Why did the roman empire fall

At the same time, the empire was rocked by a labor deficit. With its economy faltering and its commercial and agricultural production in decline, the Empire began to lose its grip on Europe.

The fate of Western Rome was partially sealed in the late third century, when the Emperor Diocletian divided the Empire into two halves—the Western Empire seated in the city of Milan, and the Eastern Empire in Byzantium, later known as Constantinople. The division made the empire more easily governable in the short term, but over time the two halves drifted apart. East and West failed to adequately work together to combat outside threats, and the two often squabbled over resources and military aid.

As the gulf widened, the largely Greek-speaking Eastern Empire grew in wealth while the Latin-speaking West descended into economic crisis. Most importantly, the strength of the Eastern Empire served to divert Barbarian invasions to the West.

Emperors like Constantine ensured that the city of Constantinople was fortified and well guarded, but Italy and the city of Rome—which only had symbolic value for many in the East—were left vulnerable.

The Western political structure would finally disintegrate in the fifth century, but the Eastern Empire endured in some form for another thousand years before being overwhelmed by the Ottoman Empire in the s. At its height, the Roman Empire stretched from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Euphrates River in the Middle East, but its grandeur may have also been its downfall. With such a vast territory to govern, the empire faced an administrative and logistical nightmare. That's selling those groups short.

Many of the barbarians were coalitions of soldiers that had been working with and for the Roman Empires for several generations. That gave the barbarians the opportunity to learn Roman tactics and expertise, which they then applied against the empire, resulting in a series of withering military defeats for the Romans.

It was simply a region of diminishing Roman influence where people moved freely around," she said. In that context, it's easy to see how the frontier could shrink over time.

Dwindling tax revenue made it increasingly tough for Rome to muster enough legions to reclaim lands the barbarians had taken. Nine different Western Roman emperors had risen and fallen since and most of them had been overthrown by barbarian commanders like Odoacer. In four cases, the barbarian generals toppled one emperor and delayed appointing another. One of these imperial vacancies stretched for 20 months, a span longer than the entire reigns of more than 20 previous Roman emperors.

Even Romulus Augustus himself was a usurper who assumed the imperial office after an imperfectly executed coup that left Julius Nepos , the legitimate emperor Romulus replaced, still in charge of Western Roman imperial territories in what is now Croatia.

In other words, while the West had lost an imperial usurper in , it still had a legitimate Roman emperor. Odoacer maintained most of the structures of the Roman government during the nearly 17 years he controlled the state. The Senate continued to meet in Rome just as it had for nearly a millennium. Latin remained the language of administration. Roman law governed the land. Roman armies continued to fight and win victories on the frontiers. And Roman emperors appeared on the coins that Odoacer minted.

These aspects of Roman life continued after the Gothic ruler Theoderic overthrew Odoacer in Theoderic proved even more successful than Odoacer in reviving Italian fortunes after the political chaos of the mid-5th century. His armies campaigned successfully in modern Croatia, Serbia and France.

He made much of Spain into a protectorate for a time. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of its ruin is simple and obvious. Recently, environmental factors have also been attributed to the decline of the Roman Empire.

This theory attributes both the rise and fall of Rome to ecological factors. The growth of the Roman Empire coincided with the environmental prosperity of the Mediterranean basin from the 3rd century BC until the middle of the 2nd century AD. The proponents of this theory state that environmental conditions started to deteriorate around AD.

The climate became cold and dry, which had adverse effects on agriculture. At the same time, epidemics like the plague had struck the empire, further reducing the size of the economy and population.

The last straw was the increase in global volcanic activity from the 5th century to 8th century AD. Different factors contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. They include economic crises, barbarian attacks, farming issues from exhausted soil due to over-cultivation, inequality between the rich and the poor, detachment of local elites from public life, and economic recession as a result of overreliance on slave labor.