The rise and fall

In the last few weeks we have visited French towns that contained Roman ruins. Many of these towns were built upon the remains of the city that existed before. As I was gazing at the ruins I wondered what it must have been like for the people 200 years after the fall of the Roman Empire to see these magnificent ruins and to know that their civilization had slipped so far back. They could no longer maintain or repair the infrastructures that their ancestors had left them. The Romans had running water, a good sewage system, fine public buildings, public baths with central heating, a road system second to none and now there was nothing but ruins that were cannibalized for the blocks of stone to build their much reduced town.
Our civilization has always progressed for the last 1500 years. Yes there have been some ups and downs but each generation built upon what the last had done and our civilization has always gone forwards. So we really don’t know what it must have been like for them to see all these things that they no longer had. Mind you, they were probably so busy just trying to survive that they just didn’t care about it and the thought never even crossed their mind.