The Roman Empire - Fall of Rome

The Roman Empire stood in great power for many decades. Rome for a period of time was considered the center of civilization for years. The Romans thrived in almost every category from education to military to farming and to engineering. The empire was beautiful and even though attracted many invaders, was very well protected by the walls surrounding the empire and of course the powerful army. Some people believed that the Roman Empire would last forever, but to all great things they come to an end. I don't believe there was just one primary reason for the fall of the Roman Empire. There are many reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire: poor leadership, military spending, civilization brought on by the introduction and establishment of Christianity, political corruption and invasion. Except for the invasion factor basically all the things that make up a successful empire with the works of: social, political, Economic, Religious, and Military factors.

On a political standpoint Rome was destined to fall because the separation of the East and West. Causes Under the rule of Diocletian and later Constantine the empire was split into Western and Eastern parts of Rome. The emperors said that the reason for that was to make it easier to govern. The emperor chose to govern and build the capital in the Eastern part and gave the Western part to a co-emperor. The reason for that might have been that the eastern part was much richer in resources and had better lands for farming. There may have been other reasons for that such as the Eastern part did not produce enough food for both parts of the empire and by separating them they'd have to produce their own food and depend upon themselves. This was the beginning, to a long struggle of the Western part that was now basically left alone. The Western Roman Empire lost its power over towns in the East, causing a great reduction in profits from the treasury and weakening them dramatically in warfare, now their strength had been decreased.

Many problems stood in the way when the Church wanted to also take part in political issues as well as religious. Many reforms came in to law to keep the empire together, such as toleration of Christianity to avoid their rebellion since there were a lot of them. The Church started taking part in government which slowly took power away from the emperor. This may have been one of the main reasons for the fall of Rome. "As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion we may hear without surprise or scandal, that the introduction or at least the abuse, of Christianity had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire."(Decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon, Edward .575) The Christian Church takes a great role in government, since the co-emperor could no longer control the empire with all the revolts against him. Soon Christianity became the official religion of the Romans.

More reforms like fixing prices and giving more freedom of worship kept the empire together but definitely would not last long. This is so because these reforms were made to fit people today taking away from the emperor but they never thought of what's going to happen after the emperor does not have anything left to give. Rome depended on its empire for funds (farming practices and mining). It became very poor and had trouble coping economically. Rome had nothing to trade, and couldn't rebuild itself. In any war, you need money to be victorious soon enough; other cities within the Empire stopped sending funds to Rome. There was no one to take matters into their hands so the empire