Top-Rated Free Essay
Preview

The Decline of the Roman Empire

Good Essays
520 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Decline of the Roman Empire
The fall of The Roman Empire

The Roman Empire gave the world many good things. Rome gave the world Christianity, which is now the world's largest religion. The Romans also gave the world their language. The Romans spoke Latin, which is the base for most languages used today. Many of these languages include English, Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese. This leads to the question. If Rome was such a powerful empire, then what led to the decline of the Roman Empire? The fall of the Western Roman Empire was caused by three of the many reasons internal decay, lack of money, and invading tribes.
First, one of the reasons that led to the decline of the Western Roman Empire was cause by inside decay. It has been said that the Roman's military crisis was a huge factor in this decay. According to Indro Montanelli, the military crisis was the result of shortage of children. The children in Rome were not old enough at the time to serve in the army this resulted in lack of soldiers. The lack of soldiers meant that the Roman Empire could not defend themselves and did not have a strong army. In that cause Rome had to come up with a plan to solve this problem. This plan was to recruit Germans to serve in the Roman army. But, this was not a well-thought plan, because traders were difficult to detect. Recruiting Germans to serve in the Roman army made it possible for the Germans to easily attack them. Given that they were already in the base of the empire, they did not have to worry about getting into the city. It was said that the military crisis was a huge part in the internal decay, which eventually led to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The Roman Empire had too much power and wealth. It was a unified attack.
Therefore, the lack of money in the Roman treasury caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The money mostly went into the army, which has already been described as the government expenses. The lack of money was responsible for the high taxation. This caused the owners to depart their businesses, because they did not want to pay high taxes. The old roman virtues of self-reliance and initiative were lost in the part of the population on relief warfare; the central government undertook such far-reaching responsibility in affairs that the fiber of the citizens weakened. Also while the empire was expanding, its prosperity was fed by plundered wealth and by new markets in the semibarbaric provinces. The decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire was lack of money and invading the tribes in the Roman Empire. The empire did not have anyone to fight for them because the children were too young. The money was mostly invested in the government and not in the overall empire. The invaders came into the region trying to take over the land and destroyed everything in their path, which made the Roman Empire weak. These effects began to make the Roman Empire weak.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    There are no definitive causes for the fall of the Roman Empire, yet there are multiple valid reasons as to why it happened such as military power, social problems, widespread of diseases, and moral strength. The Romans had the power to repair what went wrong, yet they let the chaos get the better of the in a time when they had little control in a very uncivilized…

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The long decline of the Western Roman Empire was caused by the accumulation of the many obstacles that stood in their way over time. At first the Roman Empire was thriving. It was the biggest empire at the time and it expanded at an incredible speed. Their military and leadership capabilities were magnificent. When confronted by the Roman military their enemies were better off giving up and not even trying; it wasn’t worth it. In time, however, the Roman Empire’s golden age expired, they stopped conquering and internal drawbacks began to appear. The once flourishing Roman Empire began to face many problems, like military incapacity, the growth of Christianity, and unemployment, all of which contributed in a different way to the decline of the Empire.…

    • 615 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The major reasons for the fall of Rome are truly those that have to do with Rome's political and economic state. One of the Rome’s problems prior to its fall was the lack of respect for authority, among the citizens and military forces. All the attacks from the barbarians caused problems in the military. This basically led to a lot of political turmoil because of all the chaos that was born, and it started to make the military crumble as well. Rome's economy started to go downhill too, after a long period…

    • 282 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fall Of Rome Dbq Analysis

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The first cause of the fall of the roman empire was their military weakness. The soldiers in the Roman Empire became very lazy and neglected their armor. According to Document B, “The customary armor began to seem heavy since the soldiers rarely ever wore it. Therefore, they first asked the emperor to set aside the breastplates...And then the helmets. So our soldiers fought the Goths without any protection for chest and head and were often beaten by archers.” This shows that because of their…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fall Of Rome Dbq Essay

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages

    One reason why western Rome collapsed is because of the military as seen in documents 1 and 4. These documents show that Rome’s military was weak, drafted more people, had loyalty problems, and hired mercenaries. First, the lack of breastplates and helmets(document 1) made the Roman…

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Although the glorious empire cannot come back, it’s legend lives on. Though the Romans were successful, their lust for power and hunger for luxury finally hit its highest point and fell. All of the paragraphs above give facts on facts on why the Western Empire fell such as economic issues, political problems, diseases, and foreign invaders. Though it was the most modernized, it’s flaws came through, and the Western Roman Empire had a tragic fall.…

    • 75 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Western Roman Empire started to crumble because of political problems. There were only five good emperors in the Western Roman Empire, yes only five good emperors. Some of the empires in Western Rome were very greedy, unfit and very cruel they might of gotten the job of being the ruler but they definitely lacked the skill of being one. Some citizens wanted one person to be the ruler that they would pay off the guards to kill or assassinate…

