Fall of Roman Empire caused by 'Contagion Of Homosexuality'

A prominent Italian historian has claimed that the Roman Empire collapsed because a "contagion of homosexuality and effeminacy" made it easy pickings for barbarian hordes, sparking a furious row.

Roberto De Mattei, 63, the deputy head of the country's National Research Council, claimed that the empire was fatally weakened after conquering Carthage, which he described as "a paradise for homosexuals". The remarks prompted angry calls for his resignation, with critics saying his comments were homophobic, offensive and unbecoming of his position.

[Dissident]

What really decimated the Romans was this!

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9...

Toxicology: Lead Among the Romans

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Ever since the Roman Empire declined and fell, assorted theorists have used the event as proof of their own notions about society's most important ills. Now a new study contends that Rome's collapse was not due to self-satisfied apathy, gluttony,HOMOSEXUALITY , or any other social evil. In a speech at the Third International Congress of Human Genetics in Chicago last week, Sociologist Seabury Colum Gilfillan suggested that the Roman aristocracy died off in large part because of nothing more glamorous than simple lead poisoning.

If regularly introduced through mouth or lung in amounts greater than 1 mg. per day, lead can cause painful constipation, anemia, emaciation, loss of appetite, paralysis of the extremities, and ultimately death. And there is one more effect that interests Dr. Gilfillan most of all: enough lead can cause sterility in men, miscarriages and stillbirths among women. The Romans, says Gilfillan, especially the upper classes, knew little of lead's dangers, and they ingested more than enough of the metal to make trouble a certainty. Not only did Pliny the Elder counsel that "leaden and not bronze pots should be used," but lead was also important in the manufacture of water pipes, cups, sieves, cosmetics, external medicines, paint, and, ironically, coffins.

Class Selective. The most significant source of lead poisoning was wine. To help preserve and sweeten it, the Romans added a syrup made of unfermented grape juice that had been boiled down in lead-lined pots, thereby greatly increasing the absorption of lead. Unfortunately the Romans did not understand, says the California Ph.D., that "this slow poison, this delicious syrup" delayed the wine's souring by killing impure microorganisms. In sterilizing the wine, "they knew not that they were also sterilizing themselves."

The lead poisoning was class selective, Gilfillan argues, because the poor rarely could afford wine, used cheap earthenware cooking utensils, and did not have such luxuries as cosmetics. But, says he, the aristocracy's "high death rate, as well as its low birth rate, strongly suggests lead poisoning," and his still incomplete work on exhumed bones tends to confirm his theory. Using tombstone inscriptions as a guide, he reports that life expectancy among the upper classes was 22-25 years; literary and census data indicate that the number of aristocratic births was remarkably low, "perhaps one-fourth of what would have been necessary to maintain their number." Over a period of generations, "this aristothanasia" wiped out the leaders of thought and culture.

[emperorjohn]

Dissident wrote:

What really decimated the Romans was this!
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9...
Toxicology: Lead Among the Romans
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Ever since the Roman Empire declined and fell, assorted theorists have used the event as proof of their own notions about society's most important ills. Now a new study contends that Rome's collapse was not due to self-satisfied apathy, gluttony,HOMOSEXUALITY , or any other social evil. In a speech at the Third International Congress of Human Genetics in Chicago last week, Sociologist Seabury Colum Gilfillan suggested that the Roman aristocracy died off in large part because of nothing more glamorous than simple lead poisoning.
If regularly introduced through mouth or lung in amounts greater than 1 mg. per day, lead can cause painful constipation, anemia, emaciation, loss of appetite, paralysis of the extremities, and ultimately death. And there is one more effect that interests Dr. Gilfillan most of all: enough lead can cause sterility in men, miscarriages and stillbirths among women. The Romans, says Gilfillan, especially the upper classes, knew little of lead's dangers, and they ingested more than enough of the metal to make trouble a certainty. Not only did Pliny the Elder counsel that "leaden and not bronze pots should be used," but lead was also important in the manufacture of water pipes, cups, sieves, cosmetics, external medicines, paint, and, ironically, coffins.
Class Selective. The most significant source of lead poisoning was wine. To help preserve and sweeten it, the Romans added a syrup made of unfermented grape juice that had been boiled down in lead-lined pots, thereby greatly increasing the absorption of lead. Unfortunately the Romans did not understand, says the California Ph.D., that "this slow poison, this delicious syrup" delayed the wine's souring by killing impure microorganisms. In sterilizing the wine, "they knew not that they were also sterilizing themselves."
The lead poisoning was class selective, Gilfillan argues, because the poor rarely could afford wine, used cheap earthenware cooking utensils, and did not have such luxuries as cosmetics. But, says he, the aristocracy's "high death rate, as well as its low birth rate, strongly suggests lead poisoning," and his still incomplete work on exhumed bones tends to confirm his theory. Using tombstone inscriptions as a guide, he reports that life expectancy among the upper classes was 22-25 years; literary and census data indicate that the number of aristocratic births was remarkably low, "perhaps one-fourth of what would have been necessary to maintain their number." Over a period of generations, "this aristothanasia" wiped out the leaders of thought and culture.

Blaming Rome's fall on gays is dumb because Rome was gay during it's greatest days. It fell under it's christian days.

[KelliLee]

emperorjohn wrote:

<quoted text>
Blaming Rome's fall on gays is dumb because Rome was gay during it's greatest days. It fell under it's christian days.

I am going to have to agree with you on that John. It was very well known that Roman regime was heavily involved in homosexuality pretty much the entire time the empire stood so I dont think it is to blame for the fall of the empire. It truly did fall under the days that Christianity took over. I guess there will always be lots of theories to try to understand how an empire that stood for so long eventually fell but unfortunately I dont think we will ever have the true answer unless someone was there which is obviously not a possibility!

[Mamma]

I guess they will have to remove the 'In God we trust' from the money and put 'In athiesm we thrust'.

[hmm]

I always thought gays were responsible, not.

[umran]

i don't see any of the romans as being gays or any other nations that visit the heritage your sights are mistaken.

[Bill]

umran wrote:

i don't see any of the romans as being gays or any other nations that visit the heritage your sights are mistaken.

What sites? He only provides support for the toxicolgical demise of the Roman aristocracy.

[black atheist]

Yes the Romans and Greeks were extremely homosexual.

[Black Deal]

black atheist wrote:

Yes the Romans and Greeks were extremely homosexual.

So was black folks in Sodom and Gomirrah

God killed they ass to

[Brainiac2]

black atheist wrote:

Yes the Romans and Greeks were extremely homosexual.

Movie goers are reminded of this Greek cultural idiosyncracy in the recent film The 300 and its comical parody.