Fall Of Rome Dbq Essay

The Fall of Rome and What Caused it?
Rome was once one of the world's greatest empire until around 200 BCE when Rome started to crumble. The Fall of Rome did not happen suddenly, it took about 1100 years to take place. The first two centuries as an empire were named the "Pax Romana", which meant the time of Roman peace. The Romans were living the life, without a worry in the world. So how and why did Rome start to collapse, if the empire was was doing so grand and magnificent? To answer that question, the primary reasons that Rome started to decline were that the Romans had difficulty with their government which caused social problems/decay, their military was falling behind on their duties and became indolent, and natural disasters.
The first

reason that caused Rome to fall was their social problems precipitated by their corrupt government. According to document 6 written by Pricius, a Roman ambassador in 449 CE, it states that, "taxes are very severe, and unprincipled men inflict injuries on others... A [wealthy lawbreaker] ... is not punished for his injustice, while a poor man... undergoes legal penalty.." which supports the first reason as to why Rome fell. As you can see their government was unjust and corrupt. In the same document its says that "The climax of misery is to have to pay in order to obtain justice..." which basically means wealthy Romans bribed their government officials which money so they wouldn't be accounted for any of their injurious actions. This leads me to the second reason as to why Rome fell.
The next reason was that the Romans' military was weak and lacked hard-working soldiers.

As shown in document 2 written by the Roman historian, Vegtius, it declares, “But when, because of negligence and laziness, parade ground drills were abandoned, the customary armor began to seem heavy since the soldiers rarely ever wore it.” this proves that the Roman soldiers became lazy and weren’t able to fight. The document also says, “So our soldiers fought the Goths without any protection for chest and head and were often beaten by archers.” which caused them to lose many battles and the soldiers thought about running instead of fighting the opposing team. The military also became less willing to follow orders given to them and they also became unreliable to their government.
The last reason that caused the fall of Rome was the multiple natural disasters that happened in the year 336 CE. According to the article, it says that,”... the Roman world was shaken by a violent and destructive earthquake...The shores of the Mediterranean were left dry by the sudden retreat of the sea... but the tide soon returned with the weight of an immense flood which severely felt on the coasts of Sicily…” the earthquake and the sudden flood killed about 50,000 people and that was in Alexandria alone. This resulted in a decrease in population and an empire to

fix.
Rome was a great empire at the beginning, but then fell because of an unfair government, a weak army, and because of natural disasters. Rome was not ran by good leaders, but by a corrupt government bribed by wealthy citizens. Their weak army made it easier for intruders to invade if they wanted to. Lastly, the earthquake and the tsunami were deadly and contributed to the fall of Rome.