Roman Empire Dbq Essay

Nearly two thousand years ago, the Roman Empire conquered all territories west of the Persian Empire in modern day Iran and Iraq. The empire extended southwards into North Africa, and as far north as the British Isles. For close on to four centuries, the Romans controlled and conquered most of Western Eurasia and the Mediterranean. However, their rule came to an end because of the centrifugal forces of political and economic issues, foreign invaders and belligerent tribes, and socio-religious transformations. This brief response will help highlight the primary reasons why the Roman Empire fell.

In the later part of the Roman Empire’s existence, their political and government was fraught with political corruption and incompetent leaders. The
author of one popular Western civilization textbook described this era of mismanagement as a period where “very few inhabitants of the empire believed that the old civilization was worth saving… the overwhelming majority of the population had been systematically excluded from political responsibilities.” (Document A) This telling excerpt reveals that there was a vast disconnect between the subjects and the ruling class. The ruling class was seen by many as a wasteful, self-centered, and imprudent. For the most part these critiques were very accurate: the ruling class continued to use slaves to prop up the economy; which helped worsen the issue of unemployment and income inequality, levied unreasonable taxes on businesses and commoners, and decided to invade more land for the spoils of war only made the vast empire harder to govern (Document C) The mismanagement and political instability helped create the problems that would ultimately lead to the demise of the Roman Empire.

As a result of the expansive Roman occupation and conquest, the Roman Empire became vulnerable to foreign invaders and guerilla tribes. During the later part of the Roman Empire, the Romans fought numerous battles and wars with eastern tribes that splintered military and political support away from the central Roman state. The Roman Empire was forced to fight multiple wars against “barbaric” tribe in all corners of the Europe continent (Document E). This made it impossible to defend against rebellion, so the Romans slowly lost their power in western Europe. These new tribes helped fix the issues that the Romans had left behind, and created their own cultures through the use of vernacular languages and Christianity. The fall of the Roman Empire facilitated the creation of new kingdoms, and most especially newly recognized cultures.

In addition to the violent conflicts and economic issues, the Roman Empire was toppled because of a new religion from Judea— Christianity.
After Jesus’ crucifixion, many of Jesus’ followers began to spread the word of their new religion modeled after the teachings and lifestyle of Jesus. But, as these followers went throughout the Roman world, they were met with persecution and ridicule. Although the Roman elite later adopted Christianity as the state religion, Christianity was first successfully adopted by the lower class and the Germanic tribes (Document G). Christianity helped the Roman subject to start questioning the ruling class’s impropriety and their indifference to inequality. Christianity led the fall of the Roman empire because it helped the subjects question the Roman authority, and to ultimately overthrow it.

The Roman Empire was able to control the entirety of the European continent and to control spheres of influence around the ancient world. However, this did not make them immune to forces out of their control: economic inequality and political mismanagement, tribal insurrections, and the spread of Christianity. In short, the Romans lost their empire because of these numerous forces pulled the their resources, time, and effort into multiple quagmires. Without the number of centrifugal forces, the Roman Empire would have easily continued to rule over Europe for another four
centuries.