## Ancient Rome and Sustainable Development

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**Canonical URL:** [Ancient Rome and Sustainable Development](https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/ancient-rome-and-sustainable-development-annett.pdf)

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### Political and institutional trajectory of the Republic and Empire
- The Roman Republic lasted 500 years because its institutions were supple enough to adapt to two great challenges—internal conflict between aristocrats and the masses and external conflict with rival states and integration of conquered peoples.
- Territorial expansion by the beginning of the second century BCE meant the Republic stretched from Gaul to Greece.
- The boom times drove the population of Rome to nearly 1 million by the first century BCE, making it the first city on earth to reach that milestone.
- Over the Republic’s final century, a succession of leaders smashed norms previously thought inviolable; political violence became routine, institutions were weaponized, and the mob grew increasingly angry—contributing to the effective death of the Republic.
- Following the Republic’s collapse, Rome enjoyed a remarkable resurgence, but the peace was secured in part through the suppression of democratic institutions.

### Economic inequality, corruption, and social collapse
- New wealth from tribute payments, taxes from new provinces, and the development of metal mines was not being shared widely.
- A mass influx of slaves upended the labor market and left soldiers and citizens out of work and increasingly angry.
- Wealth accumulation began to supplant personal virtue and service to the state as the main measure of success.
- Elites engaged in large-scale bribery and corruption to secure political honors and offices, and judicial impunity.
- Marcus Licinius Crassus amassed a fortune generated largely by corrupt property speculation that was so vast it matched the entire Roman treasury and he bankrolled hundreds of politicians.
- Repeated cycles: populist anger → patrician intransigence → overreach and violence (examples: the murders of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus; rise of Gaius Marius; dictatorship of Sulla; careers of Cataline and Clodius; Julius Caesar’s dictatorship and assassination).

### Climate, disease, and environmental shocks
- The period between roughly 200 BCE and 150 CE is now known as the Rome Climate Optimum—a warm, wet, and predicable climate uniquely favorable to the empire’s key agricultural crops.
- By the third century, the climate became cooler, dryer, and more unpredictable, with more frequent droughts and crop failures.
- By the middle of the fifth century, the Late Antique Little Ice Age had arrived.
- Smallpox struck in the second century; a virulent outbreak that may have been Ebola followed in the third century.
- In the mid-sixth century, the Plague of Justinian—the first known incidence of bubonic plague—probably killed half of the empire’s population.
- Recent evidence: the decade before the outbreak of plague saw some of Europe’s coldest temperatures in two millennia, brought about by a sequence of massive volcanic eruptions, likely forcing gerbils and marmots out of central Asia and triggering disease transmission along trade routes.
- Weakened by hostile natural forces, the empire started to unravel in the third century amid political instability, frontier pressure, and a fiscal crisis compounded by currency debasement.
- Severe drought in Eurasia spurred migrations of the Huns—described as “climate refugees on horseback”—setting off mass migrations across the Roman frontier and contributing to the collapse of the western empire in the fifth century.
- In the sixth century the combination of climate-change-induced crop failures, catastrophic plague, and ruinous war coincided with Rome’s population falling to a mere 20,000 and the Roman forum becoming the campo vaccino, the cow field.

### Synthesis: why Rome failed the sustainable development test
- The Roman Republic and the Roman Empire both fell because they failed the sustainable development test: breakdown in time-honored social norms; entrenched political polarization driven by economic inequality; repudiation of the common good by elites; and environmental havoc leading to disease and disaster.
- The fall of Rome was overdetermined, but the natural world impinging on the human world was a major culprit in undermining resilience.

### Contemporary lessons and policy implications
- Sustainable development encapsulates the idea that material progress must always go hand in hand with social inclusion and respect for the environment; delinking economic growth from the other two pillars would be an act of self-sabotage.
- The Roman experience offers a window into our possible future if we fail to act—history rhyming in ways that are eerie and disconcerting.
- There are important differences today: ours is vastly wealthier, healthier, more inclusive, and more resilient; the Romans could not eliminate all forms of material deprivation nor control climate shifts driven by natural forces.
- Because human activity is causing climate change today, it can be fixed by changing our behavior—delivering a zero-carbon energy system over the next three decades.
- The utmost urgency of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals: the global call to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure peace and shared prosperity.
- The bottom line: sustainable development is of enduring importance—whether we are talking about 130 BCE, 530, or 2030.

*Anthony Annett is an assistant to the director and Joshua Lipsky is a senior communications officer in the IMF’s Communications Department.*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/ancient-rome-and-sustainable-development-annett.pdf_