What caused the fall of the ancient roman empire?

Answer 1

greed, corruption, sexual immorality, pomposity, ignorance....sound familiar?

Answer 2

There are a lot of factors that went into the fall of the Roman Empire.

1) Germanic invasions - fragmented the Empire politically
2) Roman troops had too many non military jobs.
3) Increasingly withdrawn emporers led to less support from the people.
4) A top heavy beureaucracy led to over taxing of the population.
5) Peasants fled government enactions and left the land unworked.
6) Rome was dependant on slave labour and once they stopped conqeuring, their supply of labour dried up.
7)Droughts, climactic variation, and over worked land led to decreased agricultural production.
8) The plague and other epidemics led to a decrease in the Roman population.
9) The rise of Christianity drew intelligent leaders away from the state, to the church.
10) People were less concerned with this world as a result of the rise of Christianity. Meaning that many refused military work and pledging allegiance to the emporer.
11) It was just too large! There was too many people and too much land to defend; making the question "Why did Roman last as long as it did?" seem more logical thatn "Why did it fall?"

There are some other theories that exist but they have been discredited as unlikely causes.

Answer 3

There will be a too huge of a list of reasons, but still it was an early form of a democracy that was tested out and civilized the Roman Empire for a while, which includes a large amount of territory. Any time you have a decadent society and barbarian symbolizims accompanying a heathenistic world, there is so much conflict that it will refuse to be dicated too for the violence,death and blood shed it was built upon spreds as a virus where all of the others around you develop this same thought and now you have armies that pop up everywhere to defeat their conquerers after they weaken. In the case of Rome it was weakened when Pompeii waged war with Julius Caesar. Yes Julius built the Senate and conquered that known world then and when he wanted to settle in and develop a culture and fix the disease and famon in Rome (the city of light) the Senate would not tolerate this for they would have to give up the wealth that Julius had afforded them from War. They just figured he should just keep fighting and they would sit back and in lust and greed get fat off the profits. He received knowledge an inner peace to be content with what they had accomplished but they assasinated him. Anytime you have an assasination like that and a cruel ruler like Octavian who lusted and got fat off the people that was the beginning of the fall and they never recupperated from that until Marcus Aurelius, and then inevitably they were surviving on one thread. The well know enemies the Huns, Constatine, etc. surrounded and brought the demise of this once thought of good civilizations. Many people (rulers, senators, governors, military men) brought down the city of Rome. Rome never really developed but they had a good concept at first and then the corruption sets in just like our own government today. If you dont clean up your filth, feed your people, provide them with food and shelter, and let disease go rampid, all will fail. When you put people to death in a public display guilty or innocent it gives a bad example of the rulership of any government. No government will survive on terroristic, ruthless tactics ever. There is always someone bigger waiting in the shadows for the crack at the title.

Answer 4

Mainly, instablility. The entire empire saw 37 emperors, 25 were assasinated. People didnt trust their leaders. Some leaders focused too much on the military and raised taxes and whatnot.

The Germanic tribes were the final push. When the Huns moved into the West, other Germanic tribes were forced into Rome to get away. Since the Romans were already weak, they were vulnerable. Rome was surrounded and captured by these tribes.

Answer 5

What didn't happen would be a little more accurate. Rome saw what so many empires did, unhappy populace, discontent slaves, elite, peasants, and importantly soldiers (cause they could cause the most trouble if they weren't loyal). My history teacher gave 5 short term factors as well as 5 long term
Short Term:
1.Military-they became discontent
2.Civil Strife
3.Economic Downturn
4.Campaigns on the Frontiers
5.Barbarians who were invading with could lead to problems with discontented populace
Long Term:
1.Reduction in Leadership Pool
2.Stagnation of Economic Base
3.Alienation from other countries (and in some cases the people)think of the location of Rome
4.Urban Decline
5.Downturn in Commercial Life

Hope this helps!

Answer 6

Hope this is what you are look for bes that I can find right now.




It didn't take long for the Germans and Goths to realize that the new young emperors were weak and so this was a good time to attack. Roman generals also saw this weakness and revolted.
First, Constantine III, a general in England, declared himself emperor at York in 405 AD. He took all the Roman troops out of England, across the English Channel to France, and he marched his army through France, collecting the French troops so they could all march on Rome.
When Theodosius died in 395 AD, he left the Roman Empire to his two sons, Honorius and Arcadius. Honorius took the West and Arcadius the East. But like other emperors who had been brought up at court, neither of them was very good at ruling, or even very interested. Most of the actual work was done by their advisors.
Most of Honorius' work was done by a Vandal named Stilicho. He had joined the Roman army and risen through the ranks to become and important general.
But while Constantine III was doing this, nobody was watching the border. In January 409 AD, a lot of Alans, Vandals, and Sueves crossed the Rhine (which was frozen solid) and came into the Roman Empire. There were no troops there to stop them, so they just travelled around France taking whatever they wanted. Both women and men came, and they brought their children, so they seem to have meant to stay.
Meanwhile Constantine III was trying to take over Spain. He sent his general Gerontius to Spain, but then Gerontius decided to make himself Emperor instead of working for Constantine III. In order to get a good-sized army together, Gerontius seems to have agreed to let the Alans, Vandals, and Sueves into Spain, and they promised to help him out.
Then the Roman government sent out a general to stop Constantine III. Constantine III was killed, and so was Gerontius. All of their soldiers (the ones from England and the ones from France, and maybe the ones from Spain too) were taken back to Italy to deal with the Visigoths. This left England, France, and Spain pretty much open for Germans to take over
Back in Italy, the Visigoths were attacking. The Visigoths had been living inside the Roman Empire since the battle of Adrianople in 378 AD. But they had not been treated very well: the Romans had kept them from getting food or building decent houses. Under their new king, Alaric (AL-arr-ick), the Visigoths demanded gold from Honorius. When he said no, the Visigoths marched on Rome. Despite the gathering of soldiers to fight them, the Visigoths not only got to Rome but in 410 AD they took the city and sacked it (they wrecked things, killed people, and took what they wanted). The Roman people were shocked. How could anyone attack Rome, the Eternal City? Did this mean that the gods were angry? Did it mean the Christian God was angry?
The Visigoths did not stay in Rome, but marched down to the tip of Italy, apparently trying to get to Africa. But Alaric died there, and a big storm frightened them. In the end the Visigoths marched up to southern France and settled there. The Burgundians had already taken over eastern France, and the Vandals and Sueves were in Spain (the Alans got wiped out).
In 429 AD the Vandals sailed across the Straits of Gibraltar and took over Africa, again without much of a battle. This left the Sueves alone in Spain, and the Visigoths gradually began taking over parts of Spain. The Picts and other groups invaded England, and the English wrote to the Romans for help, but the Romans said they were on their own.
For years the Roman Emperors had been too weak to do anything about all this, and in 476 AD the last Roman Emperor in the West, Romulus Augustulus, was removed and his place taken by a German named Odoacer.

Answer 7

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Answer 8

That's a question that wold require a disertation to answer but the one word, short answer is decadence. This is by far not the only reason only the most popular.

Answer 9

Your going to get millions of different answers, but my thoery is that it was corrupt, way to large, and had no way of communicating over thier entire empire

Answer 10

St Paul preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Answer 11

Something very similar to what is happening today in the USA! And I'm not kidding about it either!
NDS