Introduction
The Roman Empire is a post-republican phase in the development of the ancient Roman statehood, a characteristic feature of an autocratic form of government and large territorial possessions in Europe and the Mediterranean. The chronological framework of the existence of the Roman Empire covers the period from the reign of the first emperor Octavian Augustus to the division of the empire into Western and Eastern from 27 BC. e. to 476. The eastern part of the Roman Empire, centered in Constantinople, existed for another 977 years – until the fall in 1453 (Gibbon and Milman 9). There is no single factor responsible for the fall of Rome, but similar to empires before and after, falling was an inevitable reality.
Reasons
First of all, external factors influenced the fall of the empire. The invasion of the Gothic and Germanic tribes in 410 and 476, respectively, led to ruin and turmoil among the people. However, it was not only the influence of the aggressors that led to the empire’s collapse. Historians count about 210 reasons for the fall of Rome. Most of them date back to the third century BC, when the Romans’ politics, economics, and culture changed radically.
The patriotic idea came into question at a time when persons of other nationalities appeared in power. Emperors changed too often, and many of them lacked foresight and authority. The absence of a politically strong leader in the entire empire and the local provinces generated a resonance among various estates. Competition between large slave owners – patricians and plebs – led to civil wars. As a result, the government was shaky; it could not control the entire population (Gibbon and Milman 77). In addition, a significant proportion of the population was made up of barbarian tribes, in which culture and ideology were not developed. Subsequent invasions showed the failure of the Romans as the dominant people.
The Roman Empire developed extensive slavery, which meant conquering new lands as the primary source of the influx of new slaves. Compared to patriarchal slavery, which implies the growth of the number of slaves through their birth, the extensive version had only one drawback. It lies in the fact that having reached the natural boundaries of conquest, new inflows of slaves stopped, and an economic recession began. In addition, the Roman army was known for poor maintenance and heavy exploitation (Gibbon and Milman 82). The ranks of the armed forces were not replenished with the necessary number of soldiers due to the demographic crisis and the reluctance of the owners to give up slaves and lose cheap labor.
Another set of reasons is religious and ethnic. The pagan religion of Rome began to disintegrate as early as the 1st century BC, when philosophy began to penetrate the Roman environment that conquered other peoples, calling into question polytheism. The spread of Christianity, which became a universal religion, including for slaves, was first subjected to persecution. Subsequently, this religion was legalized along with paganism. This split led to a fall in morale and a crisis of spirituality (Gibbon and Milman 302). The weight of the authorities is falling. Corruption is increasing, the middle classes are ruined, which leads to riots. As a result, literature, art, and culture, in general, are in decline.
Conclusion
Thus, the collapse of the Roman Empire was due to a whole complex of reasons. The discord of the population and the authorities’ failure, contradictions within the state led to the inability to resist threats from outside. The absence of a visionary and authoritative leader has become the reason for the ideological and religious splitting of the whole. Finally, the subsequent decline of economic life led to the complete defenselessness of the Empire against the “great migration of peoples” in the IV-V centuries and the further conquest of Rome.
Work Cited
Gibbon, Edward, and Henry Hart Milman. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. 2. Modern library, 2003.