Roman Empire Imperialism

All good things must come to an end; consequently, the impressive Roman empire crumbled into decay. Rome had been standing and growing for an awfully long time. Its large, exposed, and inviting borders encouraged many barbarian tribes outside of Rome to try to usurp Rome’s riches. Furthermore, religion had augmented a rift in the Roman people and other nations and tribes. Corruption amongst the government and civilian populations slowly crept in. The overall chaotic disorder made Rome an easy target for barbarians to now defeat. Imperialistic tenets, disunity in religion, and overall adulteration of society hastened Rome’s collapse.

The use of imperialism in the initial days of the Roman Empire helped Rome aggrandize its borders, bolster
This presented a weak and penetrable front to barbarian tribes encouraging them to attack Rome. With both less tax money and less Roman men to serve in its legions Rome turned to its last resort, barbarian mercenaries. Not only were many of the barbarians enemies of the Roman people they were only loyal to their generals and their promise of gold. The continued focus on militaristic expansion did little to help declining Roman civilian population. Tacitus, a Roman historian, further explains how imperialism aided the deterioration of the Roman Empire in Agricola, “ To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: they make a desolation and they call it peace.”[2] Rome’s imperialistic behavior created too many enemies and too few allies. Rome did not settle down to rebuild and recolonize land they conquered but instead left the land to decay. Tacitus thought that Rome had the incorrect concept of building an empire, for it was important to rebuild and recolonize razed and conquered land. This further emphasizes the theme that Rome’s primitive imperialistic values were not adequate enough to maintain an enormous empire. Continuing on with the incompetence of Roman rule J. J. Saunders writes:
A generation later, when the situation had grown worse and the Goths and Vandals had thrust themselves deeper into the heart of the Empire, the tone has changed, and the priest Salvian, in his De guberatione Dei, declares the ruin of Rome to be judgment of God on a society rotten with vice and corruption. Christians and pagans alike are castigated for their sins: the poor are oppressed, the rich are sunk in sensual pleasure, and ‘the Roman world goes laughing to its death’