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Fall Of The Roman Empire Essay

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Many contributing factors led to the downfall of the Roman Empire: military, political, economic, and social issues all contributed. After the Pax Romana, peace that lasted in the Roman Empire for two-hundred years, ended in 180 A.D., the empire started to fall apart. Power was taken back by short-lived emperors, poor farmers worked for wealthy landowners, barbarian invasions began to increase, and high taxes were imposed on citizens, all leading to complete chaos in Rome. The chaos continually got worse until the empire depleted. Of all the extensive amount of causes for the fall of Rome, I believe political conflicts contributed the greatest. To start off, short-lived emperors put into office corrupted the empire. To try and make the empire stronger, they expanded the …show more content…

The decisions that corrupt, short-lived emperors made created a barrier of distrust from the people and the rulers. Furthermore, the continuous line of bad successors was a main reason that Rome began to decline. Citizens would assassinate the emperors due to their lack of leadership, and no trained leader was ready to replace them. In order to be a strong leader, you had to be trained and prepared for the challenges that came your way. However, leaders in Rome at this time would fight for their power and rise up among ordinary citizens. They were not trained, and civil war broke out among the people over disagreements. Emperors made quick decisions that weakened the empire and it led to Rome’s downfall. Lastly, the continuous line of bad emperors led to strong distrust from the citizens. They became acquainted with having a weak emperor in power, so they did not put their trust in the decisions that they made. More than twenty emperors held the throne in a period of seventy-five years! The empire became unstable and weak because there was not a constant technique of ruling. The challenges that arose were not handled properly, and enemy invaders became more capable of

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