The Fall of Roman Empire: 8 Reasons Why?
Not even the glorious Roman Empire stood the test of time, and there were reasons for the crash of this giant empire.
The remarkable historian of medieval times, Ibn-e-Khaldun, lived in a time of great political and social upheavals. The Black Death roamed around the Mediterranean, the Mongols were on the killing spree, and he witnessed the rise and decline of various great empires. He wrote a book Called Muqaddimah about the history of empires and postulated his theory of the rise and fall of empires.
In his Muqaddimah, he compares an empire’s life span to the duration of human life. He believes that the rise and fall of dynasties, states, civilizations, nations, and empires is a usual process and involves a cycle of placing and replacing.
It is similar to humans as they are born, grow, die, and replace others. States, dynasties, and empires get established, flourish, and face decay; no matter how powerful and great they are, others are replaced.
Considering the idea of Ibn-e-Khaldun’s rise and fall, the Roman Empire was no different and had reasons that caused its ultimate downfall and brought it to its crumbling crash.
Here are the eight reasons for the Fall of the Roman Empire:
1# The Division of Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was so vast and governed so varied races and cultures that it was difficult to handle.
For the reason of administrative difficulties, Emperor Diocletian split his vast empire into two halves — one on the Eastern side ruled from Byzantium and the other on the Western side controlled from the city of Milan. The Eastern capital later grew to be known as Constantinople.
Although the division was helpful for a brief span and made it easy to govern the vast territory of the ancient Roman Empire, in the longer term, it was the first reason that paves the way for the disintegration of the empire. Over time, the halves couldn’t hold together, and differences over resources and military aid grew to an unreconcilable point. This made them vulnerable to outside threats and invasions.
The differences also caused them to drift apart and caused the Western Empire, largely dominated by Latin-Speakers, to descend into the chaos of political and economic crises. In contrast, the Eastern side, dominated by Greek-speakers, grew to be a powerful empire.
This imbalance in wealth and military strength served a cause that Barbarians shifted their focus of invasions to the Western side, which was weak and couldn’t defend itself adequately. The inherent weaknesses in the political and economic arena ultimately led to the disintegration of the Western Empire in the Fifth Century.
On the Eastern front, Emperor Constantine fortified Constantinople, which was the center of the empire. The fortification and the prevalence of wealth breathed a more powerful life in Constantinople that stood for another thousand years. Finally, they succumbed to the invasions of the Ottoman emperor Sultan Mehmed II in 1453.
2# Barbarian Invasions
The mid-first millennia saw a rise in the invasions of the Germanic Tribes like Goths, Jutes, and Anglo-Saxons.
The Anglo-Saxon tribes invaded England and neighboring areas while the Goths successively raided the Empire’s borders by the 300s. However, the Romans fought them successfully for a century but couldn’t do it for longer.
The Visigoth King Alaric finally sacked the City of Rome in 410 but was not successful in taking full control. It was by the hands of Vandals who pillaged the Eternal City in 455 again and were quite successful in taking control.
Later on, Odoacer, the Germanic War leader, led an uprising against the last Roman Emperor Romulus Augustulus in 476 and deposed him. This revolt ultimately served as a death blow to the Western Empire of Romans.
3# Economic Shambles and Slave Labour
The Roman Empire conquered vast lands and brought riches and an influx of slaves to serve as labor.
But by the Second Century, the expansions almost came to a halt, and the riches in the form of wealth and slaves dwindled fast. The invasion by outside forces in the 3rd Century further caused a decline.
However, the reasons such as the financial crisis and huge spending on wars with these Barbarians diminished the empire's influence. To support the wars, the empire resorted to oppressive taxation that alienated the lower classes by causing inflation, and thus the gap between the rich and the poor widened.
The rich fled to the countryside to avoid taxation, taking their labor with them that caused a labor shortage; since the labor was involved in the fields and worked as craft workers to support the merchandise and agriculture market.
The Barbarians gave yet another death blow to their slave trade of North Africa by patrolling the Mediterranean as pirates. Due to this, the Romans lost their grip on the slave trade, which was responsible for producing merchandise and agriculture, and ultimately lost its sway over Europe and fell to ashes.
4# Moral Corruption and Political instability
The administrative problems of vast territories coupled with incompetent, morally corrupt, inconsistent, and ineffective leaders heightened the Empire's downfall.
