Political Problems In Ancient Rome

The Roman Empire was extremely large and difficult to maintain, which made it very weak. According to Doc: 2, “Borders became difficult to secure and the amount of gold needed to maintain roads and perform routine maintenance was never enough.” According to TCI chapter 13, section 1, “The huge size of the empire made it difficult to defend.” The empire’s size caused it to weaken, leaving it open to attack by the many enemies surrounding it.

Rome was changing. The people of Rome were changing. The citizens of Rome were getting tired of being ruled by others. They wanted to rule themselves. So after years of fighting

Civil War turned the empire into chaos and more than 20 men took the throne in a span in 75 years. According to History.com, because of the constant change in leaders Roman citizens lost trust in their leaderships. Tribunesandtriumphs.org also says that the power of the Praetorian Guard which is a group that made up the bodyguard of the emperor, leading to political corruption, grew to such an extent that the huge group decided on who should become the new emperor and who should be disposed of. They had to much corrupt power. This was a big cause for the fall of the Roman Empire because leadership was inconsistent and was constantly changing which caused a lot of Roman Citizens to get angry and lose trust because things weren’t staying the same, and they always had to adapt to new things and rules place by the new emperor. This caused feud between citizens and also weakened the government's

There were frequent civil wars over the succession to the throne. This meant battles in the streets of Rome every few years which discouraged people to stay in Rome. Rival armies battled to have a commander chosen as emperor. Also, Rome had dealt with internal problems before but it had never dealt with so many problems at once. This is exactly what happened during the fall of Rome and the emperor and government didn't have the time or means to fix these issues.

Unfortunately for the Roman Empire, most of the emperors were not favored by the people of Rome in their years of decline. According to Document A, about 22 emperors ruled Rome in a span of 50 years without including the time of 260 to 268 BCE which there is no recorded information about. Out of the 22 emperors, about 90% of the emperors were assassinated. Another factor that contributed were suicides. As The Roman Empire weakened, there were many invaders aiming to assassinate the emperor. Therefore certain emperors chose to take their own lives before anybody else could. Now with the confusion and violence from the poor leadership in Rome, the once-prosperous-empire was coming to it’s

There were several reasons for the fall of rome but internal problems such as military deficiency, political turmoil, and a weakened economy were the predominant forces leading up to the fall. Civil wars were a common occurrence in western Europe and often challenged the imperial throne. “It is worth once again emphasizing that from 217 down to the collapse of Western Empire there were only a handful of periods as long as ten years when a civil war did not break out” (Goldsworthy). Emperors constantly faced threats for the throne and often abandoned war against foreign enemy to deal with a Roman rival or Usurper.

The Roman Empire was one of the most impregnable empires at it’s time. It conquered the Mediterranean Sea and was a well organized and blooming empire, at first. Many problems began to hit Rome straight in the face, three of the main problems that ended this magnificent empire were the economic problems, the weakness and vulnerability of their army, and the fallibility of the leaders and politics.

17 out of 19 emperors died of in battle, or being assassinated. If one emperor died, another emperor would be elected. Going back to war outbreaks, the war was clearly so disastrous, that the emperor would also even had to fight as well. 13 out of 17 were assassinated, 4 out of 17 were killed in battle. The roman army is supposed to protect Rome, and the people living in Rome. But with this much changes in leadership obviously this explains how negligent and lazy the roman army was. The roman army left the military in danger, the emperor in danger, and also the citizens of Rome in

The Roman Empire Fell because of internal and external problems. The primary causes for the fall of Rome were because of government corruption, weak military, and disaster & disease. Government corruption was a great contributor to the fall of Rome. From 235-285 C, there were 19 Roman Emperors and 13 of the emperors were assassinated (Doc A). The people

The Romans had huge lands that were very difficult for one person to control which made it extremely easy for invaders to take advantage and invade their lands. The three invaders that came from Asia were the Huns, Vandals, and Ostrogoths (Doc C). The invasions were mostly unexpected by the Roman people and thought they could easily take them off, not until suddenly three groups arrived at different locations that slowly weakened down the locals and armies at Rome. This attack was what really made Rome to fall apart. If it wasn’t for the foreign invasions, Rome would have been an empire that would have lasted for another few thousand

In the beginning of the Roman Empire, the economy was booming and Pax Romana came and went. Rome began in 750 BC, and soon bringing power with it. The leaders in Rome changed from being a republic to being more military control. Their attitude on how to improve Rome was very military based and with great rulers to lead them. However, when Rome was coming to its end it was hard to control the Roman people and they were invaded by the Germanic tribes, but this rooted from a series of problems. Leaving the Roman empire to fall because of their military problems, political assassinations, and foreign invasions.

To start Rome’s government started to lose power and become very weak. The emperor's constantly changed, dieing every 2 years or so. The causes of the emperors deaths were rarely due to natural causes such as diseases or age. In document A it states that the main cause of the deaths of the emperors was assassination, typically by a Roman general who would become the next emperor afterwards. This constant shift caused instability.

The Roman Empire may have been massive and strong, but that didn’t always work out for them. With an empire stretching to it’s very limits there wasn’t a chance of doubt on whether it’s borders were hard to defend from raids and attacks. According to the DBQ, “Rome’s fall was an inevitable effect of it’s grand size…borders became difficult to secure…” (Doc 2). The Roman Empire was an incredible feat of the ancient world but it wasn’t also the easiest thing to defend.

The citizens of Rome needed to pay heavy taxes in order to finance Rome’s armies. The taxes weakened the economy making trades suffer. Farmers couldn’t compete with rich families leading for them to go into the city, hoping for work. Infamous emperors would waste money and crime rates rose, making the streets unsafe.

At this stage in the Roman Empire things were extremely dangerous and many power struggles within the royal family were arising. With the demise of the