Political, Social and Economic Reasons for the Decline of the Western Roman Empire - Essay Example

Discuss the political, social, and economic reasons for the decline of the Western Roman Empire. The Roman Empire has been the world’s most powerful empire. For centuries, the empire was able to conquer far lands and stretched from the Mediterranean through the British highlands to Arabia. They built great cities with marvelous buildings and carvings made of stones and marbles. But what could cause the fall of such a great Empire? The Western Roman Empire finally fell more than 1500 years ago and we only know what factors led to its failure. The real reasons for its decline still haven’t been found and many reasons are presented that are only seen as forces that contributed to the decline (Morgan 1). These include political, social, and economic factors for the decline of the mighty Western Roman Empire. The political reasons surround the Barbarians, wars with Germanic tribes, City of God, growing power of Attila the Hun and the Hunnic Empire, and eventually the fall of the Western Roman Empire. In 15 AD the army of Garmanicus Caesar marched to Teutobergensis Saltus, where six years ago three whole Roman legions of about twenty thousand men were killed in the battle of antiquity (Heather 46). The massacre had been performed by the joint coalition of German warriors. The Germanic groups spread all the way from Rhine in the west to River Vistula in the east and from Danube in the north to the Baltic seas in the south (Heather 49). The first victory over the Germanic tribes was made on the tribe of Marcomanni by the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Even two hundred years later, the Roman emperor Julian’s army attacked the army of Alamanni at the Battle of Strasbourg. But within only one generation, the Empire’s order was disrupted and its army ‘vanished like shadows’ (Heather xi). Then a large troop of Gothic refugees arrived in AD 376 at the Danube frontier asking for refuge. Against the established policy of allowing outsiders unsubdued, they were let in. Within two years, they revolted and had killed the emperor Valens at the Battle of Hadrianople. One hundred years later, the Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus was removed as the Gothic refugees crossed Danube and the descendents of the Gothics then created the Visigothic Kingdom. But the Goths fled before the Huns, who had now spread from Volga to Danube. In the reign of Attila the Hun, the terror of the Huns was restored. The power of the Huns grew and they had made an alliance with the Romans of the west. Attila found his ‘sword of Mars’ and conquered the empires of Germany and Scythia and united them. In AD 430 – 440, the Huns had invaded Persia as well. They even attacked and acquired the eastern empire and destroyed Europe as far as Constantinople. In AD 450, Attila threatened the empire and started preparing for an attack on Gaul and later invaded it (Gibbon 286). An alliance was made between the Romans and the Goths and in the Battle of Chalons, Attila is forced to retreat. In AD 452 Attila finally invaded Italy, where he laid the foundations of the republic of Venice (Gibbon 301). With the victory of Attila in Italy, the power of the Western Roman Empire weakened. The long tension over the Rhine-Danube frontier contributed a significant amount to its failure. The social reasons for the decline of the Western Roman Empire are often given as declining population, diseases, succession of emperors, and even Christianity (Morgan 149). Diseases had been a major problem for all empires and the Roman Empire surely suffered as diseases and plagues spread across their land. Another reason given is that of the people in empire being poisoned by the water that was carried through lead pipes. The succession of emperors has indeed played the most important part in the decline. The first Roman emperor had established that the emperor will designate the next emperor and based on approval by the senate, the emperor will take the thrown. This rule was followed for only the first few emperors and later the role of the senate was taken by the army who grew in power. The soldiers only saw the general as the leader and hence they were no longer soldiers for the empire but only for the generals. The people shifted from fury to cowardice (Montesquieu 102) resulting in failure of the army. Many people see the decline of the Western Roman Empire and the attacks by Huns and Germanic tribes as an economic warfare. The Barbarians were divided into two groups: the Germanic speaking group consisting of Visigoths, Vandals, Sueves, Rugians, Saxons, Franks and so on, who were sedentary people practicing farming and agriculture; and the people living in southeastern Europe, Alans and Huns, who did not practice agriculture but herded flocks and cattle. Both these two groups are alike in the sense that both of them saw the Roman Empire as being affluent and as a land of high civilization. The Barbarians thought of the Roman emperors as being divine and as a form of God on earth. They are said to have gazed the magnificent Roman cities with awe because the Germans themselves did not live in cities. They lived in ‘oppida’ which were not towns or villages but they were small native settlements (Thompson 6). When Germanic people looked upon Rhine they are said to have abhorred the empire for its growing wealth. This kind of attitude was enough to explain the raids which posed a threat the frontiers of the Roman Empire for centuries. Even though barbarian auxiliaries were employed into the Romanic armed forces where they enjoyed a much better standard of living, there was still an attraction for plundering the empire. The Romans also had the most advanced military techniques of their times, which left these nomads astounded. Not surprisingly, the Barbarians started attacking from the frontiers causing trouble for the Roman Empire. Within a few years, they grew so powerful that they weakened the Roman army and continued to cause trouble for the Roman Empire. Therefore, no single reason brought down the once mighty Western Roman Empire. In fact, a number of political, social, and economic factors together brought about the fall of the Roman army and finally the Empire. Works Cited Gibbon, E. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 4. London: Oxford, 1821. Heather, P. The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Montesquieu, C.S. Reflections on the causes of the rise and fall of the Roman empire. Transl. London: Oxford, 1825. Morgan, J.F. The Prodigal Empire: The Fall of the Western Roman Empire. Bloomington, Indiana: Author House, 2009. Thompson, E.A. Romans and Barbarians: The Decline of the Western Empire. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2002. Read More