What Were The Primary Reasons For The Fall Of Rome Free Essay Example

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What Were The Primary Reasons For The Fall Of Rome

The Rise of Rome

Rome started off small but ended up being the largest most advanced cities of all time. It is quite unknown exactly when Rome was initially considered an empire but according to archeologists Rome had been founded on April 23 by two brothers Romulus and Remus. At the time Rome was just a small town nothing more than a few iron villages scattered around and no one knew exactly who to call ruler, Romulus and Remus fought over who was going to be in the position of a ruler so Romelus assassinated his brother Remus and named the city after himself.

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This was when Rome was considered to first be founded. The small town had many geological advantages that made this town a suitable place to live in, the location was in Italy and the weather would be neither too hot or too cold and would get plenty of rainfall, this made farming an easier task then farming in other regions. It is also noted that trading farmed materials also was part of the reason why the Romans were so wealthy, most upper-class citizens were equipped with jewelry or fancy clothes as Rome was known to be a very rich civilization.

Other ways Rome gained so much wealth were from Gold mines near the region which led to more of Romes's wealth. The city had been expanding over the course of many years and gained popularity as a city due to its flow of trade and culture and over many many years, Rome had expanded more and built larger buildings whilst the population began to grow. Gradually overtime Rome started to become larger and larger and naturally. Though, it wasn’t until 450 years later in that Rome had its first Emperor which was a ruler of great power or rank which usually ruled an empire. “Augustus” or also known as “Octavian” was the first Emperor of ancient Rome who in “restored” the republican Rome and transformed it into an Empire. This along with other factors overtime changed Rome from a city to an empire. As time went one they started to construct many monuments that showed the genius work that went behind them such as the Colosseum which was constructed in 70 AD and opened in 80 AD, This building would host gruesome sports and games which would always involve someone getting killed would keep the citizens of Rome entertained.

There was also an invention called aqueducts that allowed most rich homes to have flowing water commonly used for drinking, irrigation, and most often to supply hundreds of public pools baths or fountains. The Roman empire was a very successful place that only started from small villages, today it’s considered one of the best empires to ever exist and one of the longest to last, the only problem is most empires eventually come to an end. It could either be human error or just slow gradual decline. The Roman Empire was both.

Like said Rome slowly started to gradually decline because of many factors, though there was never a point where Rome officially ended there were key moments to where Rome started to go downhill. People still research how Rome exactly ended but it’s never exactly clear when like Pompeii for example. So, what were the primary reasons for the fall of Rome?

The Primary Reasons For the Fall of Rome

The decline of Rome was first seen when they ended up relying too much on slaves. Typically the government would use taxes to pay for government funding, for example, the Colosseum was built using tax money. unfortunately, to avoid taxes most higher class citizens fled the countryside while at the same time Rome was rocked by a labour deficit. Because of these factors, Romes's economy depended on slaves to do most work. Slaves were easier to acquire via trading or captured in a war and not to mention they worked for free. If there was a task that was difficult typically slave owners would use their slaves to do the task for them. The only problem was once Rome begun to conquer more and more areas that meant that the ability to find slaves was becoming more and more difficult, the number of slaves they were getting suddenly started to come to a halt.

Eventually, around the fifth century, Rome had not been able to acquire as many slaves as before, since they relied on having slaves do most of the work when they were forced to make their own citizens do what was considered slave work the community gladly disagreed, lets not forget the fact that most of the time it had been slaves that done most work such as till the fields and build structures. With slaves starting to decrease it was harder to be able to construct buildings or do task’s when it is typically slaves that did the work. Another problem with relying on slave work was a stagnate in technology, relying on slaves discouraged the innovation of new technology so much so that after the annexation of Greece Rome had not invented new technology in centuries. They had become far too reliant on slave’s, the slave’s only job was to do a task. If it had been hard-working citizens they would have possibly come up with newer technology that could help them with their task. Secondly, at its peak, the Roman Empire managed to stretch all the way from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Euphrates River in the Middle East. The grand scale of how large this area was part of the reason for Rome’s downfall. With such a vast amount of region to govern it was too tedious to be able to control all of one area, even with excellently designed road systems it was still a difficult task to be able to communicate to a person who lived on the opposite end.

Another problem came after this though. Rome was famous for having a great military but the more Rome expanded the more military they had to supply. The more they expanded the more military they had to supply, this cost a lot to fund so much so that to fund the military it actually devalued their currency also known as inflation. Speaking of Rome’s military during the decline and the inflation it became far harder to pay Roman soldiers, some newer recruited people ended getting paid fake money. Most older soldiers ended up hating the system they went by that most ended up quitting. Rome was so desperate to get newer recruits and more soldiers so they ended up recruiting soldiers from foreign tribes, the people they found were Barbarian’s and Germanic Goths, they were excellent fighters and the plan of hiring completely new people seemed like a great idea. Though most Goths and Barbarians didn’t have as much loyal respect as the Romans did.

Romans had huge respect for their own city and would protect it at all costs even if it means getting themselves killed, the newer soldiers, on the other hand, would have practically no respect to the empire what so ever. They ended up turning against most other employees, after a while the Barbarians had realized that they had been getting paid fake money. At this point they were done with fighting for Rome and ended up turning against them completely; it turns out that most of the barbarians who had sacked the city of Rome and brought down the western empire were the ones who earned their military stripes while they had been serving Rome.Governing the empire itself was hard in itself, due to the sheer size of Rome it was a difficult job running the place, any ineffective leadership or failure in an emperors job would furthermore prove the difficulty of governing Rome. The role of an Emperor had always been a risky job, due to Caesar’s Civil War being an Emperor at the time was considered a death sentence, about 20 men were considered emperor's only within the span of 70 - 75 which is a very uncommon occurrence.

Roman politics has reached a new low, some Candidates running to be Emperor would occasionally buy votes, when the community found out about this they completely lost trust in leadership. Some people also said the transformation of Christianity could be part of the reason why Rome started to die down. Milan legalized Christianity in 313 and it later became the state of religion in 380; this change in religion would change roman’s polytheistic beliefs in both the community and in history. Some citizens criticized the change in Christianity which would sometimes get them killed. You would either be a Christian or get killed. Also in one of the biggest reasons why Rome went downhill was because of a nomadic tribe named the Visigoths or referred to as the goths. The attack or “sack of Rome” occurred on August 24 410 AD. The attack was led by King Alaric whom had been in war with the Eastern Roman Empire for years decided to attack Rome after Theodosius had died; Alaric had led his forces into Rome where they looted and pillaged the city for 3 days straight. It was the first time in 800 years that Rome had ever lost to a foreign enemy. The Visigoths rushed Rome and immediately started attacking anyone who attempted to stop them, though it wasn’t actually a mass murder or mass destruction the goths still managed to loot Rome to the point where it was considered one of the reasons why Rome ended.

Conclusion

So essentially those were some reasons why Rome was going downhill. Though most people are unsurprised that Rome ended, Rome was like other empires; they were essentially unstable as all the others were. Typically they were bloodthirsty empires that would live off of slavery and genocide, Rome would always destroy military weak villages for their own gain. If the Roman empire did manage to last it would likely be more corrupt and still would be as bloodthirsty as before.