The Roman Empire's Influence On Modern Society

The Roman Empire is widely known for its many accomplishments and has left a huge impact on modern society. Rome influenced modern medicine, language, and the Twelve Tables was used as a resource for the Bill of Rights. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. The Roman Empire began to fall after Marcus Aurelius, the last emperor of the Pax Romana, died in 180 A.D. There are a large amount of different factors that led to the fall of the great Roman Empire, but the most crucial of them were the economic, social, and the military factors. The most significant of all of the different factors are the great amount of economic problems that the Roman Empire began to experience. The high taxation of the Roman citizens was the first of the empire’s economic problems. The people could not afford the high taxes because of the unemployment rate of Rome.

This created a vicious cycle of the government raising taxes, the people not being able pay and becoming criminals, and the government raising taxes in order to make up for the stolen money. The next of Rome’s economic issues that helped spark the fall of Rome were the barbarian invasions. The different barbarian groups were the Angles Saxons, the Franks, the Goths, the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, the Vandals, and the Huns. These many groups invaded the Roman Empire from about 100 B.C.E to 500 B.C.E. Obviously, this was bad for Rome and caused many problems. Some of these problems were money loss and the general damage done to the Empire physically. Also, the huns stayed in control for about three years before returning to their homeland after their leader ,Attila the Hun, died in 453 B.C.E. The final factor that encouraged the fall of Rome was the size of the Empire. Rome had expanded so much over the time of its rise and the time of the Pax Romana that it became a problem. The