Primary Reasons For The Fall Of Rome Essay

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What Were the Primary Reasons for the “Fall” of Rome? From great to gone. The Roman Empire had fallen. Rome started off well with the “Pax Romana,” a time of Roman peace. But, Rome had become soft, and was sacked by invaders. Parts of the empire declined. Some historians will argue that environmental threats were to blame for the fall of Rome, but the primary reasons for the fall of Rome are moral and cultural decline, and foreign invasions. Rome had twenty two emperors in fifty years! Thirteen of them were assassinated. Also, the military became lazy. They wore no armor and were exposed to archers. To begin with, one of the primary reasons the Roman empire fell was because of the moral decline. According to an excerpt from “Concerning Military Matters” by Roman historian Vegetius, “because of negligence and laziness, parade around drills were abandoned, the customary armor began to seem heavy since soldiers rarely ever were it. Therefore, they first asked the emperor to set aside the breastplates… and then the helmets.” This shows moral decline because it shows how the military was lazy. Not much effort was used. The military ‘choked’. Also, according to the historical text by Priscus, a Roman ambassador, “taxes are very severe, and unprincipled men …show more content…
Natural disasters often kill many people. Even though loss of life is a major problem, it’s not as big as a problem as moral decline, or foreign invasions. Some reasons for moral decline and foreign invasions are, that during some sort of natural disaster, people will break into homes and steal things, but if there’s a weak military, and no emperor because he’s been killed, who will handle the crimes? Who will take command of investigations? Who will be there to support the robbed citizens? Also, who will fight during the invasions? No military, means dilemma! They had no chance, against multiple waves of nonstop