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 …show more content…
It states in document 7, “These estates produced enough crops from their fields and rental income for the rich that goods from outside markets are not needed.” This resulted in the loss of jobs for farmers because since estates had enough crops from their fields, farmers would lose jobs since estates had crops in their fields. This affected the empire because since farmers lost their jobs, the government won’t be able to collect taxes from the farmers which results in the government getting less money. Another economic cause of the Roman empire was senators wasting their money. It states in The Fall of Rome, “They wasted their money on big parties that lasted for days. They ate from gold or silver dishes, wore robes of silk.” This evidence shows that senators wasted their money on themselves rather than using the money to help the poor. This negatively affected the empire because since senators wasted money on themselves, no money would go towards the poor, the government or the military. These are the economic causes of the Roman empire. A political cause of the Roman empire was instead of fighting the invading enemies, the …show more content…
It states in document 6, “The soldiers and citizens of the Empire enjoyed the fruits of Pax Romana and lost their pride and hunger for victory.” This affected the empire because since the Romans didn’t want to fight against the barbarian, and didn’t have any pride for their country, this resulted in the Romans not wanting to conquer lands and were hit hard when the invaders attack. These are the political causes of the Roman Empire. A social cause of the Roman Empire was Roman's value to Christianity. It states in document 6, “Also the ideas and beliefs of Christianity weakened the Roman Army.” This shows that since the Romans were becoming more civilized, they valued their religion than going to the army. This weakened the empire because since the Romans had a morale and in a war, you kill people, the Romans didn’t want to kill anyone because they thought that if they kill, they would go to hell and if they didn’t kill, they would go to heaven so they wanted to be in heaven rather than fighting and killing the enemy. Another social cause of the Roman Empire was the
The rise of Christianity changed the outlook of life for the people. Instead of being hostile, you were nice to your neighbors to get to the pearly gates. People became more thoughtful of others and less of the emperor, who they were supposed to worship. “Remains of the military spirit were buried in the cloister,” (Document 2). Men lost their intentions to fight. As this new religion taught men that hurting others was a sin. Because of this, the military started to be deprived of power. Also, there was still the division of classes. The rich hung out with the rich, and the poor hung out with the poor. The rich still felt superior because they had luxuries. People also sort of lost faith in Rome, they weren’t as patriotic as they once were. “Very few inhabitants of the empire believed that the old civilization was worth saving,” (Document 1). There was no pride life in the land of Rome, people would leave in hopes of finding a better place to live. Thus, the empire weakened even
In 27 BCE, Octavian appointed himself as the first Roman Emperor. After being a republic for approximately 700 years, Rome was now an empire. The Roman Empire grew to be one of the greatest empires in history, conquering the majority of Europe, the Asia Minor, and much of North Africa. Rome went through a time of peace called Pax Roma. During Pax Roma many contributions were made such as arts and architecture. The Roman Empire declined because of its weakened military. The military began to weaken due to laziness, the land was easy to invade, and there we many different leaders throughout the empire.
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 a very successful civilization that had many accomplishments that are a part of the modern world. Textbooks and primary sources were studied to be able to come to these conclusions. The Roman Empire lasted 500 years throughout the BC and AD times without having too many major problems. The Romans were able to last so long because of the military strength and the amount of land that the Empire had. The Romans were located in Rome, Italy and ended up expanding to take over most of the Mediterranean world. However, all good things must come to an end. Starting in the 200s, other civilizations started to slowly take over Rome. Eventually, the Empire collapsed. The causes of the collapse of Rome were that the land area was too large to sustain, there were many political problems in Rome, and there were too many invasions happening for Rome to handle.
The Roman Empire thrived for many generations until the influence of both people of Rome and those outside Rome. Rome had been an advanced society with stable government, large cities, beautiful architecture, and advanced technology. Unfortunately it did not last forever and the fall affected Western Europe who was greatly influenced by Rome. Western Europe went from a high functioning society to a land of may manors. The causes of Rome's fall varied from invasions, overgrowth, and poor leaders.
Did you know that the Roman empire was one of the strongest and one of the most powerful empire? Well as we all know the Roman empire fell for these reasons. The first reason is because the population decreased. The next reason is because the Roman empire had a economic crisis. The final reason is because the Roman empire had tons of invaders invading Rome at the same time so Rome couldn’t fight all those empires!.
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
History Paper Why did Rome fall? The Roman Empire was a great empire. However they fell and all other nations have been compared to Rome since then. The fall of Rome was not caused by a single event. One main cause was was the failing economy and high inflation.
