Right, progress of civilization. What a bunch of losers.So nothing then?Continually invading and occupying the far reaches of the globe tends to get expensive, and since those campaigns are funded by exploiting not only your own citizens, but those you've conquered, it tends to create resentment that leads to revolutions that cost money to put down and on and on the cycle goes.Praising with faint damnation? You seem to agree with the historical analogies but attribute the declines to "overextension." Should Rome has remained a small city-state? Should England have remained an island fiefdom? Where would you draw the line? The world today would be much less civilized without their imperial influences. And both were brought down insufficient resolve to confront external threats, attempting to appease their enemies while providing ever greater amounts of food and circuses to the masses.
P.S. Your idyllic conception of the Dark Ages is almost comical. Pax Romanica was replaced with nearly continuous warfare throughout Europe. Perhaps you have confused it with the Renaissance?
Top 10 Reasons The Dark Ages Were Not Dark - Listverse
Which is not to say the "Dark Ages" were wonderful and everything was joyous. Merely that they're often simply dismissed with no historical basis whatsoever.
LOL, Fantastic Weather?
Byzantine Golden Age? "In the Byzantine empire during this period we saw a massive outpouring of books – encyclopedias, lexicons, and anthologies. While they did not create a lot of new thinking, they solidified and protected for the future much of what was already known." Whoopee.
Is a complete sentence hiding in there?