It was first developed in the Roman Empire about two thousand years ago.

VOA: special.2009.09.16

When a slave is freed--and in the Ancient World, in the Roman Empire, most slaves were eventually freed, - unless they just died before long-- they became a freed man.

当一名奴隶被释放。。。在古罗马帝国，几乎所有奴隶最终都会被释放，除非他们很早就去世-,成为脱离奴隶身份的人。

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There were always battles and wars going on, on the boundaries, the frontiers of the Roman Empire, but within the center of the empire there was an amazing period of peace.

战争永远都在进行，在边界，罗马帝国边境，但在帝国中心却是一派和平盛世。

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The West of the Germanic tribes that had toppled the Roman empire was weak and it was divided.

弱小分裂的西方日耳曼部族,推翻了罗马帝国

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The Holy Roman Empire, as it was known in the time of Machiavelli, was the successor to the ancient Roman state, the older Roman Empire.

神圣罗马帝国，是马奇亚维利那年代的称号，那是古罗马国的继承者，即较古老的罗马帝国。

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But most of the free citizens of the Roman Empire, - of Rome, were poor people-- free, and even citizens, but they were poor people who weren't part of any rich household.

但是大多数罗马帝国的自由公民，都是穷人-,他们是自由的，甚至是公民，但都是穷人，不属于富裕家户。

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But it's important for understanding both the Roman Empire, as well as early Christianity and its patron-client relations.

这对了解罗马帝国，早期基督教，及其庇护关系很有帮助。

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And of course, there are more theories about the fall of the Roman Empire than there are about the fall of the Mycenaean world.

当然,罗马帝国衰落的理论比,迈锡尼衰落的理论更多

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Christianity began as a persecuted religion that ultimately captured the Roman empire only after centuries of hostility towards the Empire, towards Rome, towards the secular state in general.

基督教最初作为被迫害的宗教,最终征服了整个罗马帝国,而在此之前,它经过了数世纪,对帝王对罗马以及,对整个世俗世界的反抗

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These Germanic and other tribes, who were largely located north and northeast of Europe, came down--I should say not Europe, but the Roman Empire-- came down and ultimately destroyed it by invasion.

那些日耳曼部落和其他部落,主要位于欧洲北部和东北部,的入侵,我应该说不是位于欧洲,而是位于罗马帝国,入侵并且完全摧毁了罗马帝国

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I have to believe that whoever came up with that theory for the first time was aided in coming to it by thinking about the end of the Roman Empire, when something precisely like that did happen.

我想任何人第一次接触该理论,都会自动联想到罗马帝国的衰亡,进而支持该理论,因为类似的事情确实曾经发生过

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So the union of a universalist religion, with a monarch such as the Roman Empire, who ruled a vast empire, could nonetheless have put an end to any prospect of freedom as in other civilizations.

所以说,若是由信普救说者教会,与罗马帝国为代表的君主政体结盟,便会断送,其他文明中存在的自由前景

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Another characteristic of these years, which scholars refer to as the Dark Ages, just as they do the years after the fall of the Roman Empire-- dark for two reasons. Dark, in the most obvious way, because we don't have any writing, no record of them.

这也是这段时期的另一个特征,学者们称之为,黑暗时代,他们也是这么称呼,罗马帝国陷落后的那段时期的,称黑暗主要有两个原因,黑暗,最明显的理由,是因为我们没有任何关于他们的史料和记录

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He established a religion, first a sect, you might say, then a religion, then eventually an empire, the Holy Roman Empire, that was established in the name of that teaching.

他建立了一个宗教，一开始是个宗派，然后是宗教，最后成为一个帝国，神圣罗马帝国，即是按着他,教诲的名义而建立。

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So Roman slavery and the freedom of that was actually one way that a few people in the Ancient World recognized some kind of social mobility, which was very rare in the Roman Empire.

所以罗马奴隶制以及奴隶释放制,被古代部分人认为是,某种社会阶级流动，在罗马帝国很少见。

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Only in the Roman Empire could slavery actually start being a way that you can move up in society, because you could-- if you were a talented slave, your owner might free you, probably would free you.

只有在罗马帝国，奴隶制可以成为,提高社会地位的手段，因为。。。,如果是一个能干的奴隶，主人可能会释放他，很有可能。

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He and his family, the emperor's family, - was, in a sense, the patron for the whole people of the Roman Empire-- - at least for all the Romans-- the paterfamilias of the entire empire.

他及其家庭，帝王的家庭，某种意义上说，就是整个罗马帝国的庇护者-,至少是所有罗马人的-,他成了整个帝国的家长。

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or different parts of the Roman Empire.

还有罗马帝国其他地区。

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How did they react to the powerful Roman Empire?

对强大的罗马帝国的态度？

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He both replaces and yet reconfigures according to his own lights, elements from both the Christian empire and the Roman republic, to create a new form of political organization distinctly his own.

他不但取代还重新配置,且是根据他自己的想法，原理,有别于基督帝国与罗马共和，创造出一种新型的政治组织,独树一帜。

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First, the Treaty declared that the individual sovereign state would henceforth become the highest level of authority; you might say, putting an end once and for all " to the universalist claims of the Holy Roman Empire.

第一，条约宣称,各个主权国家,都因此而成为各自国家里最高的权力;,永远终结了,普遍意义上的“神圣罗马帝国。

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