During the dark age, Europe(?) Forgot how to write and read however, when rome was still a giant empire they could. How can that be?
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People *didn’t* “forget how to read” in the middle ages, scholars and royals wrote stuff down and peasants were mostly illiterate – just like classical Rome. The “dark ages” weren’t nearly so dark as the popular image, but yes, whole civilizations can build up and fall apart over time.
I think that’s a function of social/political *organization*. A massive empire like Rome takes a long time to build – building the whole Mediterranean into a single interdependent economy that can have flourishing trade, concentrate wealth enough to build huge buildings and employ scholars to write tons of books, and a state that can govern it all efficiently. When that organization falls apart, through disaster or decay, you’re left with a bunch of smaller states, none of whom have the same wealth as Rome and none of whom can guarantee peace for economies to boom like before.
This has happened in China tons of times over the millenia – a stable dynasty for centuries which fostered culture, huge public projects and overall prosperity, and then a period of chaos and division where everyone is fighting and the roads aren’t safe to travel. And then some new dynasty succeeds in unifying China again, and prosperity returns.
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