Why Great Societies Fall

“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.”(Adam Smith). This quote describes the state of most societies right now. In societies the poor always outnumber the rich, but the rich have more power over the poor. But who has better intentions for the society as a whole? Those who have less know the pain of what it is like to be forgotten and left behind so they will try to carry their empire as a whole community. Those who are wealthy tend to only care for themselves and the pleasure they get through their power. The reason great societies fall is because of natural disasters, being attacked, and their moral values decline.
Many great societies fall for many different

In the Roman empire they split up into 2 separate empires during the rule of Constantine. The eastern half was wealthy and had a bountiful amount of precious commodities, while the western half was full of agriculture and livestock. In the western half the amount of healthy people dwindled because of the lead poisoning that was going around which left the Western half open for attack. All of the neighboring societies constantly fought to claim over Western Rome. “Groups such as the Visigoths, Vandals, Angles, Saxons, Franks, Ostrogoths, and Lombards took turns ravaging the Empire, eventually carving out areas in which to settle down” (“The Fall of the Roman Empire”) This shows that they were constantly being attacked from all sides of the empire without breaks which would be very hard to defend. Without the support of a healthy army their society was doomed to fall under the reigns of the others. The Ancient Greeks fought in many of wars most of which consisted of them fighting against the Persians. Their three biggest battles were the battles Thermopylae, Marathon, and Salamis. “The Persians sent warriors to the Greek peninsula to squash the Greeks. They attempted three times to conquer the Greeks at the famous battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis.” (Donn) With each and every attack they weaken the Greeks which allowed them to be more open to

This means that they are beginning to some very inhumane things that go against the natural lifestyle of people. In Ancient Rome they had a single emperor to rule the whole town along with the help of some high class nobles. When you became emperor it was a very hard and scary job because if people didn’t like the way that you govern then you would be assassinated. “It was a job for life, so if an emperor was mad, bad or dangerous, the only solution was to cut that life short. Everybody knew it, so paranoia ruled.” (Donegan) This shows that when you become emperor you have tons of power in you are in for good. Lots of times the emperor takes that power to his head and goes mad over the complete control he has. People will then go against their laws to eliminate the person that is going mad. In the Ancient Aztecs they were very gruesome and practiced two terrible arts, human sacrifice and cannibalism. They would sacrifice humans to please their gods which got rid of important people who could be worth something and they ate people which is terrible for you and the person that was killed. “The people who were sacrificed were often eaten, as part of the sacrificial ritual” (Myers) This tells people that their gods were very scary or morbid in the eyes of the Aztecs. They killed these people and then ate them just so that they could please their gods. The