Fall of Rome DBQ Essay

These conquests changed what was initially a right of the aristocracy, i.e. "slavery," to becoming an outstanding influence on economic policy and a destabilization of Roman society. This introduction of slaves became a sign of prosperity and dominance. Slavery was widespread in the city, but also touched the farms and large estates in the provinces. The small family-run farms were added to the great estates, creating an increase in cheap labour, as positions normally held by farmers, accepting a wage, were now taken over by the slaves, where there probably was not a wage. The unemployment rate sky-rocketed as the ordinary citizen no longer worked having been exchanged for slaves (UNRV, 2017), increasing the number of people on the "dole" or welfare. These people were not exactly buying anything due to either, the non-existence of funds, or the decrease in funds (Kamm,

Legions became greedy and wanted more money. If the senate did not give them the money they threatened to not protect Rome. Meanwhile between taxes the citizens wanted more and more imports. The imports unfortunately were also taxed so it was more money to purchase and have the item. When the items were shipped some of the ships they were on were hijacked by pirates. Therefore a merchant trying to get a type of cloth from a country might have their material stolen, will lose money and customers. This meant losing money. Rome couldn’t replace the money because they had not yet taken over new land. Conquering new land meant that they could steal objects, citizens to sell for slaves, and their money. If Rome couldn’t conquer land, then they made their own money. But as more money was needed to make them the material dropped. Therefore less coins were produced. Citizens then started bartering. They traded one object for another object instead of trading money. This unfortunately aloud less money flow in Rome. What else was unfortunate was a large drought in Rome. This meant that farmers lost their crops, money and land. They moved into the city to leave the problems behind. Unfortunately this lead to yet another deadly case.

had many economic factors that led to the fall of Rome. The main economic factors are the working ethics and the workforce had started to collapse. Thus, it made Rome profoundly subject to foreign produce. The agriculture had severe problems as the harvest had become inadequate because the soil had become infertile. Also, when war had broken out, it had ruined all the farm lands around. Food shortages and diseases loomed about and soon the death of many people had appeared, this had declined the population. A drop of value in money had led to the increase of prices in goods and many people could not afford the prices to sustain, poverty had started to strike. This had led to the economical reason of the fall of Rome because no one was buying products and there was no good fertile land to harvest from.As a result no one could trade buy or

First I want to talk about is Taxes, Romans lost their Desire to Defend the empire.

Roman war legions were refusing to fight for Rome unless the government raised the salaries. This decision lead to the growing desire for more goods to be purchased from other empires. The importation of goods made the economic growth to be lesser.pirates attacked ships on the mediterranean sea leaving boats stranded. Tariffs made getting goods from other empires a struggle because there was a tax on the goods the Roman empire purchased. Rome did not want to expand because they thought they had everything they could ever want resulting in no new gold to be brought into the empire because of this there was not a lot of gold inside the coins meaning less coins were produced. This meant the value of the coins went down and the price of necessities went up this process is called inflation. People of Rome would rather barter then exchange money meaning there was a limited money flow. Farming decreases because of a massive famine the farmers and merchants migrated into the cities for food. This made the population condense

What caused the economy to get so terrible? Spending too much money on wars was the culprit. Foreign invaders attacked farms, making it harder for Romans to safely and securely grow food. This led to a lot less food, and increased food prices. The higher prices also took a toll on people who sold the products with higher prices. They started to quit their jobs because people weren't buying as many of their goods as they used to. Roman money also lost some of it's value. When the government started to make new coins, they used less gold and silver which lowered the value of the coins. As a result, prices rose in order to get the same value for products. Trading goods became more popular among Romans than using money. When Rome stopped expanding, it also stopped getting slaves. This was awful, because they needed slaves to get most of their work done. As a result, there were less goods and food because their were no slaves to work or farm. Rome went through a terrible downturn in its economy, eventually leading the empire to destruction.

According to Pricus, a Roman ambassador of the Huns, informed that one of the many main problems why the Roman Empire “fell” was their economic and corruption problems. Punishments were very severe or harsh for the poor, but for the wealth, penalties were just avoided by paying their way out. Also, emperors would give money to their generals or soldiers, very important people, to keep their loyalty which was totally unnecessary. Therefore, taxes were severe as well and unprincipled men inflicted injuries on others.

