Causes Of The Fall Of Rome

Rome, one of the world’s greatest empires, was able to prosper in the Mediterranean world for centuries, yet, Rome’s downfall was inevitable. As Rome ascended into to power, the amount of territory they had became immensely vast. The Roman army had seized land from modern-day Scotland to Spain, and the entire Mediterranean Sea, along with colonies in North Africa, Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia Minor. Rome was able to harmoniously sustain their reign throughout the first two centuries, but they had slowly started staggering downward throughout the next three centuries. Rome’s problems had notably increased, they had started losing power, and eventually were overthrown. The primary cause for the Roman Empire’s fall was political instability.
According to Doc. B, before the year 400 CE, Roman soldiers had worn breastplates and helmets. But when the Romans had started getting lazy, they started to neglect the armor. Parade ground drills were eventually abandoned, and the emperor had ultimately set aside the customary armor. When they fought the Goths, archers easily took them out since they weren’t wearing any head or chest protection. Since they had set aside parade ground drills and armor, once they were exposed to wounds, they ended up running instead of fighting. The Roman army became weaker and weaker due to the lack of soldiers. They failed to draft people, and the categories of people who could be excused from the army were numerous, as stated in Document B. Additionally, as stated in Document D, the Romans also had to worry about a powerful enemy, the Huns, who were invading them. While the Huns were traveling through the Roman empire, they marauded countless of villages. The Huns could easily overpower the Romans. They could withstand the freezing cold, hunger, and even thirst, meanwhile the Roman army could barely withstand heavy armor. Due to military mistakes, many villages were pillaged, and numerous amounts of Roman soldiers
As shown in document A, over the span of fifty years, twenty-two emperors had died. Out of all twenty-two emperors, none of them had died of natural causes. Eight out of twenty-two emperors had died of either suicide, plague, or they were killed in battle. The fourteen other emperors had died of assassinations. Usually, the new emperor after the previous emperor, was most likely the one who had assassinated the previous emperor. This demonstrates that the Roman leaders often fought each other for the position of emperor, which gives off the impression that there wasn’t any sort of stable leadership in the Roman government. The frequent deaths of emperors and abrupt changes in leadership led to distrust from the Roman public, and decrease in power. Furthermore, the constant changes in leadership could also give outsiders the perception that Rome was an easy target to attack. As displayed in Document C, outsiders were able to attack the Roman empire. Several groups of invaders, such as, the Huns, Vandals, Ostrogoths, and Visigoths, were migrating through the Roman empire. As these groups migrated through the Roman empire, they most likely pillaged villages. This elucidates that the emperors were not successful in ceasing the invasions, which would eventually lead to wariness from the Roman public about the