Fall of Roman Empire

At the height of its power, Rome controlled the greatest empire ever seen in Europe at that time. Many of the conquered nations benefited from Rome. Roman public baths, roads, water supplies, all appeared in Western Europe. The sheer size of the empire was a major reason for the collapse of Rome. In AD 284, the Emperor Diocletian divided the Roman Empire in two parts to make it easier to rule. He created the Western Empire and the Eastern Empire, each with its own leader. Diocletian faced more than just administrative problems. More and

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 Empire was one of the greatest empires around it’s time period. They ruled their region with an overpowering military force. They also had compelling agriculture and religion. Much of their music, clothes, and other agriculture continued on throughout other empires. They shaped the world with their beliefs and ideas and without this empire the world would be very different. There were strong Roman emperors and also horrible emperors who ruined the empire. Caesar and Constantine were among the most popular emperors of Rome. Constantine ruled later in the Empires lifetime while Caesar earlier. The death of Caesar had a huge impact on this empire. Constantine gave the Roman Empire the main religion of Christianity. This questioned the original beliefs of the Romans. They totally changed their culture. Towards the fall of the Roman Empire, the empire was split into two parts. This weakened their strong military force and led to an invasion. Evidently this caused Rome’s fall. The Roman Empires fall was due to the death of Caesar, mass poverty among Rome’s citizens, rise of Christianity, split of empires, and the invasions of the barbarians.

The Roman empire suffered many problems throughout its rise and several centuries of subsequent power. To begin with, they dealt with many outside invasions, including the Burgundians, Franks, Alemanni, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Visigoths, and Anglo-Saxon peoples. The invaders considered most barbaric were the Huns, which the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus describes as people who “surpass all other barbarians in the wilderness of life.” He further describes “they are so little advanced

Due to the mass amounts of civil war taken place on Roman land, farming and agriculture greatly suffered. Land was over worked and overused causing the land to become infertile. Soon food shortages and diseases caused the population to decrease. From the cumulations of lost money to war and farming the economy weakened and inflation became high. The gap between the rich and poor gradually increased and the economy weakened. Between civil wars, high taxation, and food shortages, citizens lost a sense patriotism that once flourished throughout society.

To begin with, one of the main problems of the Roman Empire was their economic problems and corruption. For example, in an excerpt of a historical text written by Priscus, which was a Roman ambassador to the Huns in 449 C.E, he reported a conversation he had with a former citizen whose land had been conquered by the Huns. In their conversation the former Roman citizen stated, “ The conditions of [Roman] subjects in time of peace [is worse than war]...taxes are very severe, and unprincipled men inflict injuries on others… A [wealthy lawbreaker] … is not punished for his injustice, while a poor man … undergoes the legal penalty… The climax of misery is to have to pay in order to obtain justice…” This supports that one main problem that ended the Roman empire was economic problems and corruption because it shows that if rich people in Rome committed a crime they would only have to bribe their way out of trouble while on the other hand poor people will have to face their consequences which is unfair so when they got invaded by the Huns they decided that it was best if they conquered than to join the military to help their empire. In addition another economic problem is that the the Roman Emperors had to pay their own soldiers to stay loyal which lead to emperors having to mint more coins which is further supported by BrainPop which states, “Roman emperors often bribed their soldiers with money to make sure they remained loyal. And when emperors didn’t have enough to pay their troops, they would mint cheaper coins. This caused the value of Roman money to plummet.” This also supports that one important cause that caused the Roman Empire to decline was the corruption and economic problems because in order for a empire or a civilization to function efficiently, they need to respect all people

The rise and expansion of the Roman Empire led to its fall because of lack of sufficient defense against invasion, economic problems, and absence of sufficient governing. The rise and expansion of Rome led to weakened defense from invasions from outsiders, which caused the empire to fall. As the Roman empire expanded, the borders grew too large to be properly defended, leading to attacks from outsiders. When Rome grew and expanded after the punic wars took place, the boarders were greatly widened (Document 1), making the Empire of Rome an easy target for outside invaders such as the Burgundians, the Ostrogoths, and Huns, as well as several others (Document 5). One of the most significant groups of invaders, the Huns, were savage fighters who would “pillage the camp of their enemy almost before he has become aware of their

