How Did Corrupt Leaders Lead To The Fall Of The Roman Empire

After hundreds of years of peace during the Pax Romana, the Rome was facing many social, political, and economic problems that threatened the Roman Empire’s stability. In my opinion, corrupt emperors and leaders ultimately led to the downfall of the Roman Empire. Corrupt leaders caused many issues within Rome that led to its destruction. Bad leaders made the Roman citizens and other Roman politicians distrust their leader, which caused civil war and rebellion. Also, corrupt leaders made poor and careless decisions to lead the empire. This caused an economic crisis in Rome. Lastly, corrupt leaders fail to find good successors to rule after them, which leaves the empire in disrepair after each emperor. Corrupt leaders caused the fall of the Roman

Corrupt leaders often put their own interests above the citizens interests and many of them would spend numerous amounts of money on personal luxuries while Roman citizens faced possible slavery for not paying taxes. During the Roman Republic, a few hundred years before, the lower class could participate in government and had many rights. However, towards the end of the Roman Empire, corrupt leaders had increased the disparity between the rich and poor by making laws that benefitted the wealthy. This caused many Roman citizens to hate their government, which ultimately weakened the nation. Also, another reason public distrust of leaders contributed to the fall of Rome was that people become violent when they have a corrupt ruler. Rome had, had a long history of emperor assassinations, including the murder of Julius Caesar, Caligula, and Domitian. The common assassinations led to many short-lived emperors who could not effectively rule the empire in the short time that they were ruler, contributing to the fall of Rome. Lastly, distrust from Roman citizens hurts the empire because corrupt and unfit rulers create programs that benefit Romans for a short period of time. Although these programs, like grain handouts and excessive government-funded entertainment, benefitted the Romans temporally, they drained the treasury of Rome and led to its downfall.

As mentioned previously, many emperors and Senators passed legislation that benefitted the wealthy over the poor. Emperor Diocletian, who was considered by some to be a good emperor, passed laws that forced citizens to have the same occupation that their fathers did. This meant that everyone was preassigned to a social class, which increased wage disparity. While the Roman wealthy and poor were becoming increasingly isolated, barbarians and enemies of Rome were starting skirmishes on the outskirts of the Roman Empire. To defend Rome, emperors had to send excessive amounts of money on the Roman military. Spending so much money on the military drained the wealth of Rome. For this reason, rulers of Rome made another horrible decision; to pay for the military, taxes were raised for the lower class. Regular citizens were often taxed so heavily that they were forced to be slaves because they could not pay their taxes. With the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, Rome became destined to