Did the roman empire's bureaucracy become to top heavy, eventually causing the empire to collapse upon itself?

Question

i need to know for a school project and i am having trouble finding anything.

Answer 1

I believe in doing my own homework. Have you heard of Libraries and books? You should take advantage of that. Other tips I have use google search engine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire

http://www.romanempire.net/romepage/

http://www.questia.com/Index.jsp?CRID=roman_empire&OFFID=se1

Only you are in charge of your education and future!!

Answer 2

The decline of the Roman Empire, also called the fall of the Roman Empire, is a historical term of periodization that describes the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The term was first used in the 18th century by Edward Gibbon in his famous study The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but he was neither the first nor the last to speculate on why and when the Empire collapsed. It remains one of the greatest historical questions, and has a tradition rich in scholarly interest. In 1984, German professor Alexander Demandt published a collection of 210 theories on why Rome fell[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. Many historians question this date, while others maintain that rather than a simplistic "fall", the changes can more accurately be described as a complex transformation. [2] Over time many theories have been proposed on why the fall happened, or indeed if it happened at all. Historiographically, the primary issue historians have looked at when analyzing any theory is the continued existence of the Eastern Empire or Byzantine Empire, which lasted for about a thousand years after the fall of the West. For example, Gibbon implicates Christianity in the fall of the Western Empire, yet the eastern half of the Empire, which was even more Christian than the west in geographic extent, fervor, penetration and sheer numbers continued on for a thousand years afterwards (although Gibbon did not consider the Eastern Empire to be much of a success). As another example, environmental or weather changes impacted the east as much as the west, yet the east did not "fall."

Theories will sometimes reflect the eras in which they are developed. Gibbon's criticism of Christianity reflects the values of the Enlightenment; his ideas on the decline in martial vigor could have been interpreted by some as a warning to the growing British Empire. In the 19th century socialist and anti-socialist theorists tended to blame decadence and other political problems. More recently, environmental concerns have become popular, with deforestation and soil erosion proposed as major factors, and destabilizing population decreases due to epidemics such as early cases of bubonic plague and malaria also cited. Global climate changes of 535-536 caused by the eruption of Krakatoa in 535, as mentioned by David Keys and others, is another example. On the other hand, Ramsay MacMullen in the 1980s suggested it was due to political corruption. Ideas about transformation with no distinct fall mirror the rise of the postmodern tradition, which rejects periodization concepts (see metanarrative). What is not new are attempts to diagnose Rome's particular problems, with Juvenal in the early 2nd century, at the height of Roman power, criticizing the peoples' obsession with "bread and circuses" and rulers seeking only to gratify these obsessions.

One of the primary reasons for the sheer number of theories is the notable lack of surviving evidence from the 4th and 5th centuries. For example there are so few records of an economic nature it is difficult to arrive at even a generalization of how the economic conditions were. Thus, historians must quickly depart from available evidence and comment based on how things ought to have worked, or based on evidence from previous and later periods, or simply based on inductive reasoning. As in any field where available evidence is sparse, the historian's ability to imagine the 4th and 5th centuries will play as important a part in shaping our understanding as the available evidence, and thus be open for endless interpretation.

Answer 3

No. Barbarian invaders destroyed the Western Roman Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire went on for another 1000 years as the Byzantine Empire.

Answer 4

Roman Empire problems are like any country's.
They expand to the max and try to absorb those people.
Unfortunately, doing so allows for the enclaving of people.
When groups of people are absorbed but not assimilated or integrated they become weak or cancerous links in the country. Look at French /British muslims or US cuban/mexicans - they want to keep and expand their culture on the masses instead of becoming part of the larger group. These is what happened in R.E.

Answer 5

yes they overexpanded like the british (the us is still in the process)

there was more going out than was comming in