    • 803 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There were many possible reasons for the fall of the Western Roman Empire, But many people theorize that the fall of the empire was caused by the political problems and the unstable government. During the height of the roman empire there were several Emperors who were either unfit for all of the power, Greedy, or Cruel to the people of Rome. the Romans didn't have a strong system to replace their emperor, so very time one of the Roman emperors died, his son would inherit the position and become the new Emperor. Sometimes if an emperor didn't have a biological son, he would adopt a son so that his family will keep the throne. Sometimes the Praetorian guard didn't agree with the Emperor, then they would assassinate the Current Emperor and…

    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The first main reason reason that Rome fell was because of its economy. The economy was a main issue because of the rising taxes. This led to economic hardship, driving people out of the empire. Another reason that this is an issue is because people had to pay for justice. Poor people were punished more for their crimes, while a rich man was not. All those problems drove people out of here empire, weakening it.…

    • 289 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fall of the Roman Empire

    • 1277 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In the first place one of the main reasons to the fall of the Roman empire was the econmoy started to decline. In the thirst century sources started to dissapear. During the Pax Romana, trade was all over the routes watched by Roman legions and ships Romes treasures qwew ameliorated by gold and silver from the conqured territories. Empire farms grew tons of grain, enough to feed the whole population. During the third century all of these three sources of sucess dissapeared. This reflects the Roman empire started out strong but it started to fall which lead to the disapearance of the three sources. Romans didnt make the money they use to make to help the ecnomoy out. The wealthy spent money on luxery goods and the goverment tried to pay off expenses. Wealthy spent their money on things they wanted in China, Arabia, and India. Instead of spending money on staples which is needed goods they spent it on luxery goods which was things they wanted such as gold, marble, honey, wine, leather, perfume, diamonds, jewls, tigers, carpets, ect. The continual importing of those luxery goods contribute to Romes decaying society because they would be in debt with the other country. There was drainage to the empire of gold and silver. There was no new sources of metal since the empire expansion ended. Goverment raised the taxes to pay of the…

    • 1277 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Why did Rome fall? Some say Rome fell because Roman Empire was just too big, making it collapse. Others say the empire spent too much of its resources on the poor, drawing away much needed funds from the empire. Another theory was that plagues reduced the population to the point it could not sustain itself, and another was that the citizens of Rome became too satisfied and lazy, allowing the empire to crumble due to neglect. The list goes on and on; did the empire bureaucracy become too top heavy, eventually causing the empire to collapse upon itself? Did God turn away from Rome due to its sinful nature? Did it fall as the result of barbarian invasions? Well, perhaps the answer lies in one of those theories, or perhaps there is no clear answer.…

    • 1828 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Decline Roman Empire

    • 688 Words
    • 3 Pages

    For many centuries, the Roman Empire flourished and was able to make many great accomplishments and creations that have influenced modern culture today. Despite the success of this empire, it soon began to crumble after the Pax Romana, which was a period of 200 years of peace and prosperity. Many factors contributed to the decline of this empire, including the spread of famine, disease, and the effects of Christianity, as it spread throughout the empire. However, the three main reasons that contributed and caused the fall of Rome were the political, military, and economic factors.…

    • 688 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Western Roman Empire fell due internal and external forces. The demise of the empire was the result of civil unrest, migrating hordes, and a weak economy. Basically, decay from the inside and pressures from the outside caused the empire to collapsed.…

    • 470 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Great empires such as the Han Empire, Roman Empire, and Gupta Empire all came to an end during one…

    • 281 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There were many reasons for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Each document in this essay explains a different reason. Some causes were: political, economic, social, and military differences and problems. Basically, the problem was that the gap between the rich aristocrats and the poor serfs got bigger and bigger; the rich got richer as the poor got poorer. Also, when something grows, it always falls back down. In Document 1, an excerpt from a book was taken out. According to the authors, the basic problems facing the Western Roman Empire came from the people that gave up devotion to the old civilization and didn't believe that it was worth saving. Why should they care about their land if they weren't allowed to take part in government say, they couldn't form groups to protect themselves, and were even excluded from their own army? The practically jobless people realized that their cities were slowly falling, but no one bothered to stop their decline; it was something that had to happen. The loss of popular support to the oppressive government, increased government corruption, division of the empire, and internal power struggles were some political causes that led to the fall of Rome. In Document 2, two causes for the fall of Rome were: the large size, and the introduction to Christianity. Because the Empire grew too large, it became uneasy to control. It was inevitable for the fall to occur, no matter how much anyone tried. Jesus' introduction to Christianity also started a change. The clergy (priests) helped change the moral values of society. It no longer mattered much, and military power was buried or thrown away. The rich's wealth was taken away and given to charity (poor). In Document 3, the Muller's explanation for the decline was an economic issue. As the Empire grew stronger, so did economy. When the Empire started to decline, business ceased and there was little progress, so that also crashed along with the empire itself. Slavery caused another…

    • 593 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics