Fall of The Roman Empire

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Fall of The Roman Empire

The Eastern Empire

When Diocletian came into power, he decided to change up how the empire was ruled. He split up the empire into 2 parts.

The 2 parts of the Roman empire were the Eastern portion, ruled by Diocletian, and the western portion, ruled by Maximian.

Diocletian believed that the empire was too big to be ruled by one man.

The western portion of the empire soon fell behind the eastern portion because the west was not profitable due to the overbearing taxes.

The future of the empire would be the east because of less pressing Germanic tribes.

in 330, Constantine abandoned Rome and decided to make a "New Rome" which he called Constantinople.

Barbarians soon turned on the western portion due to pressure from the Huns and that was one of the final blows.

Foreign Invasions

The city of Rome was invaded by many different civilizations across a long period of time. This means that the city was not very strong and didn't have good defenses.

The Huns, one of the invaders, in particular were extremely savage according to a Roman historian and were very efficient with their pillages.

The battle of Adrianople, between a roman army and the Visigoths, was known as the beginning of the fall of Rome

Roman citizens

Many Romans did not enjoy living in Rome due to heavy taxation, men inflict injuries upon others, and wealthy men were not prosecuted for their crimes while the poor men were.

Some Romans were even happy when they were conquered by the Huns because life with them was significantly better than life in Rome.

Military problems

The troops began to find the customary armor very heavy and many did not want to wear it.

Since, the troops didn't want to wear the heavy armor, it got lighter over time. The troops eventually gave up breastplates and helmets all together and usually lost to archers.

Many troops preferred to run instead of fight because of the light armor. This made their numbers decrease and caused them to lose more battles.

Conscription of soldiers began to fail over time because enforcement was weak. Many groups of people began to not have to draft including, but not limited to, Senators, Bureaucrats, and Clergymen.

Many generals were elevated to power because of their abundant wealth and most generals only lasted a matter of months. They bribed the tribes on the frontier so that they didn't have to fight

Political problems

For the last 100 years before the fall, there were no good emperors and many were commanders of whichever army could seize power.

The people of Rome did not like their leaders and thirteen Emperors were assassinated from 235-285 CE.

Marcus Aurelius was the last of the good emperors and was emperor during the start of the decline.