Reasons For The Fall Of The Roman Empire

One of the reasons for the fall of the Western Roman Empire were political problems. There were several emperors that were unfit to rule, they were cruel to the people and greedy. The emperors usually inherited the throne, but did not have any knowledge on how to rule and their mentally unstable personality did not help. People asked the Praetorian Guard to assassinate the emperor in exchange for money or a position. When the emperor was assassinated there was no system to replace the him. Civil wars were breaking out in Rome and legions were fighting legions and citizens were revolting against the corrupt government, the terrible living conditions and the high taxes. The taxes were raised to meet the salaries of the demanding legions. They had a growing desire for more goods from other empires. The empire was in a state of peace, but since they were not stealing gold from other empires they had an inflation. The coins were made with less gold so the value of them were going down while the prices of the other goods were going up. Instead of paying for the food people started
The Roman Empire was massive, there was not enough time or people to build a good wall around it, nor were there enough legionnaires to guard the borders. Rome tried using small walls and natural borders like the Rhine and Danube River but they knew it still was not enough. Legionnaires were so caught up is their salaries and if their leader had the throne, they began to lose focus of what they were supposed to do, protect Rome. Since the legions were not doing their job Rome hired Germanic mercenaries to fight for them, but instead they turned against them. The Germanic tribes invaded Rome and destroyed their aqueducts so the people had little to drink. When rivers like the Rhine and Danube Rivers, froze it allowed easy access for invaders. In 410 CE, the Germanic Chief Alaric and the Germanic tribes invaded Rome with that