Early fifth century: The story of the decline of antiquity told differently and more historically honestly. Unlike in old Hollywood films, early Christianity does not bring light and warmth to the cold, pagan world. On the contrary: the state-mandated forced Christianization since Emperor Theodosius plunges the high culture of antiquity into a thousand-year abyss. A tolerant society with many gods transforms into a monoculture, and a population where the majority can read, write, and calculate, and which boasts thousands of libraries and schools throughout the empire, becomes an army of illiterates, with only a few clergy nurturing and copying sacred texts. Baths must close, knowledge, philosophy, and art are lost. The dark Middle Ages are ushered in, not so much by barbarians and plagues as by church bells.