Whether you prefer to say Rome fell due to the invasions or simply morphed into the oppressive and the corrupt government, economic policies of the emperors had a heavy impact on the lives of the citizens of Rome. The Roman Empire acquired money by taxation or by finding new sources of wealth, like land. However, it had reached its furthest limits, so land acquisition was no longer an option. As Rome lost territory, it also lost its revenue base.In doc# 4: we can see how the economy and citizens were taken advantage of and how the economy was not stable enough, led to the fall of Rome. The empire's main focus was on expanding and funding towards the military and politics. They did not think of the flaws that came with expanding and soon realized that to expand they had to gain military strength, and that costs a lot of money. Immediately the government created high taxes taking advantage of the citizens that leaned on the government welfare system, forcing them to basically pay for advances in the military. This affected small business and companies to crash because they could not afford these taxes, leaving the economy weakened. Therefore the economy could no longer help provide for the military expansion and lead to military weakening. And when the military and the economy was down due to this “internal decay” Rome was easy to conquer and lost all power and eventually fell. Doc# 3 also shows that due to the expansion and Rome wanting to be a world power, it caused a distraction and the economy was used to fund the military success and power, with high taxes. The more it expanded the more the taxes cost and the weaker the economy was. Due to the money that was taken from the economy, Wages being low, slaves disappearing, great estates growing, agriculture was being dominated, it
The Roman Empire was, overall, an immensely successful and innovative empire; this success derived from the implementation of the Christianity religion, spreading of Romanization so that Roman subjects were united and had Roman rights, and the economical and technological advancements that flourished under the period of Pax Romana. While these benefited the Roman Empire greatly and made Rome a prosperous civilization, Rome gradually weakened and, conclusively, fell. The eventual and definite decline of Rome was caused by excessive territorial expansion, economic issues, and foreign invasions.
One of the main shortcomings of Rome is bad leadership. Often during the empire period, rulers who inherited the throne were brutal, ineffective, unstable, or all of the above. Some, like Nero or Tiberius, were incredibly intolerant to certain groups such as Christians. They provided brutal punishments and abused people who identified with Christian ideas. (Doc 2) This obviously produced a large amount of civil unrest and led to a decline in the empire’s prowess. A very detailed account of this was provided by another Roman historian by the name of Tacitus. The people he was trying to get to with this account was the people of Europe. He wanted to describe intolerance and bad leadership to the majority of Europe’s population in order to warn them about the dangers of intolerance. In addition to these brutal leaders, towards the end of the empire rulers were dying at an increased rate. Many emperors were killed either in battle, by assassination, or by disease. (Doc 5) The increased rate in which emperors died could be indicative of bad leadership or more unrest. It certainly led to more unrest in the empire. While there were a few examples of great leaders in Roman history, the majority of the leaders towards the end of the civilization were subpar accelerating its
Primarily social and economic factors influenced the downfall of the Roman Empire. External economic forces gradually brought their effects into the empire whilst internally Rome’s social fabric began to degrade. This socio-economic degradation seen in Ancient Rome is likely due to both Rome’s social and economic instability as well as the birth of the Christian faith in the Roman Empire. Part of the downfall of Rome can be attributed to external economic factors such as a lack of conquest and a large influx of slavery from without. Much of Rome’s economy “was fed by plundered wealth and by new markets in the semi-barbaric provinces” (Document 2.)
What caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire? The collapse of Rome was caused entirely by itself. With Rome's government inability to sustain its empire, Rome's army eroding, and terrible financial maintenance Rome led itself to complete and utter destruction. Rome’s government failure to sustain its empire led it to finally collapse. Henry Haskell an author of The New Deal in Old Rome writes “Part of the money... workmen from their occupations.”
One main factor on as to why the Roman empire fell was because of the flood of economic and social problems the civilization faced. “The overwhelming majority of people had been excluded from playing an active role in their own government...could not serve in the army” (Doc 1). With a large portion of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire not having the ability to be a part of the government and/or not join the army, contention began to spark amongst the public. One can observe from this that due to not permitting
The Roman Empire was a very large and powerful empire- until, as all empires do eventually, they fell. Several causes are credited for doing this. The Senate and Emperor were not on friendly terms, the emperor was always doing what he wanted and this ticked off the Senate, who ticked off the Emperor. Three related causes were the fast expansion of the Empire, constant wars, and excessive spending. Excessive spending meant taxes had to be raised, this is always an unpopular move with the masses. Constant wars meant that more soldiers were killed. The Romans allowed conquered barbarians and other foreign people to join their army. No doubt they spread more than a few rumors and rebellions. Another surprising cause was constantly expanding territory.