Activity 1:
Historians have looked at the same evidence and come up with different theories because people think in different ways and therefore they get different conclusions even from the same evidence. This is comparable with when two different people look at the same inkblot picture but say that they see two completely different things.
Activity 2:
The fall of the Western Roman Empire was caused by a number of factors. There is some evidence that supports the interpretation that the Western Roman Empire fell because of factors which was largely beyond the control of the Romans. For example, the same barbarians that in the past had opposed the old Empire had now joined together to create much bigger, stronger and organised groups such …show more content…
Some political problems contributed to the decline. For example the increasing political instability and government corruption of the Western Roman Empire. It was already hard to govern the Western Roman Empire because of it’s huge size. But it was even harder to govern because of the frequent change of leadership. There was frequently civil war and assassinations of emperors. Under 75 years, the Western Roman Empire had 20 emperors. Government corruption made the problem bigger because the Praetorian Guard, which are supposed to be the Emperors body guards, helped assassinating the emperors and once even auctioned off the role to the person with the highest bid.This was a problem because the trust of the people for their leadership worsened and worsened because of this. Some social and economical problems also contributed to the decline of the Western Roman Empire. For example, when Emperor Diocletian divided the Roman Empire into two parts (the Western and Eastern parts), the Western Empire took a huge blow because they got less of the wealthy provinces than the Eastern empire. This was a problem because this created economical problems for the Western empire. (www.rome.info) identifies unemployment as a further problem. Because more and more of the farming in the Empire happent on large private property called “latifundia” which was run by people who used slave labor, they did not need to pay their workers. This meant that they could sell their goods very cheaply. Most farmers could not compete with the prices since they had workers they had to pay, these farmers lost their jobs and sold their property and moved into towns. This meant a burden on the Western Roman economy since it had to pay for the food of these unemployed people. And because these unemployed people did not have anything to do all day long, many
Historians have looked at the same evidence and come up with different theories because people think in different ways and therefore they get different conclusions even from the same evidence. This is comparable with when two different people look at the same inkblot picture but say that they see two completely different things.
Activity 2:
The fall of the Western Roman Empire was caused by a number of factors. There is some evidence that supports the interpretation that the Western Roman Empire fell because of factors which was largely beyond the control of the Romans. For example, the same barbarians that in the past had opposed the old Empire had now joined together to create much bigger, stronger and organised groups such …show more content…
Some political problems contributed to the decline. For example the increasing political instability and government corruption of the Western Roman Empire. It was already hard to govern the Western Roman Empire because of it’s huge size. But it was even harder to govern because of the frequent change of leadership. There was frequently civil war and assassinations of emperors. Under 75 years, the Western Roman Empire had 20 emperors. Government corruption made the problem bigger because the Praetorian Guard, which are supposed to be the Emperors body guards, helped assassinating the emperors and once even auctioned off the role to the person with the highest bid.This was a problem because the trust of the people for their leadership worsened and worsened because of this. Some social and economical problems also contributed to the decline of the Western Roman Empire. For example, when Emperor Diocletian divided the Roman Empire into two parts (the Western and Eastern parts), the Western Empire took a huge blow because they got less of the wealthy provinces than the Eastern empire. This was a problem because this created economical problems for the Western empire. (www.rome.info) identifies unemployment as a further problem. Because more and more of the farming in the Empire happent on large private property called “latifundia” which was run by people who used slave labor, they did not need to pay their workers. This meant that they could sell their goods very cheaply. Most farmers could not compete with the prices since they had workers they had to pay, these farmers lost their jobs and sold their property and moved into towns. This meant a burden on the Western Roman economy since it had to pay for the food of these unemployed people. And because these unemployed people did not have anything to do all day long, many