The Roman Empire was a large, powerful, and successful empire that stood the test of time. But, Rome was plagued with numerous problems that caused its demise. In my opinion, the fall of the Roman Empire was inevitable. This is because Rome had a corrupt government that failed to satisfy its citizens, and Diocletian’s retirement caused the tetrarchy, which could have been Rome’s last saving grace, to fail. The Roman Empire had a largely corrupt government, which mismanaged the itself into a collapse. As a Representative Democracy, Roman leaders were “elected” to represent their people. But, their system was far from perfect. Voting was restricted for most, limiting the actual representation of the people to only the social elite. According to an anonymous primary source from the era, “Now in addition to these injuries, were with the arts of [greediness] afflict the provinces, comes the appalling greed of the provincial Governors, which is ruinous to the taxpayers’ interests.” These men work for their own self interests, not the public’s, which defeats the purpose of a democracy. “For these men, despising the respectable character of their office, think that they have been sent into the provinces as merchants…As for the Governors, the buying of recruits, the purchase of horses and grain, the monies intended for city walls – all these are regular sources of profit for them and are the pillage for which they long [...] who carry on private [money making] under the guise of
One of the biggest reasons Rome fell is because the military. The military started to become sluggish and weak. Since this happened soldiers fought the goths without any protection for their chests and heads (doc B.) This made it so soldiers were easily killed in battle by archers. Adding on to that Soldiers were exposed to wounds because they have no armour so they would think about running and not fighting (doc B.) Senators, bureaucrats, clergymen, cooks, bakers, and slaves all avoided the draft not giving enough people into to military (doc B.)
The fall of the Roman Empire, where every leader gets murdered along with the military. Rome was the most powerful empire in the ancient world until it fell. The three primary reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire are weakened military and invasions, too much territory to govern, and faulty leadership. One of the primary reasons why Rome fell was that it suffered from a weakened military and invasions.
The fall of the Roman Empire in 476 C.E. happened for many reasons. The first reason being the laziness of the Roman Empire’s military. The second reason is that many natural disasters including diseases struck the empire. The third and final reason is the social injustices that weakened patriotic spirit for Romans.
Many people think of Rome as a great empire. Nevertheless, the Roman empire had more flaws than what one would think. Rome began around 750 BCE as a simple town. By 200 BCE, Rome was a powerful empire. The empire lasted for about 1,226 years before its “fall” in 476 CE.
The fall of Rome was mainly because of plagues wiping out most of the population. The fall of the Han dynasty began from decentralized rule. However, outside invasions had an effect on the fall of both classical civilizations. Series of plagues began to hit the Rome Empire by the 2nd century. These plagues lowered the population drastically.
They thought this because Rome was leaps and bounds ahead of others in military, political, economic,architectural, and technological aspects. But Rome was far from perfect, because of its split in 395 A.D. ancient Rome began falling apart. The things that made it great became its downfall. But there were many important factors that made Rome fall, but the most prominent were military, economic, and religious factors.
Fall of Rome DBQ Including most of the Mediterranean world, Rome, a city that was growing big enough to become one of the world’s largest empire’s would soon slowly fall apart because of their problems. In 27 BC, Rome’s first emperor, Augustus Caesar, took complete power. During his time, he ruled with Pax Romana, a time of Roman peace which lasted for almost 200 years. After his death, the Roman Empire begun to break apart. The primary reasons for the fall of Rome was it being geographically too big; the population was decreasing due to plagues which led to the Roman army becoming weak, social and military issues and laziness of the military would guide the army down which led to cities being lost, and their government and leadership issues of the weak or selfish power leaders would all conduct to the breaking up of Rome.
The two factors that most contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire were greatly impactful in Ancient History. Before the fall of the Empire, during the Pax Romana, Emperors ruled longer and most likely died of natural causes. During the decline, the reign was much shorter and they were most likely to be murdered. Thanks to Dioclectian’s reign, the New Empire was introduced, giving people more rights and protection. However, this resulted in great consequences as it became harder to govern and harder to manage.
The western Empire spoke Latin and was Roman Catholic. The eastern Empire communicated in Greek and venerated under the Eastern Orthodox branch of the Christian church. After some time, the east flourished, while the west declined. Indeed, after the western piece of the Roman Empire fell, the eastern half kept on existing as the Byzantine Empire for a long time. In this way, the "fall of Rome" truly alludes just to the fall of the western portion of the Empire.
I agree that Rome was not overthrown by external enemies but was defeated by its own internal problems. The fall of Rome was mainly due to internal problems because the Romans were only fulfilling their own needs, the law were not reliable and the struggle with the right emperor led to the end of Rome. These internal problems made the empire unstable and led to external problems. For example, in document C, Marcellinus, a Roman soldier criticizes the Romans for being selfish and only worrying about themselves.
It seems that the fall of the Roman Republic was not a singular event that occurred instantaneously, but rather a long process that saw the increasing use of methods outside of Republican institutions to settle conflicts between members of the aristocracy over political power. Even as the Roman government transitioned form Kingdom to Republic and then to Empire, the competition between aristocratic families remained a relative constant in across the centuries. So too has the desire to mythologize the past. The romans attributed both the fall of the Kingdom of Rome and the fall of the Roman Republic to moral rot, while a more reasonable assessment might place the blame on a dissatisfied and competitive elite class and an inefficient and unresponsive governmental system that was unwilling or unable to address their concerns. In much the same way, modern observers of the Roman Republic have tended to mythologize the fall of the Republic in the service of creating a moral narrative about the unconscionable tyranny of Cesar and the righteousness of the Senate, or whatever alternative narrative is befitting of the historical moment and audience.
The fall of the Roman Republic was because of The Civil War and Julius Caesar between 49 to 45 BC. Julius Caesar was born on 12 July, 100 BC and died on 15 March 44 BC, a renowned military general, historian, politician and historical scholar who conquered Rome and helped initiate the end of the Roman Republic when he declared himself the dictator of the empire through the Roman Civil war which he started (Bobertz, 2022). The Rubicon river was a division between Rome from its northern provinces, so crossing it would have been viewed as a direct invasion. In 49 BC Caesar crossed it and it was seen as a direct invasion which sparked the confrontation between him and the Romans since he wanted the glory of the Roman empire and its consulship.
“Why did the Roman Republic fall?” The Roman Republic did not fall simply from one cause, rather many external pressures that brought on political instability and destruction. There were multiple pressures that lead to the downfall of Rome including ambitious generals, changing politics, client armies, and a desolate Senate desperate to remain prominent. Many significant people of the time, who wrote letters and speeches on ancient Rome, help to build detailed recollections of the political warfare that took place between 78-31BC.
Rome 455, Geiserics forces sack the city killing the last of the garrisoned legions and killing the Emperor of the west roman for the final time, however its people were spared of a mass slaughter. Further the governing body the senate was spared and there were still allowed to govern. Geiseric then declared himself king of the romans of all things, he even voluntarily made himself subordinate to the emperor of the east, commonly know as the Byzantines. This event is deemed the “Fall of the Rome empire” most say this is the time rome was destroyed, or at least that the east was the last hold out. First I’d like to state that in my personal belief truly rome was just split up into its provinces, like how the province of Italia is now Italy, or how the province of Britannia is now Britain, etc.
The leaders in the world today should take note of the causes of the demise of the Roman Empire to ensure that this history does not repeat