Roman Empire Decline

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

The “Fall of Rome,” by coauthors Jake Patterson and Kyle Woodman outlines the factors that led to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.

There is a saying, “All good things must end.” The glory of Rome and the strong Roman Empire eventually fell due to a variety of reasons. All roads led to Rome for over 1,200 years. Rome started as a monarchy, became a republic, and ended up being the biggest empire the world had ever known. The “fall” of Rome cannot be pinpointed to a single day or event in history. Historians have long argued how and when Rome fell. Some say it continued on as the Byzantine Empire, while others place its final doom in the year 476 A.D. Rome’s decline and fall was a slow and

Following the split, the two sides failed to work together effectively and gradually would become their own entities. The Eastern Empire would eventually be known as the Byzantine Empire and found success under the leadership of Constantine, the first Christian emperor, for over a thousand years. The capital of the the Eastern Empire was Constantinople, while the capital of the Western Empire was Rome, which is why many equate the fall of the Western Empire with the fall of Rome. Due to this fact, historians usually agree that the fall of Rome is referring to the end of what had become the Western

An entity that the mighty Rome had once rested its laurels on, the legions, had now become weak and overstretched. Emperors faced the difficult challenge of defending the expansive borders of the empire, while at the same time dealing with a drop in citizen enrollment. In order to continue to defend the empire, emperors were forced to hire outside mercenaries to help swell the ranks of the legions. At this time, many of the mercenaries were from Germanic Tribes who had recently migrated to the borders of the Roman empire after being forced from their homelands by the powerful Huns. While the barbarians, as the Romans called them, proved to be helpful in battle, they had little loyalty towards Rome and would often turn against their Roman officers. The weakening of legions and Rome’s reliance on outside mercenaries would ultimately be the final straw in the crumbling of the once great Roman Empire. The last breath of the Roman Empire was taken on 476 A.D. as another Germanic Tribe, the Goths, sacked Rome for the second time in less than 100