THE REASONS FOR THE FALL OF ROME

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[briarbey b]

There were many reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire. Each one intertwined with the next. Many even blame the introduction of Christianity for the decline. Christianity made many Roman citizens into pacifists, making it more difficult to defend against the barbarian attackers. Also money used to build churches could have been used to maintain the empire. Although some argue that Christianity may have provided some morals and values for a declining civilization and therefore may have actually prolonged the imperial era.

Decline in Morals and Values

Those morals and values that kept together the Roman legions and thus the empire could not be maintained towards the end of the empire. Crimes of violence made the streets of the larger cities unsafe. Even during PaxRomana there were 32,000 prostitutes in Rome. Emperors like Nero and Caligula became infamous for wasting money on lavish parties where guests ate and drank until they became ill. The most popular amusement was watching the gladiatorial combats in the Colosseum. These were attended by the poor, the rich, and frequently the emperor himself. As gladiators fought, vicious cries and curses were heard from the audience. One contest after another was staged in the course of a single day. Should the ground become too soaked with blood, it was covered over with a fresh layer of sand and the performance went on.

Public Health

There were many public health and environmental problems. Many of the wealthy had water brought to their homes through lead pipes. Previously the aqueducts had even purified the water but at the end lead pipes were thought to be preferable. The wealthy death rate was very high. The continuous interaction of people at the Colosseum, the blood and death probable spread disease. Those who lived on the streets in continuous contact allowed for an uninterrupted strain of disease much like the homeless in the poorer run shelters of today. Alcohol use increased as well adding to the incompetency of the general public.

Political Corruption

One of the most difficult problems was choosing a new emperor. Unlike Greece where transition may not have been smooth but was at least consistent, the Romans never created an effective system to determine how new emperors would be selected. The choice was always open to debate between the old emperor, the Senate, the Praetorian Guard (the emperor's's private army), and the army. Gradually, the Praetorian Guard gained complete authority to choose the new emperor, who rewarded the guard who then became more influential, perpetuating the cycle. Then in 186 A. D. the army strangled the new emperor, the practice began of selling the throne to the highest bidder. During the next 100 years, Rome had 37 different emperors - 25 of whom were removed from office by assassination. This contributed to the overall weaknesses of the empire.

Unemployment

During the latter years of the empire farming was done on large estates called latifundia that were owned by wealthy men who used slave labor. A farmer who had to pay workmen could not produce goods as cheaply. Many farmers could not compete with these low prices and lost or sold their farms. This not only undermined the citizen farmer who passed his values to his family, but also filled the cities with unemployed people. At one time, the emperor was importing grain to feed more than 100,000 people in Rome alone. These people were not only a burden but also had little to do but cause trouble and contribute to an ever increasing crime rate.

Inflation

The roman economy suffered from inflation (an increase in prices) beginning after the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Once the Romans stopped conquering new lands, the flow of gold into the Roman economy decreased. Yet much gold was being spent by the romans to pay for luxury items. This meant that there was less gold to use in coins. As the amount of gold used in coins decreased, the coins became less valuable. To make up for this loss in value, merchants raised the prices on the goods they sold. Many people stopped using coins and began to barter to get what they needed. Eventually, salaries had to be paid in food and clothing, and taxes were collected in fruits and vegetables.

Urban decay

Wealthy Romans lived in a domus, or house, with marble walls, floors with intricate colored tiles, and windows made of small panes of glass. Most Romans, however, were not rich, They lived in small smelly rooms in apartment houses with six or more stories called islands. Each island covered an entire block. At one time there were 44,000 apartment houses within the city walls of Rome. First-floor apartments were not occupied by the poor since these living quarters rented for about $00 a year. The more shaky wooden stairs a family had to climb, the cheaper the rent became. The upper apartments that the poor rented for $40 a year were hot, dirty, crowed, and dangerous. Anyone who could not pay the rent was forced to move out and live on the crime-infested streets. Because of this cities began to decay.

Inferior Technology

During the last 400 years of the empire, the scientific achievements of the Romans were limited almost entirely to engineering and the organization of public services. They built marvelous roads, bridges, and aqueducts. They established the first system of medicine for the benefit of the poor. But since the Romans relied so much on human and animal labor, they failed to invent many new machines or find new technology to produce goods more efficiently. They could not provide enough goods for their growing population. They were no longer conquering other civilizations and adapting their technology, they were actually losing territory they could not longer maintain with their legions.

Military Spending

Maintaining an army to defend the border of the Empire from barbarian attacks was a constant drain on the government. Military spending left few resources for other vital activities, such as providing public housing and maintaining quality roads and aqueducts. Frustrated Romans lost their desire to defend the Empire. The empire had to begin hiring soldiers recruited from the unemployed city mobs or worse from foreign counties. Such an army was not only unreliable, but very expensive. The emperors were forced to raise taxes frequently which in turn led again to increased inflation.

THE FINAL BLOWS For years, the well-disciplined Roman army held the barbarians of Germany back. Then in the third century A. D. the Roman soldiers were pulled back from the Rhine-Danube frontier to fight civil war in Italy. This left the Roman border open to attack. Gradually Germanic hunters and herders from the north began to overtake Roman lands in Greece and Gaul (later France). Then in 476 A. D. the Germanic general Odacer or Odovacar overthrew the last of the Roman Emperors, Augustulus Romulus. From then on the western part of the Empire was ruled by Germanic chieftain. Roads and bridges were left in disrepair and fields left untilled. Pirates and bandits made travel unsafe. Cities could not be maintained without goods from the farms, trade and business began to disappear. And Rome was no more in the West.

???? Fall of the United States ????

[briarbey b]

How obvious is it?
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Obvious enough to make me squirm.

