Essay On The Rise And Fall Of The Roman Empire

The legendary Roman Empire lasted from 753 B.C.E. all the way until 1453 A.D. However Rome split in two at about 395 A.D. which crippled the ancient Rome we know. So really ancient Rome lived from 753 B.C.E. to 476 A.D. But the name of Rome continued on in the Byzantine empire for about another 1000 years. Yet many people nowadays still refer to Rome as one of the greatest ancient civilizations of all time. They thought this because Rome was leaps and bounds ahead of others in military, political, economic,architectural, and technological aspects. But Rome was far from perfect, because of its split in 395 A.D. ancient Rome began falling apart. The things that made it great became its downfall. But there were many important factors that made Rome fall, but the most prominent were military, economic, and religious factors.

People all over Europe feared the Roman Legion. But as time went on the mighty Roman Legion began to lose its name. Many things caused this, but the main one was Christianity. This made Romans non-violent and they didn 't want to join the military. So Rome had 2 options, either have a small military or an army full of mercenaries. A mercenary is a paid soldier. So Rome paid thousands of German soldiers to fight for them. Obviously this made Rome 's military weak because they would easily run from battle or betray Rome because they had nothing to protect in Rome. Another reason the Roman empire fell to shambles was because the Roman military stopped going on military conquests. When they did this the Roman economy collapsed because the economy relied on the constant income of plundered trophies from captured civilizations. So because of the Roman soldier being replaced by German mercenaries and the stoppage of expansion the Roman military lost its power. When the invasions of the western tribes came and destroyed Rome, there was nothing they could