The Fall of the Western Roman Empire: 7-1 by Antonio Baxter

abaxter58 — 2025-02-02 19:15:58 UTC

The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 AD, marking the end of classical antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Various factors contributed to the collapse including economic troubles, military defeats, political chaos, social upheaval, and external invasions. As a review, discuss with your table partner and answer how each factor played a role in this monumental historical event.

Emperors

2025-02-03 19:33:04 UTC

Line of Emperors starting with Julius Caesar, later in everyone wants to be emperor and has their reasons, soon brought to relative stability with Diocletian, Constantine fights a bunch of eligible emperors, turned back into one empire and capital moved to more powerful east, at the same time there's the "Vandalism" of the west and it falls later on.

Emperors-me and george

2025-02-03 19:34:14 UTC

The emperors were constantly being overthrown, so the rule over Rome was constantly unstable, resulting in chaos.

Thea, Theo, and Victor

2025-02-03 19:34:26 UTC

Rome fell because there were too many groups exempt from being drafted and the soldiers were lazy and didn't want to wear all of their armor and died.

Adam and Lev

2025-02-03 19:34:39 UTC

In the crisis of the 3rd century many emperors died via assassination and other factors. This caused many changes of power which meant constant change within the empire and people don't like change which caused more political problems.

money-me and george

2025-02-03 19:36:23 UTC

The economy crashed, because the inflation skyrocketed

Unbalance of money

2025-02-03 19:36:40 UTC

There was a severe unbalance of money in the Roman Empire. There was the rich side of the Roman Empire: the east which included the capital Constantinople and was an overall richer part of the area. On the other side was the west which was not as rich and was not doing as well as the east.

The Emperors--A+N

2025-02-03 19:36:48 UTC

Firstly, emperors were constantly overthrown, leading into a inconsistent leadership. Secondly, when Diocletian split the empire in two, It led into a second inconsistent leadership since the empire split into two different "regions".

political stuff - Eliana Luca

2025-02-03 19:37:28 UTC

there were a set of emperors which were being overthrown, lot of civil wars and battles which the roman empire couldn't keep up with which eventually led them to fall.

Ethan, Daniel

2025-02-03 19:37:31 UTC

The emperors of Rome where always being assasinated and later there would be a spilt of emporers which would cause trouble between the ideas and agreements between the rulers.

Adam and Lev

2025-02-03 19:37:56 UTC

Close to the fall of the Roman empire, Germanic tribes were invading constantly which weakened the empire.

Thea, Theo, and Victor

2025-02-03 19:38:04 UTC

All of the emperors were dying in battle or being assassinated so the rules were always changing.

The Roman Empire

2025-02-03 19:38:17 UTC

The Roman empire was struggling with instability in emperors having 50 in 20 years. Which led to change of policies and different ruling styles with lack of one main belief. Even though Constantine centralized religion using christianity, the empire was still divided because of different beliefs and wealth status.

Weak Soldiers

2025-02-03 19:39:27 UTC

The army in the Roman Empire was much weaker than earlier times in the empire. This is because there was less people being drafted into the military and even the people who were in the army did not want to wear there armor

Thea, Theo, and Victor

2025-02-03 19:40:21 UTC

Rome fell because of high taxes. This made people poor and let them starve

Money, Money, Money

2025-02-03 19:40:37 UTC

The money was unsteady because of the split empire. There was one side which was heavily richer than the other, leading into a abomination.🤯

money stuff

2025-02-03 19:40:43 UTC

the value of items were always changing and inflation and taxes were rising very high which caused the west to be very poor and unstable.

Economic problems

2025-02-03 19:40:53 UTC

The plebeians were revolting back to the patricians. The plebs believed that the patricians were taking advantage of them, and treating them unfairly because of wealth status.

Thea, Theo, and Victor

2025-02-03 19:41:30 UTC

Wealthy people weren't being punished for their crimes and poor people were getting angry.

Ethan, Daniel

2025-02-03 19:41:35 UTC

The military had made bad decisions for their army which included getting rid of there chest plates, along with that there was bad military leadership and many attacks from other places.

Adam and Lev

2025-02-03 19:42:32 UTC

All the wealth in the Roman empire was concentrated to the east side which also had the capital city of Constantinople. This caused the west side to be much weaker and be susceptible to poverty and attacks. Also, there was very bad inflation in the Roman empire at the time which was detrimental to the poorer western half.

2025-02-03 19:42:42 UTC

They did not have one mainline form of currency which led to inflation until the solidus so the Romans could control how much it is worth- Comrade Ethan and Comrade Daniel

Rich dominating poor & other reasons

2025-02-03 19:42:54 UTC

Rich people bought more land, poor have less power, vandals vandalizing, along with goths, and Visigoths. West was weaker and had less resources. Overall they were kinda cooked.

Ethan, Daniel

2025-02-03 19:43:22 UTC

There where many attacks from germany which worsend the empire, there had also been a Plauge that wiped the empire out.

Invasion-me and george

2025-02-03 19:43:46 UTC

While the Roman empire was thriving, the Germanic tribes got jealous of the romans wealth, and tried multiple times to sack part of the empire, and succeeded.

military

2025-02-03 19:43:48 UTC

not many people were willing to sacrifice their life to go and fight for the army so the military got very weak from the lack of people, wars and attacks came on and the romans couldn't fight off the barbarians an ended up getting defeated.

Military Weakness

2025-02-03 19:44:26 UTC

At this time the capital of Rome was moved to the eastern part of the empire current day Byzantine. There were thoughts of military instability because the barbarians were threatening attack on the west during the clash of the classes.

Thea, Theo, and Victor

2025-02-03 19:44:31 UTC

There was lots of disease spreading around Rome which killed more than half of the empire. This limited the amount of soldiers they had and lowered tax revenues.

Religiously motivated political changes

2025-02-03 19:45:18 UTC

The Western Roman Empire fell because of emperors like Constantine making changes to promote the rise of Christianity, such as moving the capital away from Rome to separate the pagan people from the Christians, causing the pagans in Rome to feel that they were no longer the focus of the empire, and also causing the emperors in Constantinople to consider Rome as a lesser worry, as it was no longer the capital.

People threatening Rome

2025-02-03 19:45:32 UTC

Goths, Visigoths, and Vandals in the west, along with Persians in the east. To the north, germanic tribes, and south, I don't really know.

social

2025-02-03 19:45:43 UTC

the rights between the plebeians and patricians were unfair and wealthy people wouldn't be punished for their crimes which cause the poor to want to revolt and get upset at the new set of laws.

Adam and Lev

2025-02-03 19:45:48 UTC

Soldiers started becoming lazy and not wearing their armor which led to many deaths and military losses. Also, many groups of people were exempted from the draft.

Military

2025-02-03 19:45:51 UTC

Firstly, at the start of the Roman Empire, the soldiers had refused to wear their armor, leading them to feel uncomfortable in battle, which was a reason the fall of Rome.

2025-02-03 19:46:07 UTC

Too many people where poor

Adam and Lev

2025-02-03 19:46:32 UTC

Rich people got away with crimes because they could bribe people while poor people were punished.