Ten Theories On The Fall Of Rome
Why did the western Roman Empire fall? Well there were ten main theories on why that happened. Here you will find some information on that. One reason was barbarian invasions. First Rome guarded its borders well. But then in about 300 A.D. Roman soldiers were withdrawn to go and fight wars in Italy. this left Rome vulnerable. Barbarians took advantage of this, the Germanic tribes took over all of Italy and the Germanic chief became king. Roads, bridges and buildings fell apart. The Medditeranean Sea became full of pirates and bandits. Travel became unsafe. Decline morals and values became a big problem. People started to stop behaving themselves and became unruly. According to roman historians, Roman emperors like Nero and Caligula were famous for wasting money on parties were everyone got drunk. Most importantly though, was the growing roman passion for cruelty. gladiator fights were very popular. Everyone loved to see people dying in pain. Even if the fighting floor got to dirty with blood, another layer of sand would be added and the fighting would continue. Environmental and public health problems were a very big issue. Many people died from plague and disease. Historians say that leader were killed off by consuming excessive amounts of lead. This is challenged by the fact that the eastern Roman Empire survived longer. The Roman leaders spent way too much money on the military. Rome was constantly fighting wars all the Medditeranean region. The government put a lot of money into the military. Because of this, other important areas in the empire got less money. What contry does this remind you of? The U.S.A. is spending a lot of money on the military because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is probably an important factor why the Roman Empire fell apart. An important contribution the romans made to destroy the empire was that they had inferior technology. Even though the romans invented many good things like roads, bridges, and aqueducts, those inventions lacked one thing. Improving effectiveness. For example-today robots make everyday things like coke bottles. Thats effective because humans were not used. In Rome though, everything was made by workers. These workers could not support the growing population of Rome. This is one of the reasons why Rome fell. Here comes the big one. Inflation. The prices of goods in Rome were going sky-high! If you don't know what inflation is it's when things become very expensive, and the value of money goes down. Because money became less valuable/lost value, merchants began to raise prices on goods. Because of this people began to barter, or trade. Some historians argue that inflation was probably the main cause of the fall of the Roman Empire. Well I agree, look whats happening to the U.S.! What do you think? Please post a comment if you can at the bottom. Political corruption. I don't think this really made Rome fall, but it was still a big problem. So what happened. Ok, so theres an emperor and the Praetorian Guard. The Praetorian guard is a lot of warriors that are the emperors guardians. Then theres another guy that wants to be emperor to. What does he do? He pays the praetorian Guard to assassinate the current emperor so that he could become emperor. Then when he becomes emperor he gets killed. so emperors go assassinated so that other people could take their place. For the next 100 years, Rome had 37 emperors! 25 of them got assassinated! Wow! Don't you think thats a bit awkward. |  Inflation  Urban Decay  |
