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Why Did The Collapse Of The Roman Empire?

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Why Did The Collapse Of The Roman Empire?
The Roman Empire was perhaps one of the greatest and strongest empires to ever exist. It lasted for many centuries and was very prestigious as well as powerful. Although Rome is possibly the greatest empire ever, its mighty stature crumbled to the ground. Although there are many people who think that Rome just collapsed overnight, the reality is that the Fall of the Roman Empire was a long slow process over many years that snowballed into the eventual collapse that we know of today. There are many reasons that the glorious Roman Empire fell, however there are a few that stand out more important than the rest. A few important contributions to the fall of the Roman Empire were overexpansiveness, the invasions by the barbarians, civil war, economic …show more content…
To allow for this larger funding, a tremendous tax increase was added to the citizens. These large taxes that were put in place to support the growing of the military placed a tremendous strain on the citizens, specifically the farmers. The new enacted tax from the government made it impossible for the farmers to keep um completely with their previous agricultural production. There were even large portions of the land that was unused at all because of the heavy tax and the impossibility of the farmers making a profit. With the inability sometimes to provide for themselves and their families some of the producers were even forced to shut down their farms because they could no longer afford to keep producing because of this new tax burden. The coins which were previously all silver coins were replaced with other metals along with silver to reduce the cost of making the coins. This may have helped in the short run of saving cost, but in the long run inflation jumped through the roof. As the inflation rose the currency was no longer as valuable and was almost devalued completely (Bundy, …show more content…
For a time, it was then greatest dynasty on the planet, but the snowball effect of bad decisions and bad leadership eventually was too much for the Empire to continue. The beginning factor for the fall of the Roman Empire was the clear overexpansion of the military. This conquest that was desired was a tremendous mistake which played a part in many of the other aspects of the demise. They could not protect themselves from foreign invasion as a result of this. The barbarians invading Rome time and again and sacking the city put a strain on the military and the citizens of Rome. Eventually, the power-hungry leaders of Rome were to eager to be in control and led the Empire to civil war which strained every aspect of the government and military. The military overexpansion, invasions by the barbarians, and civil war all played a part on the economic crisis that persisted throughout the late existence of the Roman Empire. The taxes enacted made it impossible for citizens to thrive and for farmers to produce crops like they previously had done. Finally, Rome put its trust in a group of people whom they should have known were not trustworthy. They gave safety to the Visigoths even after they conflicted with them and they recruited them into their military and financially were shook because of it. They were still betrayed by the Visigoths when they turned on Rome and ransacked the

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