[wolfcreek]

The *turn the other cheek* crowd need to remember the *eye for an eye* method.

[briarbey b]

“Then in 186 A. D. the army strangled the new emperor, the practice began of SELLING THE THRONE TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER.”

******

Seems that was attempted in Illinois. What price did “O” pay for his presidency????

[duffus]

Thanks

[rmlew]

All true, but the article is about the fall of the Roman Empire, not the Republic.

[arrogantsob]

It was because of the destruction of the Republic and its morality that the Empire rose. But it contained the same destructive forces which had destroyed the Republic.

These forces became an uncontrollable violence against people and places once moral control was gone. Cato had fought for a retention of Republican virtue by attacking the love of luxury and dissipation. But it was irresistible without a moral core undermined by emerging rationalism and philosophy.

An empire based upon brute force cannot last.

[Billthedrill]

The accusation - that's what it was at the time - that Christianity had a deal to do with the downfall of the Roman Empire was first proposed by Edward Gibbon in his magnificent The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. It was, to say the least, highly controversial in the more church-centric age in which he published but the claim seems to have stood the test of time. The real key to this one cause (of many) of the downfall of the western empire was not the diversion of wealth to the Church but the diversion of trained administrators from Roman government to Christian clergy that did the most to undermine the actual running of Rome (this is Gibbon's argument now, not my own).

There were other factors, of course. The establishment of Constantinople split the empire into administrable regions once it became obvious to Constantine and others that it was too large geographically to be administered from Rome. That in turn revivified the already strong Greek influence within the empire. It also split the revenue stream, a good deal of which was, actually, filling Church coffers but not (my contention now) enough to fully explain the atrophy of Roman government.

In the end it was the influx of migratory peoples that changed the empire the most, a wild cascade of tribes that first surrounded, then invested, and then infiltrated the Roman body politic. The real damage was already done by the time the Vandals swept through Spain and into the breadbasket of Rome, which was northern Africa. Once the food supply was controlled by the barbarians it was all over, at least for a century or so until Justinian's great general Belisarius threw the Vandals out of possession. Procopius chronicles what happened next in the Gothic Wars, when the Greeks attempted to wrest Rome from the Goths. We are here into the hideously misnamed "Dark Ages." Gibbon takes us through this and the next nearly thousand years in the Decline and Fall. Some of the best stuff I've ever read, and highly, highly recommended.

[briarbey b]

We are here into the hideously misnamed “Dark Ages.”
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My understanding was this was when the RCC took over total religious control of the known world....at least until the protesting ones..aka Protestants stood up and wanted their freedom from religious oppression. The religious system of that time took the light of the world and translated it in to Latin, which your common uneducated pheasant (middle-class and poor) could not understand.

Don't tell me your statement of hideously misnamed Dark Ages will be twisted like the ...there was no Holocaust...just something made up by the Jews. Why do I feel I won't be surprised. :)

[GreenLanternCorps]

You are right, the Roman state (Kingdom, Republic, and Empire) lasted for 2200 years, may we be so lucky...

[Wuli]

The seeds of the end of any empire in history were planted in its beginning.

The road to empire is mounted on how that which precedes it fails to sustain things without a drive for greater power at higher levels of power, and thus greater tyranny.

The seeds of the Roman Empire, and its destruction, arise in the demise of the Roman Republic.

Our founders knew this from history.

When the mob in the street has an entitlement in the treasury of the state, even emperors, with all their power, cannot forever sustain that treasury or the state.

[Reeses]

Inferior Technology - Military Spending

That one does not compute because technology springs from military spending. The reason the USA is the technology leader of the world is because we spend more than anybody on our military. "Cutting edge" technology later drives wealth. The robot development our military is now funding will be the cheap labor workers of the future.

[GreenLanternCorps]

The "Dark Ages" only covered the Western part of Europe and the Western Mediterranean. Germany, Poland and other territories in the north and East of the old Roman borders had never known civilization. In the East, where the Roman Empire stood strong, civilized life continued on as normal.

Indeed Constantinople was probably the richest city in the world for several centuries. Also, The Roman Catholic Church never had "total religious control of the known world" The Eastern Church in was as powerful as the Western Church until the wars with the Ottoman Turks depleted the Eastern Empire.

[GreenLanternCorps]

There is a big difference between Mexico dumping it’s surplus population over the US border and the Romans hiring whole units of barbarian mercenaries.

The US has 300 million people, Mexico has 80 million people, in the end, we will dominate and assimilate them. It may take some time, but we will do it.

[GreenLanternCorps]

The only thing Obama and Caligula share is delusions of godhood. Other than that, Obama is a choirboy compared to Caligula.

[GreenLanternCorps]

Rome fell becase Carthage was vanquished. Had Carthage been victorious, there would have been no Rome to fall.

Read Poul Anderson's short story "Delenda Est" for more on a world in which Carthage defeated Rome.

[sport]

Mark

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"large estates called latifundia that were owned by wealthy men who used slave labor. A farmer who had to pay workmen could not produce goods as cheaply"

Large corporate farms manned by illegal aliens would be a present day parallel.

[Wuli]

My relatives (early to mid 1800s), on my mother’s side, were farmers and ministers. The patriarch of the clan, took them (by covered wagon) to southern Illinois (near present day Olney) because he did not want to own slaves or compete with his Virgina (Culpepper County) farming neighbors who did. His sons and grandsons took up Lincoln’s call and joined the Union Army at the beginning of the Civil War.

Like Lincoln, they believed they were fighting to save the Republic.

[Unlikely Hero]

Nothing can last. Empires rise, and empires fall. Human planning and random events will topple even the mightiest in time.

[sport]

BTTT