A Nation Of Greatness Falls To Ruins

The Roman Empire is a civilization that can never be forgotten. It can be attributed for giving the modern world the building blocks that make up many of our present societies. It gave the world a basis for many of the world’s modern languages and literature. The Roman Empire also made great strides in the great fields of agriculture, art, government, and of course military operations. But, the major question that many historians and scholars have asked through out the centuries is how could a nation so strong and developed become almost none existent. The fall of the Roman Empire is a topic that many have found of great interest. It is also filled with hundreds of ideas and reasons. For one not to be lost in detail after detail only a few can be discussed at one time with brief explanation. Unlike many other nations that collapse, Rome’s demise happened very slowly, in fact over centuries. It was a gradual decay, which makes the fall of the Roman Empire so tragic. The fall of the Roman Empire can be traced by examining the religious, social, economic, cultural agricultural, political, and military changes that took place between the first and fifth centuries.

“When a society ceases to progress it begins to decay,” this is definitely the case when we speech of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. By the end of the fifth century the Roman Empire had stopped progressing. It even failed, was unwilling, or unknowing how to make technological advances, which made it very successful and widely known for in the past. Rome had just become too weak and unorganized to make the necessary changes to survive and become great once more. This fact gave opportunity to the Barbarians of the north who lead a massive invasion to terminate imperial government in the Western Roman Empire . Which were then taken over by the Germans. Although the Eastern Roman Empire did not technically fall until the fifteenth century, by the Byzantine Empire, most of the true Roman ways had disappeared many centuries earlier.

Another factor that hurt Rome’s economy was the decline in population. According to some scholars the plaque that took place between 166-180AD may have caused a shortage of manpower. According to W.L. Westerman a professor at Columbia University in the early 1900’s, there may have been a culmination of disasters as the cause for decrease in population at the third and succeeding centuries . This possibility may have been the cause of great problems in government as well. If Rome were to keep expanding it would not have enough people to govern and populate these territories they acquired.

Finally, the changes that took place in the military were a deadly blow to Rome. After 212AD Rome’s imperial army began to include adventurous rough necks, and even criminals. Instead of the military consisting of men of good family, the recruits were now only too likely to be drawn from the lowest and most primitive elements. These recruits were unpatriotic, not discreditable, and unworthy in desire to acquire Roman citizenship . Many military leaders would acquire great wealth through there conquests. These leaders became so powerful that they overthrew many of the governmental officials in there regions. Many of the soldiers became violent with the civilians in there regions in order to acquire their own wealth.

Although slavery in the Roman Empire created many fluctuations in the economy it also created changes in Roman culture as well. With each slave being relieved of their duties after seven years, they began to integrate into regular everyday society and becoming citizens. Many of the slaves also brought with them different ways of living. With the mixing of ideals and values of the migrating people and the slow eventual freeing of the slaves, it created a less uniform and stable Roman Empire whose people did not share common goals.

For the amount of land that Rome occupied it depended greatly on a stable economy, which by the second and third centuries was in great despair. With the great separation of classes, there was not enough currency in circulation to sustain a stable economy. The rulers at the time felt that by possibly de-coining the value of the money and simply making more not backed by gold, that it might help the economy rebound. This idea of making worth less money backfired greatly and only made thing worse. The rich kept getting richer and the poor kept getting poorer. Rome’s economy depended greatly on its

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