Essay On The Fall Of West Rome

The Fall of West Rome Despite being one of the largest, most successful empires in the world, the Roman Empire faced a multitude of major issues for centuries, a majority of which ultimately led to its downfall. An early solution to these problems was to divide the empire into the east and west. While it allowed East Rome to avoid some of these issues, West Rome continued to struggle and this division eventually contributed to its collapse. One of the main issues stemmed from the fact that Rome was built on imperialism, which meant they had to continuously expand to sustain itself, leading to several problems with overextension, wars, and a lack of resources. This contributed to a struggling economy that established a cycle of debt. Furthermore,

Due to the constant expansion in relation to the military and slaves, the empire began a trend of uncontrolled spending that was necessary to survive the empire, regardless of the consequences. Therefore, Rome established a cycle of debt that started with military spending, which made up almost 80% of the empire’s total budget, then they would invest in the new lands they gained, especially through public works, which would drive Rome to near bankruptcy (Schiedel & Friesen, 2009). This encouraged them to enter a new war to gain more gold, slaves, and land to build up their funds, then begin the cycle again through military funding to continue conquering other

This led to a massive migration of tribespeople that Rome was forced to integrate, as they would be killed if they attempted to stop them (Mathisen, 2013). However, they were unable to support a growing population, leading to further unrest and disagreements within the populus. Regardless, many barbarians were very Roman in nature and shared similar ideals, spoke Latin, made art and music, and bathed (Mathisen, 2013). Therefore, they were able to integrate well culturally, and the problem lay in the fact that Rome was unable to support such a massive surge in population financially.

While the Roman Empire was able to hold the Huns from attacking through making payments, this did not last long. Following the death of Rugila, the Huns became increasingly aggressive, and the areas they invaded were annihilated (Hunt et al., 2019). This destruction of infrastructure, as well as the loss of land and resources, greatly weakened Rome. Therefore, other Germanic tribes were able to attack, ultimately leading to the fall of West Rome in 476 AD.