In Edward Gibbons, DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE he argues that the reason for Rome’s fall is because of Germanic invasions, a decline in public morality, and the rise of Christianity. With all of the above statements I would agree that Edward Gibbons is correct. They all help in the fall of the Roman empire. Where I think he did go wrong was in neglecting to state the other numerous reasons that help contribute to its fall. Three of these other factors that I think are also very important are; the lack of further expansion, the low level of technological advances, and the natural reaction of the rulers to hole up in their country estates with all their slaves at the first sign of weakening markets. The first of these reasons does not begin at Rome’s collapse but at its starting point. From the begenning Rome had always grown in both wealth and size. It was with this constant expansion that Rome’s economy continued to flourished.
With steadily expanding borders they collected more and more markets, and in so doing, gained access to many new goods and resources. One of these aquired resources that played a huge role in Empire is slavery. When Rome quit going to war it lost it’s ability to gain POWs, or slaves. With this sudden lack of supply for new slaves, the cogs of Roman society began to falter and go unreplaced. The same thing that happened to the slavery industry was repeated with many of the other industries of Rome at approximately the same time. This general collapse in Rome’s overall economy was a result of the empire consuming at a rate far greater than allowed.
The Essay on Fall Of Roman Empire
An essay on the effect of acqueducts in ancient Rome A basic fact of life: humans need water to survive. Therefore, it is not surprising that water has played an important role in history. All of the ancient civilizations, including Rome, had to deal with the problem of a steady water supply. Romes solutions had both positive and negative results. At first glance, one would think that Roae would ...
A reason that lead to Rome’s inability to remain self-sustaining as an Empire was it’s lack of technology. Technological advance did not increase at a rate proportional to the increase of the people per square mile. This lead to the inability of the Romans to become self-sustaining. Once again the slave trade was a reason that their technology levels failed to increase. The bulk of work done in the Roman Empire was always carried out by the slaves. This provided very little need or incentive for new discoveries. By neglecting the important technological advance, there was no increase in the effeciency of running Rome. Therefore, it was left behind from the start.
What then started as a nick, grew to a life threatening wound. In conclusion, with all of these stumbling blocks stacking up, the Roman juggernaut began to falter. The epitome of this problem rests in the Roman economy, which was now staggering drastically. As the Roman rulers of the time noticed this problem they slowly but increasingly moved back to their country estates. By doing so, they left the offices of business in the city which out of this neglect began to disappear. This trend, although very strong in the west was comparably weak in the east, where the cities were older and more schooled and prepared to deal with economic recession.
The final action of the Roman rulers to retreat to the country, resulted not only in the empires economy being weak, but moreover a general failure to function. It was the combanation of these above reasons and the ones listed by Edward Gibbons, that triggered the roman empires decline and fall. But we can never be absolutely sure reasons. It could have been something like the lead pipes used in their aqueducts or even an evolution of human society to the next level.
