The Great Arcanist Who Traveled Through the World of American Variety Shows.

Chapter 534: The War Between Monotheism and Polytheism

Although Richard learned very limited things from these defeated soldiers, combined with the history he had learned before, Richard calculated that the Western Roman Empire was about to fall.

After its heyday, the Roman Empire began to decline, with the corruption of the aristocracy, religious chaos, corruption of officials, financial exhaustion, and repeated invasions by barbarians, including the Huns.

So many problems made the Roman Empire completely unable to resist the Germanic barbarians, which eventually led to the demise of the Western Roman Empire.

The Western Roman Empire had many problems, the most serious of which was financial.

The tax collection targets of the Western Roman Empire were citizens, freemen and merchants. On the surface, there seemed to be no problem, but in fact, the Roman Empire did not collect taxes from the nobles and implemented a tax farming system.

Selling the tax rights of various places to tax farmers, who then collect taxes and hand them over to the state. There are so many things that can be manipulated in this process.

At the same time, Rome’s property inheritance system also had problems. Roman citizens were required to join the army, and once they died in battle, their wealth and property would basically be inherited by their wives.

This led to many Roman citizens' wives remarrying with their property after they died in battle, which resulted in many Roman citizens being unwilling to join the army.

At the same time, due to heavy taxes and a large amount of poll tax, many people in Rome were unwilling to have more children.

So the Romans began to use a large number of slave troops and recruited barbarians into the army. These barbarians gradually gained high positions in the long war. However, the old nobles did not think highly of these barbarians.

The conflict between the new and old nobles became increasingly intense.

However, as more and more barbarians were naturalized and their strength grew, a large number of barbarian generals appeared in the empire. Of course, these barbarian generals were also hostile to their former fellow tribesmen, the Germanic barbarians.

These naturalized barbarians had already regarded themselves as Romans, so on the eve of the fall of the Roman Empire, it was actually a war between the naturalized barbarians of the Germanic barbarians and the northern barbarians.

It can be said that the orthodoxy of the empire lies in the barbarians.

Barbarian invasions intensified, but religious and financial problems within the empire became more serious.

Originally, the Roman Empire believed in polytheism. After conquering various regions, in order to better rule them, Rome began to absorb gods from all over the world and integrate them into the Roman pantheon.

The Greek pantheon is a classic example.

Through this operation, the Roman Empire quickly conquered a large amount of land and established Pantheons in various places.

However, conflicts between ethnic groups and religions are not so easy to resolve.

Religious rebellions and disputes in various places, as well as the struggles between the emperor and the nobles, made the whole of Rome turbulent.

In this situation, the Roman emperor wanted to solve the problem by unifying religious beliefs, so the reformed monotheism came into the sight of the Roman emperor.

Of course, Li Jue felt that there must be a god behind this. Compared with other religions, monotheism has a lower threshold, simpler doctrines, and is more universal.

This allowed monotheism to develop rapidly, especially in 313 AD when the Edict of Milan was promulgated, which directly made monotheism, which had previously only been able to be preached in secret, a legal religion.

Constantine the Great personally stood up for monotheism, becoming the first Roman emperor to believe in monotheism, and also led a large number of nobles to believe in monotheism.

This led to the rapid development of monotheism in the Roman Empire. Later, during the reign of Theodosius I, monotheism was officially declared the state religion. It was also this emperor who announced the ban on the Olympic Games, closed the doors of the Pantheon, and extinguished the sacred flame.

The polytheistic beliefs of Rome officially ended, and monotheistic beliefs began to prevail.

It is obvious that monotheism has won the war of gods against polytheism, and polytheism is just struggling to survive.

Of course, polytheism did not think about resistance, and Emperor Julian, who was called the defender of religion by polytheism, was their counterattack. After ascending the throne, this Roman emperor declared freedom of religion and that Roman citizens had the right to choose the religious beliefs they liked.

He declared that all religious sects had equal status, and vigorously supported polytheism and traditional Roman beliefs, trying to change the dominant position of monotheism.

The emperor implemented a new policy, reducing the luxurious expenses of the palace, expelling eunuchs and a large number of guards, adhering to frugality, and vigorously promoting talents from the common people. He also improved the tax system to improve the national finances and vigorously cracked down on official corruption.

He was also a good warrior and defeated the barbarians many times, thus maintaining the stability of the empire.

It seemed that if this emperor had persisted, he would have had a good chance of leading the Roman Empire to glory again, but strangely, this capable and warlike emperor was seriously injured by a javelin on the battlefield.

On the surface, this javelin was thrown by the enemy, but how far can a javelin be thrown between two armies? The emperor could not be standing in the front line.

Another version is that the emperor was ambushed by monotheistic soldiers.

Of course, this statement was strictly blocked by those people. Julian, the defender of religion, had no children, so the position of emperor fell into the hands of others. Without Julian's support, religious freedom was soon abolished.

Monotheism once again gained the upper hand, so in order to completely resolve polytheism, monotheism began to suppress polytheism in all aspects.

So the monotheism started the Inquisition, trying and persecuting all pagans.

The current time is when monotheism becomes the state religion, polytheism is abolished, barbarians invade, and the Roman Empire is also in a precarious situation.

If history is to be followed, polytheism would soon be swept into the dustbin, and monotheism would complete the unification of the European continent.

Monotheism won the war of pantheons.

At the same time, a large number of barbarian generals appeared in the Roman Empire. This corrupt empire was slowly going to its demise. The few capable armies in the empire were actually barbarians.
While the Roman nobles were scrambling to suck the blood of this corrupt empire, the naturalized barbarians were trying to save the empire.

It must be said that this is really ironic. These naturalized barbarians are more orthodox than orthodox Roman citizens.

Richard was not interested in who would win in the end; he was interested in the divinity of the fallen gods.

You have to know that there are a large number of gods in polytheism. Even if most of them are weak gods or demigods, the divinity they possess is not a small amount.

Sending the defeated soldier to accompany his comrades, Richard blew a whistle, and several war horses immediately came towards him.

Just as he was about to mount his horse and leave, a wave of magical power suddenly came from the forest not far away.

ps: I am visiting relatives today and have no time to write, so there is only one chapter.

(End of this chapter)