Reasons For The Fall Of The Roman Empire

The Empire of Rome was certainly one of the greatest in the history of mankind, but it fell. Why did it so? Given the complexity of the Empire’s organization and its long-lasting life, it is hard to assign one or two exact reasons which may exclusively be accountable for its fall. The point is that there were many reasons generated by many different triggers that have contributed to the fall of Empire. One can point simultaneously to internal and external factors which played a role in the weakening of the Empire and on leading it to eventual falling apart. Historians have been discussing many reasons which caused the falling of the Roman Empire, the one that used to stretch in a vast territory in the Mediterranean, from the British Isles down …show more content…
There are also historians arguing that the Empire actually did not fall, given the fact that it continued existing in the East. Nonetheless, in this essay, I am going to argue that the Roman Empire, at least as a whole, disregarding the survival of the Eastern part for another millennium, had fallen. I believe that the reasons for its fall are not to be assessed individually, but rather as a chain effect from one to another. In this context, I have chosen several internal and external factors that I believe contributed to the final disintegration of the once unified great Roman Empire. Firstly, the fall of Empire is related to the fact that the army was weakened due to many internal and external reasons, making it easier for barbarian tribes to attack and invade. And secondly, another chain effect to be accounted has to do with the fact that Empire’s government organization for quite some time was not in a very good shape, encompassing various internal divisions, leading to the quarreling for power between different groups of …show more content…
Meanwhile, with some exceptions, the Empire had most of the times been in a quest to conquering new territories. At the end, this was the main factor which was contributing to the welfare of the Empire in terms of economic survival. But on the other hand, being constantly engaged in wars and in keeping the frontiers secure did require a vast investment in the army, which of course was a huge burden for the Empire’s treasury. Once the Emperors decided to give a rest to the expansion, other sources of income were needed, thus putting at stake the citizens who had to pay more taxes. In this context, maintaining the army and investing in it became a hard thing to achieve. Nonetheless, even if the expansion of the Empire retired, the territory stretching from England to the Middle East was already too big to efficiently sustain. But was the Empire too big to fail? I believe that in this case this notion does not hold. It seems like the splendor of the Empire caused its own collapse. Albeit of the Roman very good infrastructure of the time, the communication within such a vast territory could not be so effective. Controlling the legions from the central authority located in Rome became a problem. Due to worsening of the economic situation, the requirement of high taxes to substitute the need for money that once used to come from the conquered