The Roman Empire was prosperous for many years during its prime and during their reign as empire, they had many good emperors who helped Rome in many ways. The Roman Empire was succeeding do much that they conquered much of the Mediterranean and it needed to divide into two parts because it was so big. Unfortunately, many of the “good emperors” disappeared and many emperors came into play that did not lead Rome successfully like the previous emperors did. Rome started to suffer under these emperors because of how they approached certain actions and at this point, Rome was on a decline for the worst. There was little hope for the Roman Empire to recover and after many unsuccessful attempts to turn the empire around, Rome was officially done with their empire. Rome could not recover from the outside attacks, unorganized government, and internal conflicts that affected the empire and this is why the Roman Empire declined and was never the strong empire they were once before.
The Roman Empire had very good emperors during its prosperous years, but during the decline, the good emperors were replaced by crazy ones and they virtually did not exist. “The Roman empire in western Europe - a centralised superstate which had been in existence for 500 years - had ceased to exist, its single emperor replaced by upwards of a dozen kings and princes” (Heather, 2011). The Roman Empire was a powerhouse in the western world with emperors who knew what they were doing and made smart decisions. During Rome’s decline as an empire, emperors failed to lead Rome because they were non-existent so they were replaced by kings near the very end of the empire. These kings did not know what to do because they were last minute replacements and had trouble trying to prevent attacks from other countries like England. Suddenly, Rome was now in panic with the emperors gone and now the kings in rule and while Rome was trying to blame one another, their empire was slowly collapsing with the lack of an organized government.
If there is any proof that the empire declined, than it must be that the empire lost a lot of its land and eventually got much smaller in the area it covered. “Rome eventually collapsed under the weight of its own bloated empire, losing its provinces one by one: Britain around 410; Spain and northern Africa by 430” (The History Channel Website, 2011). All of the fighting and arguing that went on in Rome and throughout the empire really started to affect the empire, even though Rome did not see it. Many countries saw this fighting within Rome as an opportunity to escape from the empire and they successfully did so. The empire was collapsing since each country one by one left the empire to survive as independent areas. All of the internal conflict of Rome put a huge burden on the empire and it was now almost impossible for Rome to even try to conquer more land because of their declining status.
One of the things that contributed to the fall of the Roman Emperor was all the conflict that went on in the empire and from the outside. “An entirely different story played out in the west, where the empire was wracked by internal conflict as well as threats from abroad--particularly from the Germanic tribes now established within the empire's frontiers--and was steadily losing money due to constant warfare” (The History Channel Website, 2011). War and military conflicts was a major issue during the decline of the Roman Empire because Rome was constantly being attacked by enemies from the outside. All of these attacks got to Rome at one point and after being sacked so many times, there was just not enough time to recover. Rome also had conflicts with themselves as a whole and the leaders of Rome did not make decisions that the people thought were right, so they eventually rebelled against the government. After all of the conflicts the empire went through, Rome lost a lot of its money and could not afford to do things that would benefit the empire and the people, like improving architecture.
Many events contributed to the decline and fall of Rome, most of which were negative. One continuous event that struck fear into Rome was all of the attacks from the outside enemies such as the Barbarians and there was no way for Rome to stop them since they attacked so frequently. Rome lost much of its own land in the empire because of the internal conflict that went on and the weight of all the conflict in the empire was too much to overcome. The government was completely unorganized so not much economic progress could be made with the kings who lead the empire during its decline. Rome also lacked a good army who could ward off enemies from the outside and their border security was not as strong as it hoped to be. There is obvious proof that the Roman Empire declined and it would never be the same after its collapse.
Work Cited
Ancient Rome. (2011). The History Channel website. Retrieved 8:26, April 12, 2011,
from http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-rome.
Heather, P. (2011, February 17). The fall of rome. Retrieved from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/fallofrome_article_01.shtml#five
This is structurally sound and makes a good argument. Next thing you need to do is really think about your writing style. What can you do to make your voice unique? If your reader read five essays blindly, would they be able to pick out yours?
ReplyDeleteIn terms of resources, these are good but I would like to see primary sources. Look over what's available at the Internet History Sourcebook and whenever writing a paper, strive to include and analyze primary sources written by the people who were there.