The Roman Empire : 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.

As the “abundance of slaves led to the growth of latifudia” (Document 3) the great estates took over the agricultural industry. As latifundia took over, more farmers became out of work and in the persuit of finding work they moved into the cities and “added to the unemployment there” (Document 3). But the expansion didn’t stop there. As “the overwhelming majority of the population had been systematically excluded from political responsibilities, they could not… protect themselves… serve in the army… Their economic plight was hopeless” (Document 1). As missionaries fled into the Roman Armies, the citizens were being forced to pay a huge amount of taxes. But with no farmers to grow the food for the soldiers, who would? Expansion brought wealth into the empire, but “when the empire ceased to expand; however economic progress soon ceased” (Document 3). The inflation rate spiked, the rise in prices on everyday necessities decreased the value of money. The Romans were having to trade with exterior partners for items that could not be produced. The flow of money coming in could not match the amount of money going out. The values of the Romans depleted as their economy crumbled.

Let's explore the factors that led to the eventual fall of one of history’s most powerful and influential empires. From about 50 BCE until the year 200 CE, the Roman Empire was the superpower of the Mediterranean world. During that time, the empire’s wealth,territory and international status grew and grew.But even as the empire prospered,it was slowly starting to fall.In this essay I will be telling how Rome fell,and i believe that rome fell because of a weak government,natural disasters and foreign invasion.

The Decline That Leads Into the Fall of Rome The Roman Empire was a beautiful, magnificent, and powerful empire. That is, until the 5th century when things went downhill. Around 700 B.C.E., Rome was founded on the banks of the Tiber River. Initially, Rome was led by a king but the government soon shifted to a republic where citizens elected officials and had a right to vote.

To start off with, economic problems and corruption are one of the main reasons for Rome’s decline. For example, Document E, written by Priscus, Roman ambassador for the Huns, is a reported conversation he had with a Roman citizen who had been conquered by the Huns. It states, “[He]...considered his new life...better than his old life among the Romans…”. According to this sentence, Romans who are being conquered by the Huns are enjoying their lives more than when they were Roman citizens. Also, in the same document, it states, “...A [wealthy lawbreaker] … is not punished for his injustice, while a poor man… undergoes the legal penalty…” In other words, the poor

Political, economic and social aspects were all involved in the fall of the Roman Empire. In 395 A.D., Rome was divided into two empires, with one capital in Rome and the other in Constantinople. During that time, the western Roman Empire was being invaded by barbarian tribes from the North. In 410, the Visigoth tribe succeeded in conquering the western capital in Rome. In 476, the western Emperor Romulus Augustulus was finally overthrown at the substitute capital set up in Ravenna, and in 529 the eastern Emperor Justinian declared that the pagan religions of ancient Rome were illegal. All of these events caused the end of the western Roman

Roman Empire was considered as one of the most influential and dominant Empire in the history that has ever existed. “The Roman Empire at its zenith in the period of the Principate (roughly, 27 BC to AD 235) covered vast tracts of three continents, Europe, Africa, and Asia” (Garnsey). It was an ancient, modern Empire, and it supported anyone who made discoveries and technological improvements. The Empire was the strongest governing body in the Mediterranean.

The cause of the high taxes is from the legionaries demanding higher salaries and saying that they would stop fighting for the Western Roman Empire if they did not meet their demands. Even though that was happening, the Romans kept on desiring to purchase goods from other empires. Sense the romans started importing there was less economic growth in the empire. The pirates were only making it worse. They were attacking ships with the goods, and sometimes they would steal the whole ship. The murchencents were losing profit sense some of his buyers would pay him in advance. He would also have to pay high tariffs because the quantity of goods that were imported to Rome was greatining. However when he did not have the goods his buyers would have to get his money back and he would lose all the money he spent for the boat and goods. This was a really bad thing for the merchants because there was a lack of gold being imported when the Romans stopped conquering the land around their borders, which lead to less gold in coins and ultimately less coins being made for the romans. Soon after, there was an inflation on most things on the market. Once there was a limited money flow citizens started to barter rather than use money. Some of the goods they exchanged was crops they got from the farms. If people use a lot of on product in a short time the the amount they have of it will decrease substantially. This caused a famine through the

There are adherents to single factors, but more people think Rome fell because of a combination of such factors as Christianity, and economy, and military problems. Even the rise of Islam is proposed as the reason for Rome's fall, by some who think the Fall of Rome happened at Constantinople in the 15th Century. Most people think it occurred during the fifth century, after the western division of the empire.

First, there was overcrowded living conditions that lead to pollution, and illness which could lead to death. The aqueducts (water system in Rome) pipes were made out of lead, and the lead would leak into the water, causing dirty water, dirty utensils, and dirty dishware. Consequently, the city wasn’t sanitized, causing a disease called malaria that killed thousands of people a day. The diseases were so bad a conqueror called Atilla the Hun retreated from attacking Rome because he wanted to avoid malaria. These are some of the disease issues that affected the fall of the Western Roman

The Western Roman Empire was so big (from the Atlantic Ocean to Middle East) that it was really hard to govern it and communicate throughout. With the lack of communication, orders were not able to reach the people/troops quite as quickly as hoped, which made it much harder for Rome to defend itself. The constant civil wars, rebellions, and attacks, all required much military spending by the government, also links to the barbarian invasions as they caused many of the attacks.

Rome’s financial problems however did not come onto them suddenly. In fact, the emperors of the Rome were slowly but surely leading their land to its own demise. Long and expensive military campaigns

Roman war legions were refusing to fight for Rome unless the government raised the salaries. This decision lead to the growing desire for more goods to be purchased from other empires. The importation of goods made the economic growth to be lesser.pirates attacked ships on the mediterranean sea leaving boats stranded. Tariffs made getting goods from other empires a struggle because there was a tax on the goods the Roman empire purchased. Rome did not want to expand because they thought they had everything they could ever want resulting in no new gold to be brought into the empire because of this there was not a lot of gold inside the coins meaning less coins were produced. This meant the value of the coins went down and the price of necessities went up this process is called inflation. People of Rome would rather barter then exchange money meaning there was a limited money flow. Farming decreases because of a massive famine the farmers and merchants migrated into the cities for food. This made the population condense

The fall of the Roman Empire not only affected itself, it also affected the east and west. The Roman Empire ruled from 27 BCE to 476 CE and it ruled for quite a long time until they had problems, these problems were caused by bad decisions. The main problem for this was expansion; Rome was getting too big because they are letting people from the outside in. This quickly made it go from good to bad. After the fall of Rome, it marked a new era and had three civilizations exist: the Byzantine Empire, the civilizations of Islam, and Western Europe. These are successors, but will later on be rivals.

The Medieval Period was an important time in Europe which spanned for over 1000 years, beginning at the fall of the Roman Empire, in 476 CE and ending at the Renaissance in 1500 CE. The Middle Ages were divided into 3 eras, the Early Middle Ages (478 – 900 CE), High Middle Ages (900 – 1250 CE) and ending with the Late Middle Ages (1250 – 1500 CE), which was a time of fear and rapid population decrease caused by the black death. Throughout the Medieval Period there was major contact between societies, key beliefs in which influenced behaviour, significant people and technology or trade which have shaped the world we live in today.