How Did The Fall Of The Roman Empire

The cause of the Roman Empire’s demise is an ongoing debate in academia. Some scholars claim that Rome fell in a matter of 70 years. While it is true that the western half of the Empire was overrun in the better part of the fifth century CE, there was more to the Roman Empire and its collapse than that. Rome was weakened by political turmoil and unmanageable expansion, which lead to its division into an Eastern and a Western Roman empires. While the Eastern Empire prospered, the Western Empire struggled to stay alive, and it was eventually overcome by barbarians. The Eastern Empire continued to live on for another thousand years, continuing and further developing Roman culture. The fall and decline of the Roman Empire was a long, drawn out process that started with political turmoil in the third century CE and lasted until the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453. Starting around the third century CE Rome had a string of bad emperors who were unable to control the vast amount of territory that they held. It started with Emperor Commoduscivil, who cared more for gladiator games than for the government. His tyrannical rule was bad enough to get himself
assassinated in 192. Following his death there was a civil war and an unlistable number of short lived and forceful rulers for almost a century until Emperor Diocletian. Diocletian split up the Roman Empire into an Eastern and a Western Empire. Both empires were considered one Roman empire, but were ruled by separate people (Historical). The now divided empire remained strong for many years after the split, but the Western Empire gradually grew weaker and more susceptible to attack.
Barbarian tribes took the opportunity to attack gain new land for themselves. From the years 406 to 476 multiple barbarian tribes attacked and conquered the Western Empire (Bengtsson 133). The city of Rome was sacked by the Visigoths from the north in 410, in what has been considered “one of the most civilised sacks of any city ever witnessed” (qtd) because they did not slaughter nearly as many inhabitants as they might have (Cavendish). The Eastern Empire was unable to aid the west because of its preoccupation with the Persian army (Browning 8). Some consider this brief time period to be the complete fall of Rome, but Rome as an Empire carried on in the
east. The Eastern Empire continued to thrive after the loss of its western counterpart. It carried on the Roman legacy through its political structure and culture. Although the Western Roman Empire was taken over in a relatively short amount of time, it took hundreds of years for it to destabilize enough to allow its collapse, and the Eastern Roman Empire thrived and developed for a thousand years after. Because of this it is fair to conclude that the decline and fall of the Roman Empire was a long and transformative process.