The pattern is expressed in several ways, including the splintering of the light provided by the Creator, Eru Iluvatar, into progressively smaller parts the fragmentation of languages and peoples, especially the Elves, who are split into many groups the successive falls, starting with that of the angelic spirit Melkor, and followed by the destruction of the two Lamps of Middle-earth and then of the Two Trees of Valinor, and the cataclysmic fall of Númenor. Tolkien built a process of decline and fall in Middle-earth into both The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. Williams also shows how Tolkien can be put aside several modern writers and film-makers who have rewritten narratives of ancient fallen cities, often for ideological purposes in the present. Hamish Williams regards the narrative of decline and fall in Númenor as a Platonic, thought-experiment exercise, where certain virtues and ideals (sophocracy, moderation, piety, etc.) are emphasized through their loss. Clare sees Athenian decline as entailing a three-stage process, like that of Númenor. Ross Clare analyses how Tolkien’s chronicles of the decline and fall of his island paradise of Atlantis might have been influenced by classical frameworks of decline and fall, as provided by the historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Suetonius. Pezzini sees Arda's decline from its First Age 'filled with Joy and Light' down to its 'Twilight' Third Age as echoing the classical theme. This is seen in Hesiod and Ovid, as the gods became more detached from the lives of mortals.

The classical scholar Guiseppe Pezzini writes that 'narratives of decline' are common in the literature of ancient Greece and Rome. This in turn influenced the portrayal of the classical world in several later films, such as the 2004 Troy.ĭecline and fall: the shattered ruins of the Roman city at Baalbeck Tolkien's fiction was brought to a new audience by Peter Jackson's film version of The Lord of the Rings. Other possible connections are being explored by scholars. The suggested influences include the pervasive classical theme of decline and fall in Middle-earth the splendour of the Atlantis-like lost island kingdom of Númenor the Troy-like fall of Gondolin the Rome-like stone city of Minas Tirith in Gondor magical rings with parallels to the One Ring and the echoes of the tale of Lúthien and Beren with the myth of Orpheus descending to the underworld.

Tolkien and the classical world have been linked by scholars and by Tolkien himself.

Tolkien derived the characters, stories, places, and languages of Middle-earth from many sources, especially medieval ones. Among the many influences on Middle-earth are Classical sources (marked 'C' on map), including Greek mythology, Plato's tale of the lost island civilisation of Atlantis, and cities such as ancient Rome.

The atlas of tolkien's middle earth