The government of Rome had an economic problem of over taxation as well. As a result of the weak army the empire needed extra money to maintain it; leading to strangling taxation on the citizens (Document 8). With over taxation polluting the economy tenants were forced to leave their farms, along with businessmen and

During the third century, the declinist state of the empire began to take fold and have drastic consequences down the road. Germanic and Persian invasions began to weaken the center. One way was through the over stretched finance system of Rome. When fighting a war on multiple sides of one’s territory it becomes difficult to have all the supplies and other items to successfully win a war. The issue with the Roman Empire was that it was already quite extensively stretched out and could not rely on finances from the city of Rome alone anymore. The alternative was to increase taxes. The continuation of tax increase became a great burden on the citizens of the Roman Empire.

Economic difficulties played a large role in Rome’s decline. One of the most prominent problems with the Roman economy was that Rome had stopped expanding into new territories. Conquering land was a significant source of wealth for Rome. As explained in an excerpt from Herbert. J Muller, “While the empire was expanding, its prosperity was fed by plundered wealth and by new markets in the semi-barbaric provinces.” However, once Rome stopped expanding, their economy suffered. Something that definitely slowed Roman expansion was the fact that the amount of land owned by Rome was simply too vast to manage effectively.

Governors administrated most of the conquered lands. Wealth poured into Rome from all over the world, and the ancient simplicity of Roman life gave way to luxury and pomp. Morals were undermined, and vice and corruption flourished. Enriched office holders acquired estates and bought up the little farms of peasants. Soon the peasants were poor and homeless. The streets of the capital were now flooded with hordes of poverty-stricken people, ruined farmers, discharged soldiers and idlers from Italy.

"That collapse resulted from combined features of the Roman tax farming economy: the constant wars over new territories to loot, the extreme immiseration of the mass of the populace, and the degenerate culture which placed little value on individual human

Between 500 BCE and 500 CE, the Roman civilization experienced changes both politically, economically, and socially. The collapse was a period in the fifth century AD, during which the Roman Empire collapsed in the wake of civil war, foreign invasion from “barbaric” tribes, plagues that would strike the population, economic depression that would lead to a collapse in the economy, and poor leadership. It would result in a collapse of Roman governmental authority. While the Roman Empire survived the Crisis of the Third century and recovered, it emerged from the crisis fundamentally changed. Thus the Crisis of the Third Century was one of the major turning points in Roman history whilst shifting old traditional ideas of Rome into a greater progressive ideology, which would result to the collapse of the Roman Empire. One cause that can be seen is Rome’s sheer size. The problem of succession was never clear as one emperor succeeded another every few years on average. The urban-rural imbalance saw immense gaps between the commons and the upper class that leads to economic-instability. Rome was an empire built on cities as the cities have drained off the energy of the productivity of the countryside. It was an empire whose Roman population was less dominant, partly through its own success in co-opting other peoples. Some of the people that the Roman army had homogenized we’re not actually originally inhabitants of the empire. Particularly, this is visible in the armies, which

One of the causes of the decline of the Roman Empire came from their economic troubles. In addition to the trouble from foreign threats the empire was trying to manage, they also had a severe internal crisis in the form of finances. Due to the constant wars with invaders and the over spending, a severe tax was set in place. This taxation and inflation caused a large gap between the wealthy and the poor. With the exponential tax’s, many people fled to the countryside to avoid paying. As a result, the economy was stuck by a labor deficit. With people fleeing from the empire, the body count goes down. Rome relied on slaves to mend the fields and be an all-around worker. The military generally would have contributed slaves as a result of their conquests, however, with the financial problems they were having, the military was not being payed, so it slowly decreased. To add to the chaos, vandals claimed North Africa, causing a decline in the productivity of their soil. This productivity loss

Corruption in Rome’s politics and government is a key factor in the fall of Rome. Emperors and others in power failed to enforce the law. Wealthy Romans were able to get away with crimes because of their status, but those without wealth could not. If you could not pay for your justice, you would not attain it. According to a former Roman citizen interviewed by Roman ambassador Priscus, a lawbreaker with wealth was not criticized, scolded, or punished. When it came to the poor, they were not given justice because the could not afford it (Doc E). The law was not enforced when it came to the wealthy, yet when it came to the poor, one can argue that it was too harsh. In World Cilization: The Global Experience, it is voiced that declining production caused taxes to become high (Doc F). This is also strengthened by an interview (former) Roman, who said that taxes were very severe (Doc E). The split of the Roman empire was a contributing factor to Rome’s overall decline as well, due to the inequal distribution of wealth, leaving the East with majority of the wealth. The capital would be moved to the East as well, showing the value and pomp of the Eastern Empire. Overall, the corruption in government and politics shows that leaders valued wealth over the