The Barbarians : The Fall Of The Roman Empire

While the fall of the Roman Empire is well known, the exact causes of why it fell can be difficult to pinpoint. Many historians believe that Rome 's downfall was due to poor leadership, weakened economics, or perhaps a combination of the two along with other seemingly unrelated factors. However, there is a string of evidence suggesting that there were three main components that took place to bring about the fall of the Roman Empire. These determinant attributes did not happen all at once, and there was a domino effect with each one directly influencing the others. The fall of Rome occurred after a series of preventable events, including unacceptable emperors, the heavy reliance on slaves, and the increasingly uncontrollable borders of Rome.

    One of the many reasons that caused the fall of the Roman Empire was the Barbarian Invasions. All of the devastating Barbarian Invasions of the Roman Empire caused it to fall prior to 476. Though the attacks weren’t unified, they dealt heavy damage on all areas of the Roman Empire. The attacks came from all over, some of them took place on islands, others were fought by mainland. Looking at the attacks, the Barbarian Invasions were very successful in taking over the Roman Empires controlled areas(Doc.6). These Barbarian Invasions were just some of many reasons why the Roman Empire fell.

Rome was one of the strongest and the greatest Empire, but why did it fall? Rome was found about the time of 700 BCE, and started to expand over its border as Greeks were weakening. In 44 BCE, Julius Caesar became the emperor as he gained political power and shifted to an empire where it is ruled by an emperor and the military that led to dictatorship. By 27 BCE, Pax Romana began. During 200 CE, it was the peak when the Roman terrorists became more common.

The Roman Empire was a vast territory that expanded to three different continents.They were a place of honor, tradition, and respect. Rome has had several different periods, some of peace, and some of violence or unrest, but those were solved quickly and effectively. However, such a magnificent empire could not hold up under the strains that were slowly causing it to collapse. Rome began to face many problems that together allowed the fall of the Roman Empire. The three main problems that caused Rome to fall were invasions by barbarians, an unstable government, and pure laziness and negligence.

Ancient Rome was an empire so dominant, wealthy and economically- stable which came to a dramatic fall in the period of 250AD- 500AD. Ancient Rome faced unexplained unfortunate events which crumbled the Great Empire from the affluent empire to a impoverished society. For centuries historians have timelessly theorised and analysed many debates and research in relation to the Fall of the Roman Empire. What really caused the predominate Roman Empire to fall? Did Rome fall naturally? Was disease, such as malaria a major contributor to the Fall of the Empire, Was man -made infrastructure a problem during Ancient Roman times? Was the fall a natural event? Was the climate changing causing natural disasters? Maybe, perhaps, all the theories interweaved with each other at the same time causing a catastrophic downfall, defeating the Ancient Roman Empire. Edward Gibbon (Gibbon, 1909, pp 173-174.) quoted,

In the later half of the fourth century the Western Roman Empire fell after nearly a five hundred years of dominance and is still widely considered the world’s greatest superpower (Andrews). Many people attribute the crumbling of the empire to multiple different reasons, like corrupt and insane leaders to overspending and inflation. As J.B Bury said once “the fall of the roman empire was a series of contingent events. In this paper we are going to cover the three main reasons. Political and Economical problems plus problems with the military(Wood).

At its peak the Roman Empire stretched from the Euphrates River in the Middle East to the Atlantic Ocean, and even though having a giant empire seems to be an advantage it was to much territory for the Romans to control. With such a vast territory to govern the Romans were unable to communicate quickly or effectively enough, they were unable to marshal enough troops and resources to defend its frontiers, and as they continued to pore money into the military attempting to protect its frontiers Rome’s civil infrastructure fell into disrepair. Not only did over expansion cause these problems but it is also the cause of why the empire was split, the cause of the deterioration of the military due to unloyal Germanic and barbarian participation in the army, and over expansion is also responsible for the invasion of barbarians and vandals due to Rome’s incapability to defend its overextended territory. There for I am convinced that over expansion is responsible for the fall of Rome, I believe that if rome would never had gotten to size it got and only grew large enough to where its people could communicate in a reasonable amount of time and a size where the military could have protected its borders without having to hire infidels rome would have not deteriorated as it