Rome needs money to strive and without it, it was more likely to collapse as the economy went down the drain. Due to deadly illnesses being transmitted to the Roman Empire, it allowed the economy to suffer severely. The illness, measles that had arrived from southern Asia, had decimated the population leaving 250,000 people left from a million in the Roman Empire (Doc. #8). Due to the military having to hire Germanic soldiers to guard their frontiers, they needed money to pay the troops. The demand for money to pay for these troops then added to the demands on the state’s budget, just as declining production cut into tax revenues. Taxes became severe on the citizens of the empire, wealthy men were treated more valuable than the poor and unprincipled men inflicted injuries on others (Doc. #6). The Roman Empire treating the wealthy with more respect could be due to their need for money in the state’s budget and hoping some of them would have the heart to donate money, preventing the fall of Rome. Taxes were raised for obvious reasons. The empire knew they were having money problems and needed to get more out of the citizens spending habits, also to prevent the fall of Rome. The natural disaster that struck the Roman Empire in 366 CE could also contribute economically to the fall of Rome since the there was a devastation left and all recoveries to the city cost money (Doc. #7). The

    One of the many reasons that caused the fall of the Roman Empire was the Barbarian Invasions. All of the devastating Barbarian Invasions of the Roman Empire caused it to fall prior to 476. Though the attacks weren’t unified, they dealt heavy damage on all areas of the Roman Empire. The attacks came from all over, some of them took place on islands, others were fought by mainland. Looking at the attacks, the Barbarian Invasions were very successful in taking over the Roman Empires controlled areas(Doc.6). These Barbarian Invasions were just some of many reasons why the Roman Empire fell.

The Roman Empire was considered the biggest empire. The empire conquered 3 million square miles of land and it managed to do this because of it’s stable government and its military. Rome maintained much of its peace from 27 bc to 180 ad and this era is called Pax Romana which essentially, was the golden age of Rome. However, after Pax Romana, Rome declined from 180 ad to 476 ad. During the declination of Rome empire, the Roman empire was divided into an eastern and a western empire and was controlled by 2 emperors; one in the east and one in the west. Rome did this in order for the emperors to share power and to manage between situations such as war effectively. Since Rome was divided into 2 sections, barbaric groups such as goths, started

Asia, began attacking the German tribes. Thus the tribes looked for protection from the Huns in the Empire. They received permission from the Emperor to live in the Empire. A couple of years later the Romans sent an army to defeat the Germans and failed to defeat them. This proved that Rome was not invincible. The

Economics contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. According to Document 4, “Part of the money went into… the maintenance of the army and of the vest bureaucracy required by a centralized government.. The expense led to strangling taxation..” the Roman government had large expenses because it needed money for the army, the bureaucracy, and welfare. This lead to the increase of taxes. However, high taxation affected the people

Ancient Rome was an empire so dominant, wealthy and economically- stable which came to a dramatic fall in the period of 250AD- 500AD. Ancient Rome faced unexplained unfortunate events which crumbled the Great Empire from the affluent empire to a impoverished society. For centuries historians have timelessly theorised and analysed many debates and research in relation to the Fall of the Roman Empire. What really caused the predominate Roman Empire to fall? Did Rome fall naturally? Was disease, such as malaria a major contributor to the Fall of the Empire, Was man -made infrastructure a problem during Ancient Roman times? Was the fall a natural event? Was the climate changing causing natural disasters? Maybe, perhaps, all the theories interweaved with each other at the same time causing a catastrophic downfall, defeating the Ancient Roman Empire. Edward Gibbon (Gibbon, 1909, pp 173-174.) quoted,

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

     Another problem plaguing the late Roman Republic was the constant revolt of the provinces because of corruption and mismanagement. Under the early Republic, the appointed provincial governors served short terms. Many of these politically appointed governors were either inexperienced or incompetent, so corruption and mismanagement were common practices.(1) The greed of these governors was so intolerable that the population of one province forced the imperial tax collectors to drink molten gold. Augustus reformed the provincial administrative system by creating an imperial civil service