Edward Gibbon Analysis

One of the biggest reasons Rome fell is because the military. The military started to become sluggish and weak. Since this happened soldiers fought the goths without any protection for their chests and heads (doc B.) This made it so soldiers were easily killed in battle by archers. Adding on to that Soldiers were exposed to wounds because they have no armour so they would think about running and not fighting (doc B.) Senators, bureaucrats, clergymen, cooks, bakers, and slaves all avoided the draft not giving enough people into to military (doc B.) It became very easy for anyone around them to invade and take over land. These are all reasons the military effected the fall of Rome.

I agree that Rome was not overthrown by external enemies but was defeated by its own internal problems. The fall of Rome was mainly due to internal problems because the Romans were only fulfilling their own needs, the law were not reliable and the struggle with the right emperor led to the end of Rome. These internal problems made the empire unstable and led to external problems.

For hundreds of years, the Roman Empire was a prosperous nation with a stable and growing population. However, the years were not kind to the empire, and it fell into disarray. One of the reasons for the fall had to do with the Germanic invasions. Herff Jones Education Division’s Nystrom Atlas of World History, an atlas depicting many stages of world history, shows the fracturing of the Roman Empire between 350-476 AD. In particular, it shows the many attacks on Rome, specifically when in 410, the “Visigoths attack Rome,” and in 455, when the “Vandals attack Rome.” (2) The strength and recurrence with foreign invasions showed Rome’s soft underbelly and weak defense. Rome’s dysfunctional nature invited the Visigoths and Vandals to have a taste of glory, and their abuse of that ruined the possibility of an Italian power. Due to Rome’s overextension of power, many other tribes took advantage of this, one example being the Anglo-Saxons in England. Additionally, Roman leaders allowed this to happen; emperors like Diocletian and Constantine favored the Eastern Roman Empire due to its stability and strength. According to Steven Kreis, the creator of The History Guide: Lectures on Ancient and Medieval European History, he states, “As western Europe fell to the Germanic invasions,

The fall of Rome was mainly because of plagues wiping out most of the population. The fall of the Han dynasty began from decentralized rule. However, outside invasions had an effect on the fall of both classical civilizations.

Including most of the Mediterranean world, Rome, a city that was growing big enough to become one of the world’s largest empire’s would soon slowly fall apart because of their problems. In 27 BC, Rome’s first emperor, Augustus Caesar, took complete power. During his time, he ruled with Pax Romana, a time of Roman peace which lasted for almost 200 years. After his death, the Roman Empire begun to break apart. The primary reasons for the fall of Rome was it being geographically too big; the population was decreasing due to plagues which led to the Roman army becoming weak, social and military issues and laziness of the military would guide the army down which led to cities being lost, and their government and leadership issues of the weak or selfish power leaders would all conduct to the breaking up of Rome.

In Document 1 it states that people gave up on the Roman Empire and didn’t believe it was worth saving. Citizens weren’t allowed to take part in politics and were excluded from their own army. The government slowly lost support which increased the level of government fraud. Also, population decline was a big factor to the fall of Rome; it had decreased from 1,000,000 people to 250,000. The cause of the decrease was the lack of reproduction, plagues, warfare and lead poising, this made it difficult to recruit troops and economic life got worse.

The Roman Empire was the greatest civilization the world had ever seen, it lasted over than a semi-millennium. For a such great, undefeatable Empire to collapse, there should be many powerful causes. There is an endless debate among historians about the different causes that led to this decline moreover, they couldn’t agree on the most influential factors. In this essay, these different causes will be explored and try to find the direct causes of this decline.

The Roman Empire fell in 476 C.E ,no one knows the exact reason why rome fell but there are some ideas. There are many reasons why Rome fell, here are 3 things that contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire fell because of disasters and diseases, military weaknesses, and weak leadership.

The great Empire of Rome, the greatest power to have ruled the Mediterranean. The Roman empire thrived in the time of Julius Caesar around 47 BC. Caesar had made Rome into an empire, but after he died, Rome started its downfall. It was unthinkable. The great Roman empire’s reign was over. There was no one single cause; it was many things happening at once, which caused the fall of Rome. The downfall happened with the army weakening, natural disasters and plagues rising, and leaders becoming corrupted all contributed to their fall.

In document C it shows in the map all the invasions that happened, where they took place, and who they attacked. Considering Rome had this many attacks it can come to show that there security wasn’t very good. This problem contributed to Rome’s “fall” because of how weak their army was. Training the soldiers better would have probably helped them and having better equipment to use, which leads us into the last reason for the cause of fall of Rome.

Legions started to demand higher pay resulting in raised taxes. Also the desire for goods from outside the empire grew making less economic growth within Rome. As more products were shipped to Rome pirates started to steal more and more items making stores go out of business back on the mainland. High tariffs were placed on imported goods in a desperate attempt to get money flowing back into Rome. Furthermore the lack of new conquests also instigated the decrease of money flow into Rome because they were not stealing gold. The gold content in coins also started to decrease along with the amount of coins produced. Inflation was one of the causes of this. People started to barter as a result of less money. Farming also decreased and a famine developed throughout Rome and poor farmers and merchants moved to the

People all over Europe feared the Roman Legion. But as time went on the mighty Roman Legion began to lose its name. Many things caused this, but the main one was Christianity. This made Romans non-violent and they didn 't want to join the military. So Rome had 2 options, either have a small military or an army full of mercenaries. A mercenary is a paid soldier. So Rome paid thousands of German soldiers to fight for them. Obviously this made Rome 's military weak because they would easily run from battle or betray Rome because they had nothing to protect in Rome. Another reason the Roman empire fell to shambles was because the Roman military stopped going on military conquests. When they did this the Roman economy collapsed because the economy relied on the constant income of plundered trophies from captured civilizations. So because of the Roman soldier being replaced by German mercenaries and the stoppage of expansion the Roman military lost its power. When the invasions of the western tribes came and destroyed Rome, there was nothing they could

Their reliance on Germanic people to fight in the army when people didn’t want to fight in the Roman army anymore. The Antonine Plague, and The Plague of Cyprian also took many of Rome troop one in three die with none Roman people fighting they had no loyalty and were able to infiltrate Roman society.

Many people think of Rome as a great empire. Nevertheless, the Roman empire had more flaws than what one would think. Rome began around 750 BCE as a simple town. By 200 BCE, Rome was a powerful empire. The empire lasted for about 1,226 years before its “fall” in 476 CE. Critics argue rhat political instability helped bring about the “Fall” of Rome, however, the military mistakes were the primary reason behind the decline of the empire.

When Diocletian split the empire it was a monumentally mistake. He divided the empire based on language with the western side speaking Latin and the East side speaking Greek. When Diocletian Died a civil war broke out because there was so much unrest inside the country. Social Problems were a factor people lost confidence in the Roman Empire. People just let the Fall of Rome just happen they did not care. The population went down due to diseases. The country could not hold its own against other world powers such as the huns and the germans.