What blows my mind about the Roman Empire is that lack of technology is far easier to overcome than lack of freedom from bureaucrats Like unironically these guys built the most insane civic architecture and still hold the record We have to technology to build something a hundred times bigger than ever but instead we chose to employ bureaucrats and allow them to micromanage every detail of buildings down to toilet spacing and the number of fasteners per foot They were willing to spend a significant portion of their GDP on making their civilization epic, and we have cheap bullshit and decay Terrible trade Absolutely humiliating