We all associate the Roman Empire with grandeur, innovation, and success. After all, Rome was one of the largest empires of all time, with their culture arms spreading from Britain to Africa. So why did it fall? Well, the Roman Empire had been on the decline for years but there are four major reasons why this ancient powerhouse crumbled to legend. Through failings in the social, military, economic, and political aspects of Rome, the empire fell. By far one of the biggest issues in Roman was the social aspect of government. These issues are complex as many other issues from other sectors feed into this one class of problem. People are truly the heart of a civilization. The problem in Rome is that they grew lazy. As seen in Documents 2 and 3, …show more content…
Soldiers were few and far between as recruitment laws often went unenforced. The soldiers recruit were often lazy and even abandoned their armor for the sake of sloth as seen in Document 2. The result was a small, untrained, and unequipped army heading the front of a military based economy. During this moment of weakness several other civilizations also invaded, creating other social issues. As mentioned before, Rome’s economy was based almost entirely on warfare and the acquisitions of new lands with new fortunes. With a weak military that was not only was not conquering new lands, but actually losing them, the economy crashed. Numerous natural disasters also contributed to the chaos. As mentioned in Document 7, earthquakes and floods destroyed great swathes of cities, costing a massive amount in rebuilding cost and life and property loss. These issues were also worsened by a lack of political wellness. In ancient Rome, the emperors rarely lived for more than a few years. That combined with corrupt senators and a failing economy can only spell disaster for politics. People were untrusting of their own government and its inability to keep itself afloat. All of these four issues mentioned above ultimately led to the fall of one of the greatest empires to ever exist. Today it’s up to us to us to observe these mistakes and make sure we never make them
Rome was a grand empire that lasted many years. Eventually the empire did have to fall, but the reason that such a great empire fell is unclear. The fall of the Roman Empire was mainly caused by its size, the economy, the spread of christianity, and the many enemies of Rome.
First one of Rome’s most major flaws was the weak political leadership. Weak political leadership was the main reason for the fall of Rome because in Doc. A compiled by various sources showed how many emperors there were from 235-285 CE. Which leads to weak political power because there were constantly new emperors every year or two. Most of them died by assassination. Another reason was the emperors spent all their money on parties and festivals. Also, they bribed their soldiers to stay loyal but when they didn't have enough money they had to
One of the main reasons Rome fell was because of it’s government. It’s bad leadership and selfish officials that create a divide between the government and the people. Document 4, an excerpt from The New Deal in Old Rome by Henry Haskell, a journalist for Kansas City Star, allows us to infer that the gap between the government and people could not be fixed. The government increased taxes in order to fund the army and the government itself. These actions taken by the government caused severe economic decline and unemployment as the phrase “people learned to expect something from nothing” became prevalent in Rome at the time.
Rome was such a large powerful empire, so how did it fall? There were different things leading up to the fall of the Roman Empire, not just a singular cause. The main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire were being reliant foreign soldiers, constant change in emperors (unstable/unorganized government), and economic issues.
Ancient Rome fell for many reasons. This essay has focused on just three. One of them was that Rome had a corrupt government. Rome also had lots of natural forces disrupting them. Their military played a big part, too.
One reason Rome fell was the economic problems and corruption. First of all, since the military was so weak, the leaders kept dying. Mostly of assassination. For example, in the chart in document A, 13 emperors were assassinated. Also a lot of the time the leaders would have bribed the military to stay loyal. The leaders, the people chose, had enemies. The enemies would assassinate them, and take their place. The leaders also made horrible decisions. The empire got weaker and weaker every leader. Everything kept changing. Since most of the leaders didn’t agree with what the other leader previously made legal. The laws were all over the place.
Rome was a very successful empire for a long period of time, Rome had conquered a lot of land and had a powerful army. But everything good has an end to it. Economic disasters, military weakness, and weak leadership were all primary reasons that had led up to the fall or decline of Rome.
Rome was constantly expected to maintain an army in order to defend its borders from barbarian attacks. This was an economically draining task that had an immense effect on the government. Not only did the troops have to be fed and bathed, but also trained and paid. The funds required by the legions left little to no money for the Empire. Tasks such as providing public housing and maintaining roads and aqueducts were no longer able to be completed. Left with no money, Rome could no longer function, leading to the downfall. Constant wars and overspending were putting Rome in an economical crisis. The Empire was struggling to gather sufficient troops to defend its boundaries against attacks and civil issues. Funds were constantly being channeled
Besides having a corrupt government, their government was also disorganized and the people in it were not sure how to run a government, or at least that’s what we think. Today, among many other topics, we will examine their government and what went wrong. So basically the point of this essay is to prove that Roman times, although more interesting, was not an ideal time to live in. So, we need to ask ourselves today, was it really worth it?
At its height, Rome was one the greatest empires of its time. they were considered advanced with their many technologies. But eventually all empires fall. Rome fell for, four main reasons in a countless battle against not only other countries but themselves with these issues: Political, economic, disease and foreign invaders.
Rome was considered one of the greatest empires in history, but eventually the empire meets its end. Although there were many factors contributing to its downfall, there were four major reasons for the fall of the western roman empire. They were political issues, economic problems, dangerous diseases and attacks from foreign invaders.
The Roman Empire was a massive empire that eventually collapsed over time. In 455 C.E the Roman Empire was its last straw. Rome's transition from a republic to an empire made it increase dramatically. This, of course, led to many other problems that caused the Roman Empire to decline and fall. The Roman empire did not depend on one thing for its decline but three major events. The Roman empire fell because of the rise of Christianity, economic trouble, and weak military.
To start off with, economic problems and corruption very much contributed to the fall of Rome. According to Document E written by the Roman ambassador Priscus, “...taxes are very severe, and unprincipled men inflict injuries on others...The climax of misery is to have to pay in order to obtain justice.” This piece from the text explains how even during a time of peace Rome was out of hand. Most citizens even, “Considered his new life...better than his old life among the Romans,” when the Huns took over. When the ambassador states, “ The climax of misery is to have to pay in order to obtain justice,” means that the worst part of being miserable in Rome is having to pay for your own rights. Although the constitution and law was fair at the time, the governors were not following what the former generations had intended and were destroying the state. It also states in the Brain Pop video titled “ The Fall of Rome,” that most of Rome’s leaders were paying their soldiers to stay loyal during time of war. They began to lose money and had to print cheaper coins, which drastically changed the currency. The emperors who did this did not find the resolution but went on to steal money from Rome’s treasure to throw feasts and festivals.
As Rome was facing attacks from the outside there was an even deeper problem happening from within and it was their economy. Rome’s constant war and overspending in building its empire was becoming costly. As their treasury depleted they decided to impose hard taxation to account for the new expense they were generating. Which actually caused many people who were apart of the upper class to move to the countryside to avoid the oppressive taxes(Andrews) . Another economic problem is that inflation began to occur. Marcus Aurelius increased the copper content of the silver coins and then after that there was even more severe inflation on it way(Starr 144-145). A third problem with the economy, also politically, was that there was an ever growing expansion of bureaucracy. The expansion of their government caused more and more officials to have to be paid. Not to mentions cities already were having a hard
These troops would train for years before they would go off to fight; unlike many of their opponents they faced who were utilizing untrained troops or peasants to compose their armies (Dambrath).