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How Did Rome Become The Most Powerful Empire

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“Jus belli, ut qui vicissent, iis quos vicissent, quemadmodum vellent, imperarant.” -Julius Caesar. Once translated into English, this quote makes a significantly more sense. “It is the right of war for conquerors to treat those whom they have conquered according to their pleasure.” This is a big part of how Rome became the absolute monster of an empire it was. They had the weapons and equipment. Rome had the geography, the transport, communication, knowledge, and most importantly, the people, all working in their favor. This paper will take a look at how Rome became the most powerful empire of all time, and what caused its downfall. Rome’s most famous asset was of course its military. They had the best tactics, and the best weaponry for that matter, of its time. As far as any successful strategies used against them, the legions could dissect it, smash it, improve and adopt it into their own military. Take for instance the Greek phalanx. The Romans saw the flaws and perfected it. Rome’s legions typically utilized a full on assault, and their arsenal consisted of weapons such as the gladius, a short Hispanic sword used for stabbing in conjunction with the scutum. The scutum was an oblong shield shaped like a half circle. It was used to deflect …show more content…

Well there is a multitude of reasons. Rome became too large and overextended itself. This caused it to be spread too thin and made it more difficult to defend. Governing was corrupt and made it even harder to ensure a safe Rome. Not only that, but the Romans fell back too much on slave labor. Once they quit conquering, they could not acquire new slaves. This coupled with a poor economy made the empire suffer dearly. Finally, there was a split between the east and west empires, and the legions became weak with a lack of new soldiers to fight. Finally, Rome was overrun with barbarians, and the 1000 years of order and stability, was

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