Why did the Roman Empire fall?
Select 3 reasons and write 5 paragraphs explaining why.
- the split into eastern and western empire governed by 2 separate emperors-difficult to manage, cost too much money/more money going out than in, put a strain on trade,Emperor Diocletian split empire in 2
- Christianity
- military problems
- Imperial competence and chance
- taxes increased and production declined
1.) Rome being split into two empires
The first reason is because of Rome being split into two different empires. Emperor Diocletian was the one who split the empire into 2 because he figured it would be easier to manage. The two empires were known as the Eastern Empire and Western Empire. Each empire would have a ruler and the senior ruler ruled over Rome. It was split into separate empires because there was too much land for one person to rule alone. It also cost too much money because there was taxes going into Rome but supplies and money to build roads and other things was going out.
2.) Military problems
Military problems was another big reason for the fall of the Roman Empire. The Roman Army thought that one of their soldiers should be emperor. When one part of the army would make a soldier an emperor another part would fight to put their own man as the emperor, this resulted in having 23 soldier-emperors. Most of them were killed by rivals. The military was stretched out because there was so much land to protect but not enough soldier to do it.
3.) Taxes increased
The last reason is the increase of taxes. With more land, you needed more soldiers and that cost money that Rome didn't have. The solution was to increase the taxes and extra coins were made. This didn't solve the problem it caused a bigger one because it lead to inflation. Inflation caused the prices to rise. Rome's wealth was in the land but this stopped and became wealth through taxation. Rome made profits off the hands of the peasants because they would tax the province.
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