The Fall of the Roman Empire essays

The Fall of the Roman Empire essays The Roman Empire was strong. It was founded on the strengths of its military, its strategic geographic location, strong moral values and wise leadership. It flourished because of its social, economic, political, military and religious strengths. However, when the things that make a civilization flourish begin to erode the civilization itself begins its decent. The first main reason for the fall was the civilizations economic decay. The rulers of Rome had very expensive lifestyles, and were a very proud people. To keep to their image, they needed money. The way they gained their money was through taxing the poor. In response to this act, the poor fled to other lands, which were barbaric. Since the poor made up most of the Roman population, this became a large problem. The barbarians were disrupting trade on the Mediterranean Sea. Rome's gold and silver were being drained into buying luxuries that were imported from China, India, and Arabia. As the government decreased the silver content in money, the value of the money also decreased. Diocletion attempted to curb the inflation. He issued an edict that fixed maximum prices and wages throughout the Empire. His idea failed though, because it was unrealistic and unenforceable. The emperors still felt the tax issue needed to be addressed, so they decided to make the hereditary class of tax col lectors pay the difference. In other words, if a poor person could not pay their full share, the tax collector paid the rest. This concept wiped out a whole class of moderately wealthy people. Later, slavery split communities. Rome believed the workers of society should not benefit from slavery. Slaves then had to reason to try hard or improve. Eastern slaves started doing technical work, which resulted in all technical work being looked down on. Labor was cheap and worthless. Upper-class Romans were content with what they had become. They felt no need to improve their inventions; they were conte ...