Finally invadors overran the Western Empire, this lead to the third reason the collapse of the Roman Empire. Barbarians would not leave the empire alone. Barbarians was a term used to call their invadors and to refer to the non-romans. Throughout the third century, Germanic tribes more than once stressed out the roman legions guarding the northern frontiers. Germanic tribes are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age and a Roman legion was an infantry unit consisting of heavily armed soldiers, equiped with shields, armor, helmets, spears and swords. At the same time, Persia threaten Roman territores in Syria and Anatolia. In 206 A.D Persians captured the Emeror, Valerian, which it made it the most embarassing defeat. Valerian was the Roman emperor at the time. To delineate the Empire felt very pressured and frustrated that they had barbarians coming at them. They were not ready and not as strong as the persians because they had captured the Roman empire. Main reason for the Germanic invasions of the Empire was the Huns moving west. Huns were fierce Mongol nomads from central Asia. They started invading the regions of the Rhine and Danube Rivers. Because they huns invaded around those rivers germanic people fled to the

First, Rome fell because foreign invaders such as the Huns and Vandals attacked the Roman empire by surrounding them when they were weak. According to the Map of “Foreign Invasions of the Roman Empire” it shows how the Vandals and Huns surrounded the Roman empire. Also how they came into Rome and the rest of the west side of

How did Rome fall? Well, to start off tribes of fierce Germanic warriors started attacking Rome's northern borders. Not only this but the Persians attacked the east. For two hundred years the romans dealt with this. People who lived on the northern borders soon had to start abandoning their land. Not much after the Germanic farmers started farming the land there. They also completely ignored whatever the Roman leaders had to say. The empire eventually had to raise taxes pay for defense against these tribes. Soon, disease swept through and killed many.

However other people believe that another main reason why the Empire fell is because of economic issues such as inflation and taxation in an effort to escape being taxed many wealthy people moved out to the west and set up independent fiefdoms. At the same time the empire was experiencing a lack of manpower both in its military and it’s agricultural due to the fact that they expanding the Empire within the second century this means that they would no longer conquering lands and because of the fact that they were continuously battling with other tribes it left him vulnerable this situation got even worse in the fifth century when the Vandals claimed North Africa and began disrupting the empire’s trade by prowling the Mediterranean as pirates. Another major cause of the empire’s collapse is it separation the reason I say this is because although it allowed the Empire to run more smoothly that is the same as if a person were just to look at it in short terms, however once looked at in a long-term matter it is clear that it was difficult for them to continue having the same beliefs provide military support and economic support and in the end ensure that one ruler did not obtain too much power combine that with the idea of government corruption and the fact that during the second and third century becoming the Roman leader practically became a death sentence due to the fact that deleted bodyguard

Rome was one of the largest empires to ever reign . With it’s traditional agriculture and massive army it could take any country it wanted . The fall of rome didn't happen due to one reason but in fact a few.

The fall of the Roman Empire is the most interesting thing we went over this semester. There were several reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire. Each one interweaves with the other. One of the most problematic difficulties was selecting a new emperor. Unlike Greece, where transition may not have been smooth but was at least dependable, the Romans never produced an actual structure to regulate how new emperors would be chosen. The choice was always open to dispute between the old emperor, the Senate, the Praetorian Guard (the emperor’s private army), and the army. Slowly, the Praetorian Guard gained the power to choose the new emperor, who rewarded the guard who then became more significant, maintaining the cycle. The Roman economy underwent

No one ruled the Roman Empire, it eventually became a target. The Barbarian tribes slowly started to take over Rome. First, they camped outside of the curtain wall. Then, they shot cannons over the curtain wall, trying to get in. The Barbarian tribes made dents into the wall and destroyed bricks.They started to build up and tried to jump the wall.

According to Schaeffer, F., Rome did not fall because of barbarians, but they felled because they had no sufficient base and gradually became disintegrated (1976). I agree with Schaeffer, one reason being the Romans believed in man-made gods. Their gods were identical to themselves, they depended on the same society that the Romans depended on. “Actually, the gods in Greek and Roman thinking were like men and women larger than life, but not basically different from human men and women” (Schaeffer, 1976, pg. 21). Not only did Rome worship false gods, but they were unstable and selfish. They constantly change to adhere to the new norm; their thinking was not their own thinking. However, I do believe that the Romans got an idea and were creative