Western Roman Empire Research Paper

All good things come to an end. Rome was a seamlessly powerful empire, but just like any powerful civilization, it was bound to come to a halt eventually. After centuries of peace and prosperity and being the center of the world at the time, the empire was doomed to fall. It took many years of bloody wars, government reforms, and economic power to reach its peak; therefore, it would take many more years of wars and deterioration of the economy to a dwindling civilization. This phenomenal empire declined for many factors such as religious, political, health, and technological factors. Most of the factors came from within the city, which led to internal decay. Many foolish decisions and revisions caused the heart and soul of Rome to crumble.
Since the third century C.E., Rome faced many problems and was weakened by barbaric invasions from 100-500 C.E. Around 476 C.E, most of the Eastern Roman Empire was still intact, but the Western Roman Empire was covered by barbarians. External enemies, such as the Saxons, Vandals, and Ostrogoths engaged with Rome, which enabled the empire to wear out slowly. On the other hand, this powerful empire was not only weakened by external rivals but by internal decay as well. The increase of enemies contributed to the problematic issue of recruiting soldiers. Rome had difficulty recruiting male boys from Rome into their military, which resulted in the government to promptly pay German foreigners to join the army. Low funding from citizens did not give the military supplies or resources they needed to protect Rome. Consequently, citizens rarely paid for the army, even though Rome kept on paying German foreigners for their army. This caused a major conflict. Lastly, many foolish decisions made by the emperors and government caused the aspects of the military to slowly
Many rich citizens, known as Patricians bought slaves to do their work. As a result, the abundance of slaves took away farmers’ jobs. In addition, they promoted the increase of latifundias, or ranches that slaves work in, which was a factor to the growth of slaves dominating agriculture and causing farmers to flee to cities. Therefore, this added to the rate of unemployment in Rome. For that reason, low pay was given to workers, another jab at the falling economy. Part of the money went to the army and government, so it hindered Rome to a suppressing taxation. Tenants fled from their farms, and businessmen fled from their jobs. Private businesses were disintegrated. For that reason, the state government had no other choice but to take over countless companies. Now the government has to juggle with their own problems and the private businesses too. Even though slaves were taking away jobs, Rome still depended on them. But, when expansion ground to a halt, Rome’s supplies and slaves began to dry