Hypotheses

Perspective is a strange creature. When I read "so-and-so's prosperous dynasty lasted from the end of the 8th century to the late 9th...," my immediate reaction is, "but that's so short! How can that have been prosperous? How could those people have believed themselves living in a Dynasty when it was less than one hundred years?" The tenures of rule seem so short, and they ARE in the grand scale, as are all things younger than the stars.

Yet, as the vastness of the once-great Roman Empire comes into focus, and its dissolution into the Byzantine, and now nothing weigh into the continuity of history, I see irony in my own perception. The world of my generation seems such a solid place... as though the oscillations of borders were governed by some dwindling function, massive at its origin, and calming ever through the ages... as though battles were a thing of the past, barbaric and needless.

This, I imagine, could not be further from the truth. I know that the world changed at the end of the last World War as much as it did during the collapse of Rome, I know that the function is merely coming to a lull, neither deterred nor encouraged by the passage of time, simply passing through cycles of war and peace, indifferent to the age. So long as the tide rolls, war will rise and fall. This I know, but do not believe. ...and so it was with the Visigoths, and the Umayyads in Spain. These short dynasties were hard won by their founders, the grandchildren of whom knew nothing of it. It is certainly worth wondering how much of the duration of these kingships owed itself to the quality of the culture, and how much to the fading memory of battle, and to what extent these are truly separate considerations.