The Western Roman Empire
The Western Roman empire was excellent, untouchable and perfect. It seemed as if this empire was controlling the world. It was only a matter of time before political problems, economic issues, dastardly diseases, and foreign invaders looking for conquest.
The Western Roman empire was falling, one of the major contributing reasons being political. There were many unfit, greedy and violent emperors that were in control of the empire. Emperors inherited the throne, yet lacked the ability to rule a empire as powerful as the Roman’s. Inbreeding caused a couple of them to be mentally unstable to rule. There was no system in order to replace the emperor after their death. Some of the time the praetorian guard was payed off to assassinate the emperor. …show more content…
The romans had a growing desire to access more goods from other empires, and rulers. Consequently there was much less economic growth within rome. As many of the places they were getting the goods from had to cross the Mediterranean before they reached rome, pirates would hijack the ships. Higher tariffs accrued because of the major demand of exotic items. Due to no new conquests of land there was a lack of gold imported into the city. Furthermore there was less gold in the coins and less coins produced. Inflation was a grave problem, with the prices going up and the value going down. Bartering was a solution that was better than exchanging money. Farming resources decrease causing famine to arise. Many farmers and merchants found money difficult to acquire pushing them to migrate into the …show more content…
With the walls they had built not being protected enough by the legions they began to use natural frontiers like the Rhine and Danube Rivers. The Romans made the mistake of hiring Germanic mercenaries, the mercenaries turned against Rome and began to favor the Germanic tribes over the people paying them. The legionnaires began to be so concerned with salaries and who was in control of the throne they lost focus on the job. With the help of the Germanic mercenaries, the Germanic tribes were able to invade Rome. The Germanic people destroyed aqueducts. Therefore stopping the flow of fresh water to the million people living in Rome. With the rivers being frozen invaders were able to march across with no problem. In 410 CE, chief Alaric and his tribes invaded Rome burning it and most of the people
The Western Roman empire was falling, one of the major contributing reasons being political. There were many unfit, greedy and violent emperors that were in control of the empire. Emperors inherited the throne, yet lacked the ability to rule a empire as powerful as the Roman’s. Inbreeding caused a couple of them to be mentally unstable to rule. There was no system in order to replace the emperor after their death. Some of the time the praetorian guard was payed off to assassinate the emperor. …show more content…
The romans had a growing desire to access more goods from other empires, and rulers. Consequently there was much less economic growth within rome. As many of the places they were getting the goods from had to cross the Mediterranean before they reached rome, pirates would hijack the ships. Higher tariffs accrued because of the major demand of exotic items. Due to no new conquests of land there was a lack of gold imported into the city. Furthermore there was less gold in the coins and less coins produced. Inflation was a grave problem, with the prices going up and the value going down. Bartering was a solution that was better than exchanging money. Farming resources decrease causing famine to arise. Many farmers and merchants found money difficult to acquire pushing them to migrate into the …show more content…
With the walls they had built not being protected enough by the legions they began to use natural frontiers like the Rhine and Danube Rivers. The Romans made the mistake of hiring Germanic mercenaries, the mercenaries turned against Rome and began to favor the Germanic tribes over the people paying them. The legionnaires began to be so concerned with salaries and who was in control of the throne they lost focus on the job. With the help of the Germanic mercenaries, the Germanic tribes were able to invade Rome. The Germanic people destroyed aqueducts. Therefore stopping the flow of fresh water to the million people living in Rome. With the rivers being frozen invaders were able to march across with no problem. In 410 CE, chief Alaric and his tribes invaded Rome burning it and most of the people