together in support of the thesis of the infamous 1619 Project, while the opening and closing of Douglass' speech are a refutation of its thesis. That Douglass' argument is both a refutation of the argument of the 1619 Project as well as of the similar historical arguments of John C Calhoun and Alexander Stephens, Southern politicians who argued that slavery was a "positive good", illustrates that we have entered into a world of strange ideological alliances in 21st century America.
The video was released in the midst of not just "protests" but also in the midst of riots and violence that resulted in thirty deaths in the short term and the most property damage (much of it to minority owned businesses) of any riots in American history. The impacts were worse longer term. As it turned out that large cities governed for decades by NPR-type Progressives were hotbeds of racism, those mayors and city councils withdrew police and let loose their paramilitary wings. Prosecutors resisted filing charges or reduced charges against those causing violence and destruction and leftist groups raised bail and paid for lawyers to defend the perpetrators. One result was a massive increase in violence in minority areas. The increase in black homicide victims of violence over baseline of recent years for the period from May 2020 to the end of 2022 amounted to more than the total number of black lynching victims from 1882 to 1968 (for more on that tragic history read Strange Fruit). In what way was that liberation? How did the protests and violence contribution to any positive solutions? In what way is the current situation of Black Americans similar to that of the slaves Frederick Douglass was discussing? None of that is addressed. It is simply implied that they are the same.
And that is the saddest thing in the video - the coda. These young people seem to believe nothing has changed since Douglass' speech. But why? They've clearly absorbed in their upbringing and education the notion of oppression, one even saying "pessimism is a tool of white oppression". We have a 20 year old claiming he is "exhausted" and near the end another says "we are still slaves to the notion that it will never get better". That last remark is double-edged. In the context of the video I think he's saying it has not gotten any better since Douglass's speech but we shouldn't lose hope it will get better. I also see it as a warning to everyone in that video that they have been slaves to that notion even though objectively things are much better than 1852.
For decades we've lived in a country where opportunities for minorities are plentiful and, in fact, privileged in education, government employment and contracts, and the corporate world. The "system" which did once work to maintain white supremacy is gone and had been for many years. The "system" now works the other way. Yet the very education system which is part of those growing opportunities, teaches the opposite - that things haven't changed and further, those same educational system at the K-12 levels in cities with large minority populations is failing those populations, failing to generate the pipeline of students who can take advantage of those opportunities.
In doing research for this post, I came across a 2014 article by a history professor who has studied Frederick Douglass in which he complains that the version of What To A Slave Is the Fourth of July? being used to teach in our schools is the same as that presented by NPR. In other words, a deliberately truncated version, omitting Douglass' context and view of the Constitution. It is part of an effort to undermine the very foundations of this country and to indoctrinate the next generation that an end to the U.S. as we know it is the only solution. Knowing that Douglass held the Declaration and Constitution and those who wrote those documents in such high regard is too dangerous for students. They might draw incorrect conclusions.
The technique here is to keep everything vague, except to instill the feeling of massive racism and oppression. The discussions we need are "what are the specific problems we are trying to solve" and "how would proposed solutions specifically help to solve them". And that is always avoided, instead we are flooded with generalities and statements built upon false assumptions.
Excerpts from opening section of the speech:
The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot's heart might be sadder, and the reformer's brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought, that America is young.
To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when, to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried men's souls. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems un fashionable in our day.
Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the RINGBOLT to the chain of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.
Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too—great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.
They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests.
They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was “settled” that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were “final;” not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times
[Douglass begins the transition to the present day and the plight of slaves.]
How unlike the politicians of an hour!
My business, if I have any here today, is with the present. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now.
Closing section of speech:
And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape; but I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe.
Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but interpreted, as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? it is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it.
Now, take the constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single proslavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.
Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably, work the downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain.
I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from “the Declaration of Independence,” the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up, from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic, are distinctly heard on the other.
Excerpts from address by President Calvin Coolidge, Address on the Celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, July 5, 1926.
It is not so much, then, for the purpose of undertaking to proclaim new
theories and principles that this annual celebration is maintained, but
rather to reaffirm and reestablish those old theories and principles
which time and the unerring logic of events have demonstrated to be
sound. Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter
of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation
to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United
States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters
of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken. Whatever perils appear,
whatever dangers threaten, the Nation remains secure in the knowledge
that the ultimate application of the law of the land will provide an
adequate defense and protection.
