Why Rome's Fall

The Roman Empire was a strong, advanced empire. There were many aspects that made this empire great, such as the size, the political organization, and its economy. However, despite the fact that these were some of the very aspects that made Rome great, they were also some of the main causes of Rome’s fall. There were many changes that had occurred within the Roman culture, most of which had been sparked by immigration and changes within its society and religion. All aspects of Rome are worthy of specific attention, as they can teach today’s society many lessons on how to build up strength and retain it while dealing with changes and pressures. Firstly, there was no one set cause of Rome’s fall. Rather, many aspects combined in such a way …show more content…
The Roman empire faced many problems due to its size alone, especially for central governors. Epidemics spread and regions moved toward local and self sufficient economies, causing the empire to become unmanageable. Diocletian, an emperor, successfully dealt with this issue by dividing the empire into two districts. He made an attempt to deal with the economy by strengthening the currency, forcing the government to make adjustments to the expenditures to its income, and imposed price caps. These reforms worked for a while, but once he retired more internal struggles came along with a civil war. Over Constantine’s rule, the same issues occurred. The population declined, the economy contracted, and emperors found it difficult to marshal resources which were needed to govern and protect the empire. The need for protection arose, the empire faced military threats, and then Germanic people migrated there and posed a more serious military threat. The invasion brought an end to the Roman authority in the western half of the empire. However, despite the collapse of the western half of the empire, the imperial authority survived for another …show more content…
As Germanic people invaded, they finished off the Roman empire. They wanted to organize the society and government using their own traditions. They did adapt roman laws to their needs, but as time passed this mingling led to the emergence of a new society. The spread of Christianity grew as if it were a wild fire. This was a large change because beforehand, the religion only had a small following of seemingly unimportant people but they were somehow able to grow so large than even emperors were attracted to the their community. By the mid-fourth century, Christians were holding important political and military positions, imperial sponsorship attracted a vast amount of converts. During its first three centuries, it grew as a popular religion of salvation which was favored by the masses. Many intellectual elites became interested in the religion, one of which being St. Augustine, who made Christianity an intellectually respectable alternative to Hellenistic philosophy. The Christian leaders transformed a popular religion of salvation into a powerful church and in the absence of recognized leadership, they took the opportunity to generate doctrines, which taught and allowed many conflicting and debated ideas. The doctrines were used as a foundation for cultural unity within the empire, but a clearly defined doctrine was heavily debated. However,