Rome fell because the Romans stopped making Romans. Elon Musk pointed to the same pattern that appears whenever a civilization gets comfortable: birth rates drop. Julius Caesar noticed it around 50 BC and explored incentives for a third child. Augustus went further with the Lex Julia and Lex Papia Poppaea, creating the ius trium liberorum, privileges, tax relief, and inheritance advantages for those with three or more children, plus penalties for the childless. The laws failed to reverse the trend. Will and Ariel Durant’s reading of history shows the cycle repeating: higher births under stress, decline once external threats ease and prosperity rises. Few exceptions. A society that stays below replacement long enough disappears. Basic arithmetic.