But the conviction is inescapable that a new civilization had come, a
new spirit had arisen on this side of the Atlantic more advanced and
more developed in its regard for the rights of the individual than that
which characterized the Old World. Life in a new and open country had
aspirations which could not be realized in any subordinate position. A
separate establishment was ultimately inevitable. It had been decreed by
the very laws of human nature. Man everywhere has an unconquerable
desire to be the master of his own destiny.
But the preponderance of all those who occupied a position which took
on the aspect of aristocracy did not approve of the Revolution and held
toward it an attitude either of neutrality or open hostility. It was in
no sense a rising of the oppressed and downtrodden. It brought no scum
to the surface, for the reason that colonial society had developed no
scum. The great body of the people were accustomed to privations, but
they were free from depravity. If they had poverty, it was not of the
hopeless kind that afflicts great cities, but the inspiring kind that
marks the spirit of the pioneer. The American Revolution represented the
informed and mature convictions of a great mass of independent, liberty
loving, God-fearing people who knew their rights, and possessed the
courage to dare to maintain them.
It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but
because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that
July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in
history.
This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration
of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its
preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government.
These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source
of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the
governed.
A spring will cease to flow if its source be dried up; a tree will
wither if it roots be destroyed. In its main features the Declaration of
Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of
material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular
sovereignty, the rights of man - these are not elements which we can see
and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in
the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the
faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to
endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not
continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful.
It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress
since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have
given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may
therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern.
But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men
are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable
rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be
made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or
their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically
is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no
equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who
wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They
are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than
those of the Revolutionary fathers.
Ours is a government of the people. It represents their will. Its
officers may sometimes go astray, but that is not a reason for
criticizing the principles of our institutions. The real heart of the
American Government depends upon the heart of the people. It is from
that source that we must look for all genuine reform. It is to that
cause that we must ascribe all our results.
It was in the contemplation of these truths that the fathers made
their declaration and adopted their Constitution. It was to establish a
free government, which must not be permitted to degenerate into the
unrestrained authority of a mere majority or the unbridled weight of a
mere influential few. They undertook to balance these interests against
each other and provide the three separate independent branches, the
executive, the legislative, and the judicial departments of the
Government, with checks against each other in order that neither one
might encroach upon the other. These are our guarantees of liberty. As a
result of these methods enterprise has been duly protected from
confiscation, the people have been free from oppression, and there has been an ever-broadening and deepening of the humanities of life.
No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of
Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people.
We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material
things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created
them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all
our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to
a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage
which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers
who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must
cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We
must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We
must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame,
the altar fires before which they worshiped.
Is there any prominent 21st century national political leader whose reputation has fallen as far, and as fast, as Angela Merkel's?
Merkel, Germany's Chancellor from 2005 to 2021, was often referred to as "The Leader of the Free World". Though this started during the second Obama administration, the use of the phrase accelerated during the subsequent Trump presidency, intended both as boost to Merkel and a slap at Trump.
Merkel, born in East Germany, and trained in theoretical physics and mathematics, became politically active with the fall of the Berlin Wall, rising quickly in the politics of the reunified country as a member of the Christian Democratic Union, becoming a government minister by 1991.
This photo is from a 2017 Politico article titled The New Leader of the Free World, praising the Chancellor:
Today, not only is Merkel, as the leader of the world’s fourth-largest
economy, the most powerful woman on the planet, she’s also a bulwark of
stability in a time of global turmoil. Merkel is often dubbed “the
leader of the free world” in a dig at Donald Trump, an American
president she has greeted with eye-rolls s in person and firm rebukes on issues from climate change to refugees to Neo-Nazis. And the label seems to fit: As populism rises in Western countries and
the United States retreats from the world, it’s Merkel who is offering
the steady, strong leadership that once emanated from Washington.
Let's look back on her major initiatives from the perspective of 2026.
On foreign policy, she advocated a closer relationship with Russia, supporting the construction of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea, despite warnings, including from Donald Trump, that the pipeline would make Germany more dependent on Russia and more susceptible to its influence.
At the same time, Merkel oversaw the degradation of the German military from the formidable fighting force of the Cold War era to a shadow of itself. Again, she was warned against this in light of the growing threat by others, including Donald Trump. Instead, Germany, like other NATO members, reduced spending knowing they could count upon the U.S. in a pinch.
