Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

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Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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• Objectives
• Know the various causes for the decline and fall
  of the Roman Empire.
• The economic reasons
• The social reasons
• The political reasons
• The military reasons

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• The Roman empire hits its high water mark in AD
  180 with the death of Emperor Marcus Aurelius
• Its all downhill from there.

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• Economic reasons
• The Roman economy was partially based on constant
  expansion.
• This brought new land, new money, new treasure,
  new slaves, and new taxes.
• Once the empire stopped expanding, that influx of
  goods stopped, and Rome simply wasnt used to
  such stasis. It was a shark it had to keep
  moving to survive.

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• Without the influx of goods and money from
  expansion, rampant inflation started setting in
  as the currency started to be worth less.
• The value of coinage was based on how much gold
  or silver was in the coin.
• Without the conquering, less gold was coming into
  the empire, but there was still a lot leaving the
  empire as it was being spent of foreign goods.
• With less gold and silver to go around, less was
  put into the coins. Nice, but that meant the
  coins were worth less to those who used them.
  Merchants accordingly raised their prices to get
  paid the same value in gold as before.

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• Grain production also decreased due to
  overfarming.
• This meant feeding people became more difficult.

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• Not keeping up with the times.
• The Romans were marvelous engineers, but they
  relied too much on human and animal labor instead
  of building machines.
• Since they werent conquering new people, they
  also werent adapting as much new and different
  technology (poor Borg).
• They especially relied too much on slave labor
  which meant a lot of unemployed folks that
  strained the economy.

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• Social reasons
• The aforementioned unemployment.
• Being a public servant had become costly and so
  most qualified, competent people just didnt want
  to do it.
• Morals and work ethic
• Many Romans had become accustomed to the easy
  life of bread and circuses.
• Its said that when the Vandals sacked Carthage,
  most of the inhabitants were watching the chariot
  races.
• These were also done at state expense, which
  drained the public treasury.

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• The rise of Christianity
• Many Romans blamed Christians for Romes problems
  because they werent honoring the Roman deities.
• Maybe not that, but the ideology may have played
  a role. The Romans succeeded through aggressive
  ruthlessness and a concentration on secular,
  worldly matters.
• Christianity, especially early on, was pacifist
  and absorbed with the hereafter. As the religion
  spread, it weakened Roman resolve.
• Feedback loop
• People saw bad things happening to the empire,
  which lowers their morale, which enables more bad
  things to happen to the empire.

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• Political reasons
• The problem with political office being
  undesirable.
• Imperial Succession
• One big problem with the Roman imperial system is
  that there was never an established method of
  passing the crown to another upon the emperors
  death.
• This meant that it was up for grabs.
• The best case scenario is that one person is most
  powerful or can quickly take control.
• The worst case scenario is that there are many
  powerful people and they fight in a civil war.
• Since most legions were stationed on the borders,
  they were distanced from Rome and loyal to their
  generals.

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• Thus, the generals would take their armies and
  war amongst each other for the throne.
• Most wound up dead during the fighting or were
  assassinated or overthrown soon after taking
  power.
• Sometimes, the crown went to whoever bribed the
  right people.

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• The split
• The empire is eventually and officially divided
  into two halves the western and eastern Roman
  empires.

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• Military reasons
• This is a big cause.
• Long borders
• As the empire expanded, so did its borders.
• Maintaining those borders against enemies became
  a massive and expensive endeavor.
• Military spending took a significant chunk of the
  treasury and took money away from many public
  projects.
• Mercenaries
• Rome also began hiring mercenaries. These guys
  worked for cash, not loyalty, and could be highly
  unreliable. They also cost more exacerbating the
  above problem.

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• Invasion
• Barbarians started invading the empire and the
  legions couldnt stop them.
• Some just wanted the good Roman life or merely
  land on which to settle.
• Others were pushed into Roman territory because
  the Huns were pushing them west.
• It didnt help that some legions were pulled from
  the borders into Italy to fight in civil wars or
  that some barbarian forces were led by men who
  had fought in the Roman army and so knew the
  Roman tactics and strategies (both how to use
  them and how to fight against them). That and
  the Germanic tribes were never tamed or
  conquered. Oops.

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• The barbarians proceed to run rampant over Roman
  territory.
• In 410, Rome itself is sacked by the Visigoths.
• By 444, the Huns themselves, under the leadership
  of Attila (the wrath of God) run at will over
  the empire and threaten to destroy Rome itself.
• The pope, Leo I, negotiates with Attila and he
  withdraws his forces.
• Really, Attila likely withdrew because of food
  and manpower issues and because winter was
  approaching. And Leo I bribed him to leave.
  Leo, though, plays it up as divine intervention
  and uses it to strengthen the power of the early
  church.