Western Roman Empire Dbq Analysis

The Western Roman Empire mostly has itself to blame for its ancient decay! Rome’s fall was inevitable since the initiation of its grand expansion. Rome had grown to such a large size, that it could no longer take care of itself to the level that was needed. Internal factors caused the Roman empire to wane. Three facts that support this statement include, but are not limited to; its several civil wars and revolts among slaves and plebeians, a reliance on war and trade that eventually destroyed the economy, and the rise of Christianity which questioned Rome’s mores and values. Inflicting war and havoc with other Roman counties was a large internal factor that lead the Roman Empire to its termination. According to Doc. …show more content…
Doc 2. States “Rome’s fall was an inevitable effect of its grand size.” Due to Rome’s enormous extent of land from conquering, they couldn’t keep up the amount of gold and reliable soldiers to maintain roads and routine maintenance. The numerous Roman-ruled countries created the necessity for soldiers and protection to break up any civil wars and stop any foreign barbarians from invading and ruining Roman property. However, many Roman-hired foreign soldiers were disloyal and unfaithful to Rome and there weren’t enough Roman soldiers to protect the borders which allowed for invasions, riots, and revolts to occur. This was also stated in Doc. 2 as “borders became difficult to secure.” To keep the roads in shape for trade, Rome needed a lot of gold, which was never enough. This hurt the economy because lacking the ability to maintain roads meant that they also couldn’t maintain trade. If there wasn’t a large, increasing rate of civilizations and countries being conquered by Roman officials, then Rome would’ve been able to preserve their economy, and drastically decreased the amount of riots and invasions caused by anger and