When an emboldened Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022 those warnings proved prescient with Germany left in a weakened military posture and embarrassingly dependent on Russia energy supplies.
Which brings us to her failed energy policy. An emphasis on climate change combined with the aftermath of Japan's Fukushima nuclear incident in 2011, somehow resulted in Merkel's decision to close and demolish all German nuclear plants, resulting in increased coal use and significantly higher energy costs. The closure of the nuclear plants is simply one of the most idiotic energy policy decisions of any country in this century.
And that energy policy brings us to Merkel's economic policy. In the early 21st century, Germany's economy was a powerhouse. It no longer is due to the combined impact of two of Merkel's initiatives. Encouraging closer relationships with, and investments in, China, along with dramatically higher energy costs reducing the competitiveness of German industry, reducing exports and driving reduction or relocation of energy-intensive industries. Germany is now one of the worst performing economies of the major producing countries.
Finally, we come to immigration. Merkel's decision in 2015 to suspend EU regulations and allow over one million Muslim refugees into Germany, which with knock-on effects resulted in more than six million refugees from these countries over the decade. The result is increased societal turmoil, increases in crime, and failures in assimilation, leading to political instability, particularly in the countries of central and western Europe. Merkel took these actions despite stating in a 2010 speech that Germany's attempts to build a multicultural society had "utterly failed".
The problems with all of these policies were identified at the time but most attempts at neutral analysis were derailed by ideology, anti-Americanism, and then by the ascendance of Donald Trump. None of the accolades Merkel received look good today.
The 2015 post, Belisarius Enters Rome, discussed the decline and slow rise of the city of Rome from the 4th to the 19th centuries. Most prominent of the sources cited for the late Empire and early Medieval periods was Richard Krautheimer's Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308, published in 1980. Krautheimer's work is still highly regarded but over the past 40+ years a great deal of new archeological work in Rome on its formerly neglected medieval period has been conducted, along with a reanalysis of the written sources, and the findings change some of the picture we'd previously had, and which is reflected in my earlier post. In particular, the timing of the key periods of transition from the city of the Caesar's to today's city has changed from the "traditional" explanation of why when looking at the ancient monuments, a visitor is often looking down into an excavated area ten or more feet below street level.
I prefer the cover of Krautheimer's book!
I find it fascinating when reading, or visiting Rome, to realize how many layers of history are present both visible and below our feet.
The Making of Medieval Rome and Belisarius Enters Rome have the same starting place. Dey reminds us that from the 2nd century BC through the 4th century AD, Rome "was the most populous city outside of China that the world had ever seen" and that until the 18th century no European city would rival it in size and population. He then notes that a Roman from 200 AD would, in 600 AD, see "a place transformed beyond recognition, and wept to see it".
For centuries the city was dominated by ruins, its inhabitants living, around, within, and on top. New buildings, including churches, were built from recycled stones, bricks, columns, and fragmented marble. The lime for the mortar needed for construction was created by melting marble and limestone blocks from the imperial era.
The inhabitants, who for a thousand years never amounted to more than 5-10% of the number during the imperial era, were scattered across the landscape within the Aurelian Walls.
Although the city's population had begun to decline in the 4th century and further after its sack by the Goths in 410, there was some rebound after the sack with the population by mid-5th century at perhaps 350,000. Dey dates the tipping point of steep decline to the aftermath of the Vandal sack of 455, after which there is evidence of an accelerated pace of building abandonment and decay. The ability to recover was also degraded as the inflow of taxes from the rest of the Empire, along with grain from North Africa and the steady flow of immigrants into the city all ceased. By the end of the century the population may have been reduced to 50,000. From then, until at least the 15th century, Dey estimates the population never exceeded 50-60,000 and may, at times, have been a low as 20-30,000.
Though the situation was somewhat stabilized during the reign of Theodoric the Great (489-526) there was awareness that the days of glory were past. Theodoric's chancellor Cassiodorus marveled:
It is clear how great Rome's population must have been, the vast enclosure of the city walls, the sprawling embrace of the spectacle buildings, the marvelous size of the baths, the numerousness of the grain mills specifically dedicated to feeding the people.
But, as Krautheimer noted in his book;
Try as Cassiodorus might, his efforts to halt the erosion were in vain.
