Western Roman Empire Research Paper

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.

Due to the mass amounts of civil war taken place on Roman land, farming and agriculture greatly suffered. Land was over worked and overused causing the land to become infertile. Soon food shortages and diseases caused the population to decrease. From the cumulations of lost money to war and farming the economy weakened and inflation became high. The gap between the rich and poor gradually increased and the economy weakened. Between civil wars, high taxation, and food shortages, citizens lost a sense patriotism that once flourished throughout society.

There were many social factors that contributed to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The fall of the Western Roman Empire was impacted by several social factors. For example, “the introduction of Christianity had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire” (doc. 2). The things that this religion valued, were quite the opposite of what Romans used to hold as their virtues.

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.

The reason that economic crisis contributed to the fall of the Roman empire was because the Roman empire didn’t have much gold to trade which means less money for the Roman empire to use to make improvements in their empire. The next reason is because according to document number 2 “People produced their own goods rather than trading them” because the Roman Empire was not safe to trade with. The 3rd reason is because tons of merchants that used to have trade routes for the Roman empire wasn’t safe for them because merchants were afraid that people were going to attack

The Western Roman Empire was a very strong and dominant empire during its reign. It flourished from trade, had a strong military which led to having no major wars and traveling was safe and easy which ultimately made the 200 year span a relatively peaceful time. From the years 32 BC till 180 AD, which was called the Pax Romana, Rome was in a state of prosperity. When Marcus Aurelius was empire the Pax Romana slowly began to end which led to the fall of Rome. While the Western Roman Empire declined because of the spread of Christianity and economic breakdown, the Barbaric invasions was the main and ultimate cause of the fall of Rome.

The primary reason for the Fall of Rome was Economic and Social Problems in Rome. From 50 BCE until the year 200 CE the Roman Empire was the super power of the Mediterranean world. The Roman Empire was always growing but then the empire started to slowly fall apart. According to Document C, two reasons why Economic and Social Problems might be the primary reason for the Fall of Rome was that they were maintaining an army to defend the borders of the Empire.

First off is economic problems and the main problem is that Roman money became less and less valuable everyday. Another problem of the roman economy is that the law was very easy to bribe the rich can basically avoid the law by just paying them. This is said by Pricus a Roman ambassador to the Huns in document E. Taxes were also very high and this made Roman citizens mad and began to riot. This piece of evidence is also said by Priscus in document E. The emperor themself would steal just for their own personal gain. This was said in the brain PoP “The Fall of Rome”. Rome had a very

Two major factors in the Roman Empire’s downfall were the misfortunate events of disasters and diseases. A massive earthquake struck the Roman Empire, thus starting the chaos that would lead to the waters both receding and then coming back in a massive flood. Edward Gibbon wrote in the book

The Decline of Rome The most significant factors that contributed to the downfall of the Western Roman Empire were barbarian invasions due to a weakened military and a meager population that held resentment towards Rome. These problems converged and created a domino effect that was able to topple the formerly strong and dignified Roman Empire. Rome had lost the essence of what made the Roman empire Roman. This included a disciplined and driven military made of many soldiers who believed in Rome and its power.

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

But the three most important causes of Rome’s fall was it’s weak leadership, military weakness, and economic problems. First of all Rome’s main problems started with it’s weak political leadership. According to Document A from 235-285 CE, 22 emperors had tried to stay in control of Rome. Of those emperors none had died from natural causes. The most common cause of death out of these emperors was assassination.

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.

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.

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).