The Fall Of The Roman Empire

While the fall of the Roman Empire is well known, the exact causes of why it fell can be difficult to pinpoint. Many historians believe that Rome 's downfall was due to poor leadership, weakened economics, or perhaps a combination of the two along with other seemingly unrelated factors. However, there is a string of evidence suggesting that there were three main components that took place to bring about the fall of the Roman Empire. These determinant attributes did not happen all at once, and there was a domino effect with each one directly influencing the others. The fall of Rome occurred after a series of preventable events, including unacceptable emperors, the heavy reliance on slaves, and the increasingly uncontrollable borders of Rome.

Peter Heather, currently teaches at Kings College. He points to immigration and external wars with barbarians as main factors as to why Rome fell. Joseph Vogt, theme focuses on Christianity and political instability leading to the downfall of the Roman Empire. Lastly Edward Gibbon, displays the decline in the Roman empire attributed to christianity and political and economic policies that hindered stability throughout the region.

Despite being an immediate bestseller, shortly after publishing, Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire became unpopular with large groups of the British reading public. The abridged edition consecutively presents the stories behind the Empire’s leadership and course of action. Gibbon revivifies the complex and compelling period of the Romans by detailing the prosperous conditions of the empire, the decline, and the aftermath of the fall. At the same time, Gibbon efficiently scrutinizes the declining virtue of the Roman people. Gibbon made an argument that the intellectual inflexibility of the Roman Empire had declined into “barbarism” and “Christianity,” which ultimately attributed to the fall of the Empire.

The rise of Christianity changed the outlook of life for the people. Instead of being hostile, you were nice to your neighbors to get to the pearly gates. People became more thoughtful of others and less of the emperor, who they were supposed to worship. “Remains of the military spirit were buried in the cloister,” (Document 2). Men lost their intentions to fight. As this new religion taught men that hurting others was a sin. Because of this, the military started to be deprived of power. Also, there was still the division of classes. The rich hung out with the rich, and the poor hung out with the poor. The rich still felt superior because they had luxuries. People also sort of lost faith in Rome, they weren’t as patriotic as they once were. “Very few inhabitants of the empire believed that the old civilization was worth saving,” (Document 1). There was no pride life in the land of Rome, people would leave in hopes of finding a better place to live. Thus, the empire weakened even

The Roman Empire was one of the greatest empires around it’s time period. They ruled their region with an overpowering military force. They also had compelling agriculture and religion. Much of their music, clothes, and other agriculture continued on throughout other empires. They shaped the world with their beliefs and ideas and without this empire the world would be very different. There were strong Roman emperors and also horrible emperors who ruined the empire. Caesar and Constantine were among the most popular emperors of Rome. Constantine ruled later in the Empires lifetime while Caesar earlier. The death of Caesar had a huge impact on this empire. Constantine gave the Roman Empire the main religion of Christianity. This questioned the original beliefs of the Romans. They totally changed their culture. Towards the fall of the Roman Empire, the empire was split into two parts. This weakened their strong military force and led to an invasion. Evidently this caused Rome’s fall. The Roman Empires fall was due to the death of Caesar, mass poverty among Rome’s citizens, rise of Christianity, split of empires, and the invasions of the barbarians.

McGiffert, A. (1909). The Influence of Christianity upon the Roman Empire. The Harvard Theological Review, 2(1), 28-49. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1507353

Christianity also had a prominent impact on the fall of the empire. (Doc 2) The Romans did not like the Christians. They believed in one god, which made it easy for the emperor to turn the Romans against them, by blaming the fall of the empire on them. Also, many Romans became Pacificts because of the Christians, and this made it harder for Rome to protect itself, which already was a struggle.(OI)

Ancient Rome was an empire so dominant, wealthy and economically- stable which came to a dramatic fall in the period of 250AD- 500AD. Ancient Rome faced unexplained unfortunate events which crumbled the Great Empire from the affluent empire to a impoverished society. For centuries historians have timelessly theorised and analysed many debates and research in relation to the Fall of the Roman Empire. What really caused the predominate Roman Empire to fall? Did Rome fall naturally? Was disease, such as malaria a major contributor to the Fall of the Empire, Was man -made infrastructure a problem during Ancient Roman times? Was the fall a natural event? Was the climate changing causing natural disasters? Maybe, perhaps, all the theories interweaved with each other at the same time causing a catastrophic downfall, defeating the Ancient Roman Empire. Edward Gibbon (Gibbon, 1909, pp 173-174.) quoted,

Many anthropologists and historians have speculated about the different causes and effects of the fall of the Roman Empire. Some have even stated that Rome did not fall but instead, was merely transformed. However, there were many causes that did end this prodigious empire. Many seemingly small decisions made by powerful emperors over the course of just over a century lead to its destruction. In this paper it will be established that the Roman emperors, in an effort to save their political power, made adjustments to warfare/treaty practices and made political changes which over time lead to the inevitable collapse of the realm, this caused a drastic regression in the living standards of the Roman citizens, implying that the Empire did indeed collapse and not transform.

In the later half of the fourth century the Western Roman Empire fell after nearly a five hundred years of dominance and is still widely considered the world’s greatest superpower (Andrews). Many people attribute the crumbling of the empire to multiple different reasons, like corrupt and insane leaders to overspending and inflation. As J.B Bury said once “the fall of the roman empire was a series of contingent events. In this paper we are going to cover the three main reasons. Political and Economical problems plus problems with the military(Wood).

After 50 thousand deaths, it was clear, Rome was seen, as a declining empire and a sinking world. I think the fall of the Roman Empire was due to Military weakness, weak leadership, and disasters and diseases.

Peter Heather, for example, the author of the fall of the Roman empire, explains his reasoning behind why he feels that the Roman fall was not only a factors of internal dysfunction. Looking back on it now the success and let down of common tax payers reflect where Rome achieved among their peers showing off where they stand among their enemies.41 however, Edward Gibbon, argues, in the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, his arguments of internal factors and Christianity taking over paganism as a shot at the morality and standard of the common Roman. However for my thesis I found Edward Gibbon Book unhelpful but luckily Peter Heather put things in perspective when it came to the source and his rebuttal for Gibbon was that if his argument

The Roman Empire refers to the time period beginning with Augustus. This empire lasted from 30 BCE-476 Causally when an empire collapses, the assumption is it was because of physical and external factors. There were many theories to why it collapsed. Most historians studying the fall of Rome, agree that neither internal nor external forces can be ignored, yet many continue to write arguments that emphasize one side or the other of the debate. Humanist scholar Francesco Petrarca blamed internal powers for the demise of the empire. Two arguments were written to find what really cause the decline. After reading them, Internal factors contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. Rome was at a high point but it never had a chance of dominating the world. It was more of a power than a superpower. which argument is stronger? This debate still continues today.

The question of whether or not Christianity was responsible for the fall of the Western Roman Empire is one that has been argued by scholars for centuries. The most famous of these scholars, 18th century English historian Edward Gibbon, placed the blame ultimately on a loss of civic virtue among the Roman citizens. Gibbon, who notoriously openly criticized organized religion , held that Christianity contributed to this shift by making the populace less interested in the worldly here-and-now and more

Another reason I chose do the impact of Christianity on the Roman Empire, is because I was interested in seeing how Christianity rose from being prosecuted to becoming the main religion of the Empire. Also, to see if there was any correlation between the rise of Christianity and the fall of the Empire. That is the reason that Christianity is the factor in my question as a believe it has a big impact on the fall of the Empire, while I do not think that it was the final cause I think it defiantly had a part to play. My aim to learn what factors played a role in the