Sewers were in need of repairs. So were aqueducts . . . The public
granaries had 'collapsed through old age'. . . Bronze statues all over
were being looted '. . nor are they mute; the ringing sound they give
forth under the blows of thieves . . . wakes the dozing watchman.'
Marble, lead, and brass were looted from public buildings . . . Temples,
Cassiodorus complains, 'have been handed over to spoliation and ruin' .
. . Many of the great mansions, too, had been abandoned . . .
In the wake of the Gothic Wars of 535-554, which saw the Byzantine reconquest of Italy, Dey disagrees with Krautheimer, about the strength of the role of the papacy in governing the city. According to Dey, it was the Byzantine civil administration which controlled the city, though the papacy was becoming stronger during that period. The Byzantine state owned the city's public architecture and was responsible for its maintenance and that of the public works, including the aqueducts.
While the pace of construction, reconstruction, and maintenance was less than that of earlier centuries, the quality of the work by a still functioning building industry continued until the last decades of Byzantine rule in the mid-8th century.
In Belisarius Enters Rome I wrote:
A transformed city emerged from the wreckage of the Gothic Wars in the
later 6th century, with a much diminished population concentrated along
the Tiber River, particularly on the former Campus Martius on the east
bank, and in the Travestere and the area that later became the Vatican
on the west bank, where water was more readily available (referred to as
the abitato). Large tracts of the ancient city,
including the Forums, the hills (including the Palatine on which the
Imperial Palace was sited), and the area around the Colosseum, were
mostly abandoned except for the farms and vineyards that had sprung up
among the ruins and for the churches and monasteries scattered among the
ruins, most prominently the Lateran in the far southeast of the walled
city, which until the 15th century was the seat of the Papacy; an area
known as the disabitato.
In contrast, Dey reports the concentration of population within what Krautheimer referred to as the abitato occurred no earlier than the 11th century. For the five hundred years after the Gothic Wars, the much diminished population was scattered more broadly across the city's landscape. Dey writes:
There is now broad consensus that Rome's remaining tens of thousands of inhabitants tended to collect in settled 'islands" scattered across much of the intramural area and separated by more or less vacant stretches of abandoned buildings and ruins, some of which sprouted gardens and orchards and pastures. . . . Proximity to main roads was desirable . . . Running water from surviving aqueducts was also important.
Dey goes on to note that the excavations of the past forty years have revealed that during the Byzantine period the population was not as impoverished as previously thought. Mediterranean trade routes still operated, there is significant evidence of imported tableware and ceramic, and of still-existing local manufacturing capabilities.
The significant change came in the 8th century with Byzantine support reduced as the empire came under more pressure from the Arab onslaught and the end of the Mediterreanan trade with the Arab conquest of North Africa. It was only that then Rome became a state ruled by the popes, and the papacy began investing more in public buildings and infrastructure.
Later in the 8th century, wealth began to flow back into the city, much from donations from the Frankish kingdom and from the agricultural lands and cities outside Rome acquired by the papacy. With these resources the papacy, between 772 and 816, undertook infrastructure improvements including repairing the Aurelian Wall and restoring four aqueducts to working condition. This revival continued into the mid-9th century. Even with these activities new surfaces for roadbeds consisted of poorer and less stable materials than the pavers used in antiquity and the drains and sewers ceased to be cleaned and maintained over the course of the century. Two large earthquakes hit the city during the 9th century destroying more of the ancient structures.
It was also during this period that the structures in the imperial forum area began to be demolished for reuse in Church-sponsored building projects. According to Dey, the travertine pavement in the Forum of Caesar was removedf as while as the white marble revetment from the walls in the Forums of Trajan and Peace. The white marble from Trajan's was burned to produce 7,000 tons of lime to be used in construction elsewhere. The pavements of the Trajan, Augustus, and Nerva forum were removed during this period, as small structures, buildings, and animal pens began to appear within.
Such dwellings are basically urban farmhouses that resemble actual rural residences . . . such that even members of the nobility lived among domestic animals, and gardens and orchards.
It was during this time of Papal supremacy that once building materials were removed from the imperial forum area, the Church opened the area to private landowners.
Despite this, Dey claims the central forum area well into the 9th century still looked, from a distance, much as it had at the end of the Empire. However, from late in that century into the mid-11th, the power of the papacy declined and that of local families rose, resulting in a loss of central authority within the city.
