What Caused the Fall of the Roman Empire?

What Caused the Fall of the Roman Empire?

Jessica Witham

Advance Composition
What Caused the Fall of the Roman Empire?

Introduction

The Roman Empire is known as one of the most extensive political and social

structures in western civilization. Rome was founded in 753 B.C. by Romulus and

Remus, twin sons of Mars, the god of war and Romulus became the first king of the

Roman Empire (“Ancient Rome” 2009). Throughout the Empire's time alive it had

seven main kings that roughly lasted the whole life time of the Roman Empire. Most

kings made quite an impact on the Empire;for example, Roman emperor Constantine

the Great ended all persecution and declared toleration for Christianity which

eventually ended up causing a lot of problems and split the Roman Empire into the

Eastern Roman Empire and the Western Roman Empire (“The Fall of the Roman

Empire.”2000-2020). In spite of the fact that as a whole the entire Roman Empire did

fall;it did not fall all at once, the Western Roman Empire fell in 389 CE while the

Eastern Roman Empire, thus including the whole empire, did not fall until 457 CE

(Wasson 2018-2020). We all know that the Roman Empire did eventually come to an

end, but no one actually knows why. Some say that the collapse of the empire actually

started the middle ages, but what actually caused the fall of the Roman Empire

(Wasson 2018-2020). Historians believe that there are many different causes that just

kept adding on and on to the collapse of the Roman Empire. Many say it was mainly

because of the fact that the huge gap between the rich and the poor and more internal

problems and complications, but some say it was because of barbarians attacking the

empire and other external factors that could have caused the Roman Empire to

collapse (“Ancient Rome” 2009).

Causes
What Caused the Fall of the Roman Empire?

Internal Causes

Internal causes can vary amongst many things including: unemployment,

religion, civil wars, financial instability, disease, economic problems, not enough army

to go around, and the separation between the Eastern and Western empires. On the

occasion that the Roman Empire did split into two different sides, the Eastern empire

was actually easier to manage and more financially stable which is why the Western

side fell first. Religion also caused many complications because of the fact that the

Roman emperor Constantine declared that the Roman Empire was now following

Christianity. This bothered many of the citizens in light of the fact that they only believe

in one God and after the switch to Christianity Constantine said that he was a God and

lost a lot of credibility which made the empire even more unstable than it already was

after a civil war between the East and West side over who had more authority and

trading options (“The Fall of the Roman Empire.” 2000-2020). In the article, The Fall of

the Roman Empire it says, “plagues and declining fertility caused the overall decline of

the Empire’s forces with unchanged borders.”. With all of the diseases and declining

fertility the Roman Empire’s population was decreasing very quickly and since the

Roman Empire was expanded so far out the army/military force was spread way too

thin. Also going along with the military, the empire spent way too much money on the

military and not stuff along the lines of new houses and buildings because the empire

had so much land to cover and not a lot of people joining. No one wanted to join the

army in light of the fact that they were enraged by the way the money was all going to

the forces instead of important stuff (Jasiński 2020 P5). The Roman Empire had to

turn to mercenaries which were expensive to hire and were highly likely to betray
What Caused the Fall of the Roman Empire?

Rome(Jasiński 2020 P5). Overall the empire was not doing a good job keeping their

spending power in check which could be one of the main reasons why the Roman

Empire fell. Another vital reason that it fell could have been because of the economic

decline. After Emperor Aurelius the empire stopped its expansion which decreased the

flow of gold and other riches coming into the empire, but the Romans did not stop any

sort of spending; they just kept spending more and more money which caused

coinmakers to use less gold decreasing the value of money (Jasiński 2020 P5).

Jasiński said that “Romans also enjoyed wasting their money on stuff like prostitutes,

orgies, lavish parties, and their “yearly” games.” So overall the Roman Empire was not

too good at keeping track of their money spendings which could be a ginormous

problem for the already crumbling empire. At this point in time as the majority of

people know, the Romans were really good engineers and had a huge advantage in

technological advancements which is why the empire got as far and as big as it did.

Unfortunately they stopped the advancements pretty early in the game. Sadly they did

not focus on producing goods more efficiently for their growing population (Jasiński

2020 P5).

External Causes

In spite of the fact that there seems to be a lot of problems internally, there was

one very impactful external factor that could have caused the fall of the Roman

Empire. From the internal conflicts that have happened which weakened the Roman

Empire a lot of other strong civilizations started to notice and started to strike at Rome.

When the civil war broke out in Italy, Rome had the majority of their military there to

keep it under control, but that left the borders unpatrolled so barbarians took
What Caused the Fall of the Roman Empire?

advantage of the civil war and invaded Rome making it not very smart or safe to travel

in and out of the empire (Jasiński 2020 P2). A number of Historians do think that this

was in fact the final blow which caused the whole Roman Empire to cave in. The

barbarians did not essentially come to Rome just to invade and destroy everything,

they came to take it all for themselves and their goal was to be as wealthy as the

Romans were. Overall there were not as many external factors that contributed to the

fall of the Roman Empire, it was all self inflicted by the rulers and citizens. The

Romans brought down their once powerful empire.

Conclusion

In conclusion the Roman Empire was a notorious but also self inflicting empire.

From its peak in 117 CE, the Roman Empire covered some 2.3 million square miles

over three continents, Africa, Asia, and Europe, with about 60 million citizens

(Campbell P1). Yet the Romans failed to succeed in the long run. It was mostly

internal causes such as civil wars, the split into west and east, inefficient money

handling, not a strong enough military, and the stop of technological advantages.

Rome could have been the longest lasting and strongest empire in the world if they

would have just stopped everything and worked on key problems at hand.
What Caused the Fall of the Roman Empire?

References

Campbell, D. RM. “The Fall of Rome.” Khan Academy,

www.khanacademy.org/humanities/whp-origins/era-4-regional/41-systems-collapse-be

taa/a/read-the-fall-of-rome-beta.

History.com Editors. (2009) “Ancient Rome.” History.com, A&E Television

Networks, 14 Oct. www.history.com/topics/ancient-rome/ancient-rome.

Jasiński, J. (2020) “Causes for the Fall of the Roman Empire.” IMPERIUM

ROMANUM, 28 Oct.

“The Fall of the Roman Empire.” (2008) Ushistory.org, Independence Hall

Association, www.ushistory.org/civ/6f.asp.

Wasson, D. L. (2020) (2018) "Fall of the Western Roman Empire." Ancient

History Encyclopedia. Ancient History Encyclopedia, 12 Apr. Web. 10 Nov.

What Caused the Fall of the Roman Empire?

"What Caused the Fall of the Roman Empire?" (2000-2020) History on the Net

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