DBQ Essay: The Fall Of Rome

The great Roman Empire expanded across all of Europe and into the Middle East. Its military was one of the finest. With major trading in Africa and Britain, the economy flourished with brining many citizens a healthy income. With amazing advancements in culture and technology, Roman society was at its finest. During the Pax Romana, the Romans had 200 years of peace and good ruling by level headed dictators and emperors. Despite Rome’s greatness in all of these areas, Rome would eventually fall. Surprisingly all of these qualities that led up to a flourishing empire were the same ones that led to its demise. As Germanic tribes invaded, the military weakened and the government became unstable.

The Roman Republic began in 509 B.C.E. with the overthrow of the Etruscan monarchy. In 27 B.C.E the Roman Empire began with Octavian Caesar becoming the emperor, this ended almost 500 years of republican self-government. There is much debate over why Rome became so powerful so quickly. Many think it had to do with Rome’s military strength. Others think that it was because Rome knew of and controlled most of the trade routes. Still others believed it had to do with the technology that was advanced during the Roman Republic. All of these factors played significant roles, but which one played the most important role?

In Document B, Vegetius says that because of the neglecting of the military, the soldiers did not wear breastplates and helmets. Due to that, the soldiers were taken down by the archers and other soldiers of the invaders easily and the Romans started losing their battles. The reason why not wearing the armor hurt them and made the military go bad was because the invaders were very strong in the area of fighting and killing. The Huns, which were one of their enemies, were described as savage, having compact sturdy limbs and thick neck, and glued to their horses (Doc D). With all of those attributes put together, they are the ultimate enemy and not wearing the armor makes the soldiers goners right when they get there to take over. And the Huns did come and also the Visigoths and Vandals (Doc C). They slowly migrated to the Empire but when they got there, they fought hard. After all of these invasions from the outsiders, the army of Rome gets low on fumes and they end up being taken over by the invaders. To make the military worse the population was going down due to bad things happening to the

From 200 CE to 476 CE the fall of Rome began, and ended. Rome began in Italy surrounded by the mediterranean sea and expanded over time. They took over great parts of Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa. Rome experienced a great time of prosperity filled with different cultures and (known as the golden age), and eventually, due to all of the flaws and problems, fell. I believed that the reason it fell was due to many external, and internal factors. Some of the internal factors that lead to the fall of Rome were; loss/less labor and war-like difficulties. While the some of the external factors where great things out of their control, such as plagues and getting attacked.

Rome fell because of laziness and negligence of the military. Inside document B, this happened because the military fought without armor and helmets so they got wounded easily by the Goths archers. The soldiers ran from fights rather than actually fighting. The army abandoned their own parade drills. Doc B). People were avoiding the drafts so the military became weak. No one tried to restore the armor so people would keep getting wounded. Eventually the weak military led to the fall of Rome.

Rome was, in its more wholesome years, a prosperous city-turned-empire with many brave hearts fighting to expand it. Rome started out as a small and humble town around 750 BC, and, a few years later, took advantage of this weakness and obscureness and put its amount of hard-workers to use. They took over Greece and many others, also creating one of the most powerful and humongous armies to behold the Mediterranean World. Everywhere from Scotland to Egypt to Asia Minor to Spain, there were Romans. Though, why, in 5th century AD, did it fall?

That was the first start of the fall of Rome and that's how it all began. My second reason for the fall of rome is foreign invasions, because every time they would build their community back up from the first foreign invasion more people would come to there village and kill their soldiers and civilians and steal all of their stuff. (Document F) The main reason the foreign invasions were not good for the village was because they would basically slowly take over the Roman empire by coming into their village and killing all the women, men and children and the roman empire couldn't do nothing about it because they would come out of nowhere and ambush them (Document C). Rome had to work and take time of training to help everybody fix their houses from ambushes and fix their walls from people knocking them down when they came in trying to rob them and that is my second reason on what I think cause the fall of Rome (Document

One of the many noteworthy reasons Rome came to its demise was the unstable nature of their military. The Romans were rarely using their armor to shield themselves and it was getting tiresome to wear the armor. The emperor then did not require the use of body armor anymore, “Therefore, they first asked the emperor to set aside the breastplates… and then the helmets.” (page 15). Because of the decision to cast away the breastplates and helmets, it made it effortless to wound and kill the Romans with skilled archers, such as the Huns (Doc D). Another pivotal fault was the draft, “The exempted categories were...numerous” (Doc B). Draft exemptions meant that not enough men were fighting and too many were lazing around. Even bakers and cooks were not required to serve under martial law(Doc B). Because of these mistakes, the Roman military became weak. Not having enough members on their command,

Rome's military now has no armor. They were getting lazy, making them the underdogs. Without protection, they are easy to beat making it simple for outsiders/ invaders to come in. Without the military, Rome will have no way of protecting itself.

So that led to Rome’s decline and it’s fall. Second, the empire’s military switched sides in war. It says in document 5 that the military switched sides in war.

Although the fall of Rome remains obscure, what many historians fail to realize is that the decline of the Roman Empire was the epitome of cause and effect relationships. Properly analyzing the fall of Rome leads historians to realize that a chain of circumstances, beginning with the political corruption of the Western empire, was a catalyst for superfluous military spending and economic failure, all which contributed to the fall of Rome. Because the Praetorian Guard would select the highest bidder and put him into office, the emperors would not represent the people as a whole and did not instill the beliefs that the people held. In Document 1, Roman Emperors, 235-285, a chart shows the inconsistency of the Roman emperors and the violence

Also the army was defenseless without being able to train for battle. Another piece from Document B, “Although there were many disasters, which led to the loss of great cities, no one tried to restore breastplates and helmets to the infantry. Thus it happens that troops in battle, exposed to wounds because they have no armor, think about running and not about fighting.” The Romans were unprotected. They were not focused on fighting, but instead, they were focused on running away.

The council allowed the army to ditch the breastplates and other armor because they were saying it was too heavy. According to Roman historian Vegetius, “...because of negligence and laziness, parade ground drills were abandoned, the customary armor began to seem heavy since the soldiers rarely ever wore it. ”(Doc B) The laziness in Rome’s defenses were causing it to become an easy target to its enemies.

Rome, one of the most enormous and powerful empires to ever exist also eventually crumbled. There are many beliefs to why this happened, such as the increasingly weak boundaries, lack of assurance on the emperor's, an increasingly horrible economics system, and a backlash on the new origin of Christianity to name a few. What was known as one of the biggest empires known to date also eventually came to it’s unfortunate end.

An excerpt from an ancient book by the Roman Historian Vegetius states, “The customary armor began to seem heavy since the soldiers rarely ever wore it. Therefore, they first asked the emperor to set aside the breastplates… and then the helmets. So our soldiers fought the Goths without any protection for chest and head and were often beaten by archers” This shows that the laziness of the soldiers lead to weakness and could not win any battles. Also, it is stated, “Thus it happens that troops in battle, exposed to wounds because they have no armor, think about running and not about fighting.” This explains that the soldiers got killed and could not defend Rome because they wore no armor. Military weakness contributed to the fall of Rome because they could not protect the empire because they were lazy and wore no armor. Enemies could have easily one battles against