Higher Education: Learing To Live Or Living To Learn Essay

     Not only was Rome highly influential back in its prime, but many of its ideals are still remaining strong in some form or another. A perfect example of this is the United States. Even in the "Pledge of Allegiance" there are traces of Rome. For part of it states that; "? By the republic for which it stands?" this says that this country is ran under a republic. Just as Rome in its first five hundred year reign. We have adopted the same thought that through our senators, who are elected by the people, a better country can be developed. This is an almost exact adoption of the Roman states system that implies a highly centralized government can run an entire nation effectively.

John Newman was born in the 1800’s and was sent to school at the age of seven. He took school very seriously and he played no causal school games with others students. He was a scholar of writing such as; poems and popular hymns. Later in years, he became a priest, an expert in theology, and nationally known as an influential religious leader.

From 509 BC to about 27 BC, Rome was considered a republic. During this time there was no single leader of Rome and the government was run by elected officials. The main leaders of the Roman Republic were the consuls. There were always two consuls in power at a time. Each year new consuls were elected to serve for a one-year term. This kept any one man from becoming too powerful in the government. At the time the Senate was the most powerful governing body in Rome. The Senate had control of the state’s finances and foreign policies. Senators were elected by the people to represent them in government. The Senate was made up of 300 of the most elite and wealthiest of the Roman Republic. One of the most important roles of the Senate to undergo the checks and balances of the Roman government. Checks and balances are the “principle of government under which separate branches are empowered to prevent actions by other branches and are induced to share power” (The Editors). The checks and balances of Rome helped to stabilize the government and allowed the power to be distributed somewhat equally between the consul, the Senate, and the people. However, the fall of the Roman Empire eliminated this type aspect of government in Rome (Kagan 101-103).

To begin with, Rome deteriorated due to becoming too large, which was caused by an exaggerated expansion of territories. Because the Roman Empire conquered

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.

To start off with, economic problems and corruption are one of the main reasons for Rome’s decline. For example, Document E, written by Priscus, Roman ambassador for the Huns, is a reported conversation he had with a Roman citizen who had been conquered by the Huns. It states, “[He]...considered his new life...better than his old life among the Romans…”. According to this sentence, Romans who are being conquered by the Huns are enjoying their lives more than when they were Roman citizens. Also, in the same document, it states, “...A [wealthy lawbreaker] … is not punished for his injustice, while a poor man… undergoes the legal penalty…” In other words, the poor

I agree with the position expressed by Francis Schaeffer in “How should we then live?”, asserting Rome fell because of their inward base. Matthew 12:25 teaches us that a kingdom or house divided cannot stand and will be brought to desolation. Unlike the Greek’s unifying passion to search for truth and understanding, Roman society settled for a set of common laws but remain divided in their philological and spiritual wellbeing.

There are many reasons for what happened to the Roman empire from economic problems and corruption, disasters and disease, foreign invasions, military weakness, and weak leadership. Out of all of those ideas, weak leadership might have caused many of the problems to happen. Weak leadership might have caused everything because leaders that do poorly in their job causes bad military, in control of the empire, and many assassinations of leaders making citizens feel unsafe according to document A (Roman Emperors, 235-285 C.E.). The government of Rome is not fair, has no justice, and has been becoming a dictatorship which they want everything. All of these political problems change Rome from a republic to a dictatorship.

The economy of Rome was suffering. Rome had a great deal of money but they didn’t know what to use it for. Too much money was being used to provide protection and keep unity in the empire. Cities began to crumble that became poor and some cities even began to lose control. The senate became dishonest and then they started giving away their spots in office. Some people murdered or assassinated the emperors (Doc. A), and that’s when city revolts fired up and citizens of Rome started rebelling against government. The civilizations economic rottened.

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

Julius Caesar once said, ” It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.” The Ancient Roman Empire was one of the world’s greatest empires. Beginning in around 750 BCE with a small settlement no one knew it would become a great empire making many discoveries that we still live by today. Although the empire was strong they started to run into some problems. Starting in 44 BCE with Caesar becoming emperor and continuing into 500 CE, the city was declining fast. Although some researchers may say that natural disasters were the main reason for the decline of Rome, however the primary reasons for the decline of Rome were political corruption and military mistakes. Political corruption was a main reason for the fall of Rome because there were higher-class people trying to take all the power which made many people unhappy causing assassinations and unfairness. Military mistakes were also a big problem because the military was too lazy to fight causing invasions and unnecessary deaths.

Subsequently, the system was corrupted because weak or vulnerable individuals were associating with men in power; in exchange of support, and loyalty, for the sake of protection, which broke the Democracy. Socrates said, “Democracy elevates men to positions of authority not because of their wisdom or their fitness to govern, but because of their ability to sway the masses with empty rhetoric. In Democracy, it is not truth that matters; it is public relations.” That is exactly what it was happening in the Roman Republic.

One reason why Rome fell was because of weak political leadership. For instance Document A it shows that in a 50 year span (235-285 C.E.) they had 22 emperors. This show that they had weak leadership because they only lasted from a couple of months to 2-3 years. Also page 54 chapter 2 paragraph 4 it says “Politicians became more interested in financial gain than in public service. As a result, many citizens lost their sense of pride in the government.” This shows that weak leadership contributed to the fall

As we start to uncover the leaders of Rome, we start to unpack some tragedies of why this was the case. Leadership plays a big role in how a government is run and if you have bad leaders nothing works and everything starts to crumble. The leaders in Rome were ignorant and self-centered, so when they inflicted high taxes to expand and grow the civilization no one could pay them. This not only caused people to lose their jobs and rebel against the government, but it also led the city into debt The high taxes did not help the city thrive or help people feel good about their money, but it showed the power attracted leaders that they were doing something wrong and it made them