To be Emperor in the tumultuous mid-centuries was a tough job. It was akin to inviting death to oneself from within as well as outside. The empire saw a rise of civil war between powerful persons and dethroning and assassination was the hallmark of the century.
During the 3rd century AD, 20 men took the throne by assassinating or dethroning each other within 75 years. Apart from that, the worst conspirators were the personal guards of the emperor known as the Praetorian Guard, who dethroned or assassinated the sitting emperors for other powerful contenders.
The evil of corruption and conspiracies were also prevalent in the Roman Senate, backed by the emperor to support his extravagancies further polluted the political atmosphere of the Empire. This further deteriorated the national image and hurt the civic pride of the Romans, and they openly expressed disdain for their leadership.
5# The Burden of Affording Over-expanded Military
In its prime time, the Roman Empire seized and controlled an enormous and unparalleled area in history, ranging from the Euphrates River in the Middle East to the Atlantic Ocean; it has created the worst administrative problems for the emperor could not manage. Despite good roads and other infrastructure systems, they couldn’t communicate and controlled the area effectively.
Thus many subjects in the far-flung areas often resorted to revolts and uprising and potentially threatened the entire empire. To quell the uprising from within and guard the frontier against outside threats, the empire has to enlarge the military potentially. Even Emperor Hadrian built a wall in Britain in the Second Century to secure his Empire.
However, despite all the measures taken by successive emperors, the problems couldn’t be handled properly, and the burden of affording a huge army cost the standing of the empire itself. The taxation alienated the citizens, and the fund hurled to support standing armies sapped the resources that brought a slow halt to technological advancement. The resulted in the stagnation of the whole machinery of the empire and crumbled upon itself.
6# The Rise of Christianity
Romans were polytheistic before the rise of Christianity. The introduction of Christianity in the early 3rd century has disrupted its centuries-old value system and reshaped its thoughts about the governance of the empire, social and religious values, and divinity.
By 380 AD, Christianity became the state religion, and the churches held a strong sway in the political arena of the empire. The entrance of the pope into the state's political affairs further complicated the governance pattern and contributed to the fall of the empire.
Edward Gibbon, a famous 18th-Century historian, was famous for this postulation; however, his theory has been criticized by successive historians who state that economic and administrative problems were more obvious reasons for the empire's fall.
7# The Rampage of the Huns
In the 14th Century, the Eurasian Warriors, called Huns, rampaged through northern Europe and forced the Germanic Barbarian tribes to leave their places.
These Germanic Tribes marched toward the borders of the Roman Empire, where they were treated by Romans very harshly and in degrading manners. The Romans forced them to give their children into slavery for mere survival.
The inhuman treatment compelled the Goths to rise against the Roman empire and take revenge for their oppression and degradation. In 378 AD, the Barbarians killed the Eastern Emperor Valens during the Battle of Adrianople and crushed much of the Roman army.
The revolt forced the Romans to negotiate the peace accord with the Germanic Tribes but couldn’t last long. In 410, the Barbaric king, Alaric, sacked the city of Rome, and other tribes such as Anglo-Saxons and Vandals occupied Spain, Britain, and North Africa by ending the Roman influence.
8# The Change in the Roman Army
The once-feared and admired army of the ancient Roman Empire was also losing its ground and was diminished in its scope.
The Roman Legions were powerful, strong, loyal, and committed to the empire when they were recruited purely from the Roman citizens. But, when the demands from more recruits were unable to meet the original citizens, the Emperors like Constantine and Diocletian began recruiting soldiers from other races and tribes such as Goths and Eurasians. They also used mercenaries to further their cause of enlarging their armies.
Soon, the Barbarians occupied the army ranks, and their influence increased to a level that even soldiers were called Barbarus, a Latin word for soldiers. These barbarous mercenaries were fierce and skilled warriors, had no loyalty to the king of the empire. They even fought against their employers and, in fact, played a key role in sacking the city of Rome to topple the Western Empire.
These Barbarian soldiers worked a great deal to end the once mighty and glorious Roman Empire.
The rise and fall of the empires is a natural cycle to follow, as postulated by Ibn-e-Khaldun; the once might Roman Empire was in no way different from others. It, too, has weaknesses together that caused its downfall. The Fall of the Roman Empire was an act but a process. Once it has completed its natural cycle of growth, which in many ways was a grandeur one, it has fall head down.
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