The Trump sequel to Rome's decline and fall

Where 'civilizational erasure' comes from

One day in the late 1440s, the Italian scholar Poggio Braccolini climbed Rome’s Capitoline hill with a friend. Before them stretched the ruins of the ancient empire’s capital city.

Writing three centuries later, Edward Gibbon recounted what they saw: The hill “was formerly the head of the Roman Empire, the citadel of the earth, the terror of kings; illustrated by the footsteps of so many triumphs, enriched with the spoils and tributes of so many nations.”

“Cast your eyes on the Palatine hill, and seek among the shapeless and enormous fragments the marble theatre, the obelisks, the colossal statues, the porticos of Nero’s palace: survey the other hills of the city, the vacant space is interrupted only by ruins and gardens. The forum of the Roman people, where they assembled to enact their laws and elect their magistrates, is now enclosed for the cultivation of pot-herbs or thrown open for the reception of swine and buffaloes.”

The columns of Rome’s magnificent buildings, “founded for eter…