The Suicide of a Mighty, Invincible Nation

I. The Suicide of a Mighty, Invincible Nation

"Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions" (Murphy, 3)? This quote by Camille Paglia, a famous American author and teacher, is one of which summarizes the situation in the late Roman era starting from the third century, one of which ultimately lead to the once great nation of Rome succumbing to separation and disarray. Starting from 146 BC, Rome was unarguably the most powerful governing body to rule the Mediterranean and possibly, even the greatest. Rome, a prevailing entity, declined drastically. There was not a single cause to the fall of Rome; it was the cause of many issues occurring in succession to each other.

Rome was powerful for its well organized and ruthless military force- as could be seen in the Punic Wars against Carthage. "This large warfare, divided into three wars, enabled Rome to take dominance over the Western Mediterranean and allowed Rome to progressively conquer more and more neighbouring states" (Morey). During the Pax Romana from 27 BC to 180 AD, a period of stability and peace across the nation established by Julius Caesar, merchants were able to travel across the empire in relative peace; moving agricultural goods produced in the provinces to the cities, and manufactured goods produced by the great cities of the East to the more rural provinces. Large estates produced cash crops for export, and used the resulting revenues to import food and urban manufactured goods. This resulted in a great deal of economic interdependence between the empire's inhabitants (Goldsworthy, 28).

The Punic Wars from 264-146 BC against Carthage enabled Rome to gain many new territories stretching from Anatolia in the east and Spain to the west. During this period, Rome was in a constant war both internally and externally and therefore made it difficult to take control of such massive territory. Because of this, the government had to pay soldiers to protect the borders of the empire but could not rely on simple loot to pay for the soldier's therefore withdrawing considerably high amount of money from the Roman treasury (Gibbon, 53). Many emperors wanted to instead, save the money, overall weakening the nation's military force. The military force was successively also weakened by internal decay in the military, as it consisted of mostly Germanic mercenaries as Romans were starting to refuse to work after Constantine made Christianity the official religion and citizens were starting to neglect violence and warfare- even for the benefit of their own country (Gibbon, 54). This would hurt the nation's military and overall social apathy as citizens were not willing to fight for their own country.

The economy of Rome was also starting to stagnate. Often Rome was importing good from its colonies but exported hardly as much which created an imbalance in trade. Soon, the colonies were creating finished products without the reliance of Roman assistance (Goldsworthy, 45). This imbalance began at the first three centuries AD of the Roman Era, which culminated into what is now known as the "Crisis of the Third Century", because Rome was left with such a profound, enormous deprivation that had took them by surprise- and this was all because of the mentality of the Roman rulers at that time. Emperor Septimus Severus, who ruled from 145 to 211, when he was in his death bed, said a profound quote to his heirs- Caracalla and Geta. He said, "Live in harmony; enrich the troops; ignore everyone else" (Goldsworthy, 46). The first part did not adhere to Caracalla however- as he intended to assassinate his brother. He took the advice on enriching the troops so greatly that his own mother attempted to calm him down and told him to spend less on military expenditures and the rigorous taxes. He responded by stating that with the sword, Rome will never run out of money. In fact, he increased the pay of the soldiers of the military by 50% and achieved this by doubling the inheritance taxes paid by Roman citizens. When this was not enough- he united citizens of all conquered territories to be Roman citizens- also requesting them to pay taxes. What had formerly been a privilege to vote, to own property, had now been reduced as a way to expand the tax revenue. Caracalla also debased the value of silver and gold currency because colonies refused to import goods from Rome. This rose to a mass crisis, in which after a period of civil war and invasions, emperors absolutely abandoned a silver coinage- only worth 1/1000 of what it used to. At this point, prices in most parts of the empire rose to a peak of 1000%- as merchants sold prices higher because of the currency alteration and created inflation- creating a problem that plagued Rome until its decline (Peden).

"Prices rose, perhaps suddenly. Farmers, both large and small-scale, may have been insulated against the consequences of this, since they still had produce to sell or trade. Those who like to see barter as a major part of the rural economy tend to claim that large areas of the empire were unaffected by changes to the currency. Similarly, people involved in manufacture had products to sell, assuming that they, like the farmers, still found a market. Change probably occurred slowly, as the increased number of coins would have only started to circulate gradually, and perhaps people had time to adapt. Yet it was not the only factor. Wars were costly, perhaps especially civil wars, which involved the movements of armies through normally peaceful areas at a time when military discipline tended to slacken. Many suffered; a few probably profited. The population may have been declining - certainly, there must have been substantial local drops in numbers as a result of outbreaks of plague, even if over the long term there was little overall change" (Goldsworthy 141).

The problem of ruling succession also damaged Rome because an organized system of succession was never implemented. After an emperor's death, generals competed with each other for power. This was unlike those of the early Chinese era, which kept an organized ruling system as they had the belief of the 'Mandate of Heaven'. In Rome, whenever someone gained power, they would often be swiftly assassinated. This deteriorated the authority of Rome; corruption was common and the law was non-existent. This can be seen in the political corruption of the Praetorian Guards during the first century AD of the Roman era. With the right amount of money, or even will, the Praetorian Guards would assassinate emperors, bullied their own prefects, and harassed the people of Rome (War...). In 41 AD, the guards assassinated Caligula, the current emperor of that time, and forcefully placed Claudius on the