Who Caused The Fall Of Rome ?
By the end of 476 AD, Rome was completely devastated due to German invasions. There was an invariable pressure being built up by the German tribes on the various regions of the Roman Empire. While Britain and Gaul were taken over by the Angels, Saxons, Jutes, and Franks, Spain and Italy were overrun by the Vandals and the Ostrogoths respectively. Although these Germanic tribes were the ones who caused the downfall of Rome, the underlying social, economic, and political causes for fall of Roman Empire were also very significant. |
Some historians believe that the fall of the Rome was caused by the split between the eastern and the western parts. While the Western Roman Empire was destroyed in 476 AD, when its last emperor was overthrown, the Eastern Empire fell in 1453 AD at its capital, Constantinople. Several other historians claim that the Fall of Rome was an ongoing process that lasted for more than hundred years. Thus, the answer to the question who caused the fall of Rome, is a complicated one.
The answer to this question encompasses all the socio-economic, political, religious, and military problems that began to arise in Rome years before its final decline. Imperial inefficiency and financial crisis are the two main reasons that caused all the other problems, eventually leading to the fall of the Roman Empire.
The Church leaders, who seized power from the Emperors and interfered in the working of the empire, were responsible for the fall to a large extent. The Roman Republic, under the rule of Sulla, Gracchi, and Marius, faced severe crisis due to untrained and inefficient troops. The trend continued and the Roman Empire had to face a similar crisis due to its incompetent Roman army, which was once thought to be unconquerable. Lack of army training and unresolved military problems were thus responsible for the fall.
To conclude, inflation, presence of lead in water, poor management of financial stress, hoarding, trade deficit, and division of empire paved a way for successful Germanic invasions by German tribes, which eventually led to the fall of Rome.
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