Fall Of The Roman Empire Essay

The Roman Empire was one of the biggest and most powerful empires of it’s time. Reaching from Greece to Egypt, the empire was bound to fall. The collapse of the Roman Empire in 476 A.D can be attributed to many social causes, such as the introduction of Buddhism, political causes, such as weak leaders, an economic causes, such as inflation.

One of the main causes of the collapse was invasion by foreign people including the Huns, Vandals and Visigoths (DOC.4). The decline of the empire started when emperors would die or be assassinated, and then many military generals would think they were the next emperor. The government was so weak that there were over 15 rulers in a span of only 50 years, with most of them being assassinated (DOC. 1). These leaders were called “soldier generals”. All of these generals would then fight over who’s dictator, leaving the borders empty for attack. Even worse, when Diocletian split the empire, only the wealthier side was being protected leaving the other open for invasion. These invaders also weakened what little army the Romans had, due to lack of drafting (DOC.3). Along with little people in the army, the
Another reason why the army had little people in it was that Romans were not having as many children, along with not being able to have children due to lead-lined aqueducts causing infertility. There were also many foreign influences that undermined the Roman life. A Roman ambassador to the Huns, Priscus, gave reasons to why he feels the Hun life is better than Roman. In the excerpt, he mentions that the Romans had high taxes and that there was injustice throughout the social classes (DOC.6). Religion has also been a major bad influence to the Roman Empire, because it undermined the imperial cult of the Romans. This also happened to the Gupta Empire with the introduction of Buddhism. That then caused the lack of violence in the army, destroying the