on the History of Byzantium podcast, it is common almost to the point of parody that on Listener Questions episodes, someone will write in with a question that goes along the lines of
If the Byzantines still knew how to [Do Great Works], why did they stop [doing Great Works]?
And every time, Robin, the host, patiently and gracefully explains that "By the time in history we are talking about, the Byzantines simply did not have the resources to do the [Great Works] you are referring to."
The Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire) was, for the vast majority of its existence, a shrinking empire, slowly losing territory that once was hyper-productive for the old Romans. You lose that territory and you lose the people who worked those territories, and suddenly it's not quite as easy to make great municipal works or to throw the Legions at whatever problem is on your doorstep.
It's a slow, downward spiral type of thing -- the problems that were once trivial are now damning, and the resources you lose each time you fail to solve a problem make solving the next problem even harder.
I think about this a lot when it comes to questions about modern geopolitics, or even local politics. Is the problem that we have "lost the ability" to do Great Works? Or is the problem that we have been starved of resources, or that our resources are being diverted to private hands?
In most situations, people do not become spontaneously unable to Do Great Works. However, it is very common (and also imminently traceable) that the resources once available to Do Great Works become slowly diverted away from their old stockpiles, and they aren't refreshed over the years, and soon enough the problems that were once trivial are now existential.
