Political reasons are part of why the Western Roman Empire declined. The death of the emperor Marcus Aurelius was a huge set bad for romans. The empire faced problems only a strong leader could fix, but at this point they didn’t have one. Aurelius’s son ruled for twelve years, but he didn’t focus much on Rome’s problems. A total of about fifty different men claimed the title of emperor who all spent most of their time eliminating enemies and protcting themselves of assasination attempts. To conclude, they did not have much time to address the empire’s problems like attacks on the Roman frontiers.
Military issues also took part in the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The reason for this is that Roman emperors has been forced to station troops on the empire’s northern border to repel invading. When this happened is caused a panic and disrupted trade. Because of another threat, Rome leaders were forced to transfer legions that had been defending the nothern frontier.
There were fewer Roman troops to defend the nothern borders so emperors began paying German warriors not to fight and hiring them to defend the frontier. At this time emperors were still protecting themselves against rivals by hiring mercenaries. Eventually the empire relied on mercenaries or paid soilders from outside the empire. Since Rome’s army relied on paid soilders, the emperor Septimus Severus wanted to rewaed them. By doing that he increased their pay by a third depleting the treasury and creating economic hardship for tax paying romans causing the empire to fall.
The Essay on The Most Successful Early Roman Emperors
Throughout the Roman Republic's early years , three powerful emperors brought changes and improvements that gained them respect and helped propel Rome on its high paced race to greatness. These men ruled differently in the areas of public and foreign policy and social cooperation. But, which one was the most successful?Augustus Octavian took the throne after Caesar's murder. He had been adopted by ...
Another reason the Western Roman Empire fell was economic and social decline. Since Rome’s army cost so much money everyone was experiencing hard times. The fighting on the frontiers made trade and travel dangerous and expensive. Armies ruined farmer’s fields damaging agricultural production. To make problems bigger, smallpox and other diseased invaded everywhere killing several million people. Rome’s leaders began minting more coins declining money in value leading to servere inflaction. The number of taxpayers were increased by extending citizenship to all free people of the empire. Cizitenszship wasn’t as precious as it once was because people were paying outrageous taxes for a crumbling empire.
For the reasons discussed above, policial, military, and economics the Western Roman Empire took a huge decline falling to pieces. Emperors were lacking, war was raging, prices and taxes were rising, and hardships were increasing causing the Western Roman Empire to decline. Although it took the place of many years the Western Roman Empire did fall for several reasons.
