Why and how did the roman empire decline and come to an end at 5th century A.D?

Question

From the book How The Irish Saved Civilization

Answer 1

The traditional date of the fall of the Roman Empire is September 4, 476 when Romulus Augustus, the Emperor of the Western Roman Empire was deposed. However, many historians question this date, and use other benchmarks to describe the "Fall". Why the Empire fell seems to be relevant to every new generation, and a seemingly endless supply of theories are discussed on why it happened, or indeed if it happened at all.

The historian Vegetius theorized, and has recently been supported by the historian Arthur Ferrill, that the Roman Empire declined and fell due to increasing contact with barbarians and a consequent "barbarization", as well as a surge in decadence. The resulting lethargy, complacency and ill-discipline among the legions made it primarily a military issue.

Peter Heather offers an alternate theory of the decline of the Roman Empire in the work The Fall of the Roman Empire (2005). Heather maintains the Roman imperial system with its sometimes violent imperial transitions and problematic communications notwithstanding, was in fairly good shape during the first, second, and part of the third centuries A.D. According to Heather, the first real indication of trouble was the emergence in Iran of the Sassaniad Persian empire (226-651). Heather says:

"The Sassanids were sufficiently powerful and internally cohesive to push back Roman legions from the Euphrates and from much of Armenia and southeast Turkey. Much as modern readers tend to think of the "Huns" as the nemesis of the Roman Empire, for the entire period under discussion it was the Persians who held the attention and concern of Rome and Constantinople. Indeed, 20-25% of the military might of the Roman Army was addressing the Persian threat from the late third century onward ... and upwards of 40% of the troops under the Eastern Emperors."

In contrast with the "declining empire" theories, historians such as Arnold J. Toynbee and James Burke argue that the Roman Empire itself was a rotten system from its inception, and that the entire Imperial era was one of steady decay of its institutions. In their view, the Empire could never have lasted. The Romans had no budgetary system. The Empire relied on booty from conquered territories (this source of revenue ending, of course, with the end of Roman territorial expansion) or on a pattern of tax collection that drove small-scale farmers into destitution (and onto a dole that required even more exactions upon those who could not escape taxation), or into dependency upon a landed élite exempt from taxation. Meanwhile the costs of military defense and the pomp of Emperors continued. Financial needs continued to increase, but the means of meeting them steadily eroded. In a somewhat similar strain, Joseph Tainter argues that the Empire's collapse was caused by a diminishing marginal return on investment in complexity, a limitation to which most complex societies are eventually subject.

Answer 2

The western Roman empire came to an end in The 5th century A.D do to the loss of it's culture and economy as the result of barbarian peoples beyond the Rhine that came in successive waves and pillaging Rome its self twice in The 5th century. The Roman government and Emperors also became disillusioned and corrupt allowing much of the Roman empire to fall into anarchy.

Answer 3

The main points for the decline and fallof thr Roman Empire were;

1. bad emperors
2. increasing civilization of the people of the empire (which means weaker soldiers)
3. Roman disunity, endless infighting
4. economic decline
5. plagues
6. mass migration
7. and the settlement of the Visigoths in Moesia

The decline and fall of the Roman Empire didn't simply just happen. It was a long gradual process due mainly to the above reasons.

Answer 4

The Roman empire actually came to an end in the 15th century with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. That decline was due to poor resource management, ineffective and scattered leadership, some losses in war, and conspiring by the Venetians.

Answer 5

The Roman empire came to an end because it had an inadequate foundation that supported the whole of society thereby causing an implosion. When the Vendals "conquered" Rome it was because no one in Rome saw anything worth fighting for.

Answer 6

your thinking of the western empire witch fell in the 5th century it fell because it had split into two separate empires Constantin knew what he was doing when he sat his capital right in the middle of the trade routs of the time the second was that eastern empire had taken a pounding by the goths and the tribes of Germany i think Rome had been sacked over three times by then but without help from the west she just couldn't hold any more so she fell broke and just a shell of her from er glory

Answer 7

Read Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" :))

Answer 8

In a nutshell, their system worked great until they were no longer able to expand and absorb other cultures into their empire, also with practises like decimation ( kill every 10th man) these cultures were not the most loyal. that's the short of the way I see it

Answer 9

Every great civilisation reaches it's peack and then declines. part of the reason the empire came to an end is the internal termoil and every great civilisation tends to distruct itself at one point.

Answer 10

Gibbons wrote a 2,000 page book about it, and still didn't really answer the question.