Great As The Roman Empire example essay topic

Within the centuries of our history many emperors have risen, but arguably there has not been one as great as the Roman Empire. Yet with such greatness trouble was not very far behind, and the Romans definitely had their fair share. From 31 BC to 476 A. D the Roman Empire went from being the most powerful annuity of the Mediterranean to nothing but ruble and stone. Succession, military, economic conflict, ethnic issues and barbarism were the five major factors that contributed to the downfall and destruction of this once great Empire. To begin this downfall of the Roman Empire we must look at the problems having to do due with succession. The empire had no solid stature for succession, a democratic system always seemed to be flawed and corrupted and hereditary successors were never established.

The Romans could not quite grasp a democratic system without corruption and the idea of a hereditary successor was always neglected. Only after a long civil war was the first Emperor, Emperor Augustus and known as Octavian was appointed. As Rome was quite political, the senators had control over the armies, which made it very unclear where the military ended and the civil government began. A powerful general, Senator Marius, created a very great army by accepting anyone who would volunteer.

This led to the army becoming a political voice and all property qualifications were diminished. Because of, Marius' actions other generals would follow in his footsteps. After time the state could no longer afford to supply these armies with weapons, so because of these doing the generals had to support they " re own armies. More and more wars broke-out, not only to expand the Empire and gain a larger amount of territories but also to profit of the losing opponents. Most soldiers were very loyal to they " re generals, mostly because their livelihood was dependents on it. If there was no loyalty there was no pay.

So soldiers followed generals anywhere even onto Roman grounds. For about 20 to 30 years, a period known as the Barracks Emperors, where about 30 different Emperors were appointed, civil wars had reached an alarming rate and the military strategies to maintain a powerful border to protect threats of surrounding attack was greatly needed. The military was an extremely important element to the greatness of the Roman Empire, which in fact became the second factor of its demise. During the Barracks Emperors, loyal soldiers were in very high demand.

Generals could not rely on the civil militia and members of the clergy, civil servants, bakers, cookers and personal servants were all exempted. So generals turned to volunteers were much more preferred because they were extremely committed in comparison to the conscript, who felt like they were being pressured into to be there and in return would just do as they pleased. Conscripts were also disloyal and would not take the time or effort to train and become professional soldiers. The strategies of the Roman military were quite poor.

All soldiers were kept on the frontier of the Empire and although Rome did not have many enemies on the outskirts, civil war was becoming a very dangerous risk. As battles broke-out more manpower was taken from the frontier, which weakened the fortress and made it easier for other armies, such as the Barbarians to attack. When Emperor Constantine was appointed, he changed the military's tactics to something called "Defense in Depth". Instead of the army being spread across the whole frontier, it was divided into the two sections; border forces and frontier forces. At first, the "Defense in Depth" strategy was quite prosperous; with armies closer to the core of the empire, in theory this made it harder for invaders to penetrate. This strategy also eliminated costs for supporting an army that was spread over the entire frontier.

Yet, problems did arise. Due to the division of the army, outside enemies were able to gain more ground within the Roman territories. At first the infantry was the center of the army with the cavalry at a close second but after a while the army became very dependent on the cavalry for it's military efforts. Costs for the cavalry's horses and maintenance became increasingly too much for the state to handle and it economy took many blows. These costly expenses eventually prevented the army to expand and they could no longer defend the empire great land mass. With the weakening of the army, invasion became a very heavy concern.

Not only did the military have to patrol the borders and protects it citizens, but they also had to prevent civil disputes from erupting. To up hold the necessary revenues for the army Rome created a system of taxation. Due to this taxation system major economic conflicts came into play within the Roman territories, which came to be the third factor in the decline of the Roman Empire. Since the senatorial classes were the founders of the laws governing the taxation they were automatically exempted from payment, which meant that 90% of the taxation money was taken from the lower class citizens. Once again did corruption showed its ugly head. Out of that 90%, 60 to 70% was just handed to the military.

If there was no payment there was no army and if there was no army there was no peace and stability. In essence, the state only existed to support the militia. In order for the state to collect these taxes from the peasants, intimidating and ruthless tactics were established. Tax farming was one of the methods taken to in sure money was collected. Soon the expenses outweighed the incoming revenues and inflation settled in leading the state into totally bankruptcy. Due to such a rumble in the economy, the integration of barbarians seem to go slightly unnoticed.

Roman eventually became so multicultural and multilingual the barbarian's presence was part of the every day life. As the growth of the different cultures spread within Rome, it came apparent that the Barbarians were not going to stay loyal. This introduced Barbarisms as the fourth factor to the collapse of the Roman Empire. Many efforts were made to keep a client relationship with the barbarians. Offers to the chieftains like citizenship and money were proposed to persuade friendship and alliance and because of they " re superior horsemanship many were added to the existing armies.

Colonization was another proposal recommended to the Barbarians. Some foreigners became farm tenants, with many of the Roman landlords by their own accordance. At times entire communities would be accepted, disarmed and would subjugated as passive peace offerings. During the insanity of the Barrack Emperors, around 250 AD tribal chaos was erupting on the outskirts of the Roman Empire. At this point 30 to 40 drafted tribal soldiers aided in battles and there was no clear distinction between the Roman and the Barbarians. As things might have been in favor for the Roman, they made two major mistakes concerning the Barbarians.

The first was allowing the Visi-Otho Goths to enter Rome without being disarmed. And the second was the vantage taken by the corrupt Senates against the starvation problems. The government would offer dog meat for the exchange of children that would be sold into slavery. The Visi-Otho Goths were outraged by this cruelty and in return built and army and conquered the Emperor of that time, Emperor Vo lense. The new reigning Emperor, Emperor Theodosius, made the Visi-Otho Goths a federated state, which was also known as Foederati after calling upon the Goths for support in winning the Frigid River battle. Soon the Roman emperors became dependent upon the Foederati and other barbarian tribes for assistance and in return for this assistance a reward was asked.

Yet no reward was received, which caused a new battle to began and more support was needed. Because of the barbarization of the army and the relaxed fighting government, the Romans grew angry about the lack of discipline they had and wanted the same. Which ultimately led to the deterioration of this once so great Empire and all that it held. The finally factor that caused the Roman Empire to crumble was the ethnic issues surrounding the population. For a period, citizenship was welcomed to any who were in alliance with Rome, to unify the populus on the basis of Roman customs, religion and laws. This was supposed to be a great decision but instead just caused segregation between the people.

The elites and officials, not the emperors distributed most of the segregation. Emperor Claudius attempted to promote Rome's ethnic backgrounds to the barbarians and that staying in Rome would eventually get them to convert, but the senate had a different song to sing. Many stereotypes were passed around, most negative and belittling and the whole barbarian population was treated with hatred and contempt. Although of the Barbarians tried to prove themselves loyal and worthy the Romans continued to think of them as inferior and untrustworthy. Emperor Claudius' vision of a unified Rome was diminished. Even as the barbarian advanced up in the social pyramid segregation became an increasingly worse.

The idea of unifying Rome's people only steered towards another part of the empire's destruction. Greatness is a hard thing to hold on to, poor decisions, greed, corruption and discrimination played great parts in the collapse of the Roman Empire. At the height of the Empire the population reached a height of 1.5 millions citizens and by the end of its downfall there was only a mere 20,000. With the 5 factors, all having improvement in mind, created a vicious cycle of failure that kept on plaguing this once so glorious Empire. Its greatness will be forever known within our history and maybe lessons could be learned from its demise.