The restoration of the Aurelian Wall around 850 would be the last for three centuries. No significant civic monument or infrastructure was built for two centuries. The last repair of the aqueducts was carried out around 860 and by the 11th century, all but one had gone out of service. The failure of the aqueducts would have led to the abandonment of the neighborhoods dependent on their water supply.
Indicators across the city point to the 11th century as the inflection point when Rome's previously diffuse settlement landscape began to contract into a denser nucleus in the low-lying plains between the slopes of the Capitoline Hill and the Tiber in the west, leaving the hills in the eastern half of the intramural area mostly uninhabited.
It was during this period that dirt, rubbish, and sediment began to accumulate in the area of the Forum, as well as the Pantheon.
But it is the period from the mid-11th century to the 13th century that Dey dates the real visible and topographic transformation from ancient to medieval Rome. It is during this era that we see Roman nobles living in fortified complexes with walls and towers; the population clusters in the lower lands of the Campus Martius, and when;
. . . thick deposits of soil and rubble covered widely separated areas of low-lying terrain raising the ground across parts of the [Forums and Colosseum areas], the southern Campus Martius, Trastevere, and elsewhere several meters above late ancient and early medieval levels.
Until the excavations of recent decades it had been thought the submersion of ancient Rome's low-lying areas by fifteen feet or more below current street levels had incurred incrementally over centuries due to soil washed from the hills, Tiber floods, and disposed wastes. It now appears to have occurred in a matter of decades in;
. . . a coordinated series of interventions on a massive scale, involving the systematic infilling of low-lying areas with vast quantities of earth and rubble . . .
New religious and domestic architecture would no longer take shape in and among the blasted wrecks of a bygone age, but rather safely atop them. The thousand-year-old ruins that until then had threatened collapse, damaged buildings and blocked streets when they did collapse, and trapped swampy pools of muck undrained by long-blocked sewers, became the solution to the problem. By razing and/or leveling off ruins and spreading the rubble evenly, the masterminds behind this feat of urban engineering created a solid base for future urban development. Atop the fill, new roads and churches and residential neighborhoods took shape, less exposed to flooding and, for the first time, largely independent of the contours of the ancient city now buried beneath them.
This topographical transformation were lasting. Since the 12th century, ground levels have increased by less than 0.5 meters (1.5 feet) in Rome. This project appears to have been undertaken by a revitalized Papacy.
Dr John's take on the Traveling Wilbury's hit from 1989. The original was primarily composed by George Harrison though the other Wilbury's, Dylan, Petty, Orbison, and Lynne, also received writing credit.
Dr John's version was released in 2022 on his final album, Things Happen That Way, recorded just before his death in 2019. Also featured on vocals for End Of The Line are the Dr's fellow contemporary New Orleans musician Aaron Neville and young Katie Pruitt, a Nashville singer-songwriter. Willie Nelson appears on another album track.
New Orleans musician Mac Rebennack Jr, reinvented himself as Dr John The Night Tripper, in connection with the release of his first album, Gris-Gris, in 1968. Gris-Gris included the songs Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya along with the hallucinatory and mesmerizing I Walk On Guilded Splinters. This 17-year old had never heard anything like it.
In the early 1970s, Dr John achieved mainstream popularity with singles like Iko Iko, Right Place Wrong Time, and Such A Night (this version from The Last Waltz with The Band). Dr John released more than 30 studio albums and appeared as a guest artist on a slew of other records.
Aaron Neville, now 85, broke out as an artist in 1966 with the gorgeous Tell It Like It Is, featuring his smooth, gentle tone with his trademark vibrato. He's had a successful career as a solo artist, in multiple collaborations, most notably with Linda Ronstadt, and as along with brothers Art, Charles, and Cyril as part of the Neville Brothers. Aaron has also twice performed the national anthem at the Super Bowl, the second time accompanied on keyboards by Dr John.
Well it’s all right, even if they say you’re wrong
It’s all right, sometimes you gotta be strong
It’s all right, as long as you got somewhere to lay
Well it’s all right, every day is Judgment Day
Maybe somewhere down the road aways
(End of the line)
You’ll think of me, wonder where I am these days
(End of the line)
Maybe somewhere down the road somebody plays
(End of the line)
