Political Problems
The senate became extremely corrupt and political instability came into existance. Consuls and officials would offer positions in office for those who could pay a lump sum of denarii currency. they accepted bribes in exchange for favors of a wide assortment. A series of very incompetent, rather crazy Emperors were elected and the Plebians suffered as a result. Civil revolts sprung up, lead by rebellious citizens and Emperor Constantine divided the empire into two halves. He declared Constantinople the new capital of Roman society claiming rule over all Eastern provinces. The Western Roman Empire lost its power over towns in the East causing a great reduction in profits from the treasury and weakening them dramatically in warfare. Now their strength had been dwindled.
Military Problems
Well at least Rome still had new recruits enlisting Not Another problem was that many of the Roman citizens who were expected to enlist in the legions refused and sneakily signed their slaves in their position. As you can imagine, the new forces were very sluggish, had low morale, didn't fight with courage and really, they couldn't care less about the development of Rome, after all they were servants to them In remote locations under lenient Roman governing, it was common for soldiers to marry and adopt local customs, attitudes, values and beliefs, instead of keeping their original Italian heritage. This caused disloyalty, hesitation and disillusion worldwide among legions facing the same problems. Southern Britain is a great example. Oak tablets found by archaeologists show how most of the Roman army deserted or refused to carry out orders when fighting Pictish tribes in Scotland. They didn't want to destroy the culture they had integrated with
Economic Problems
The deciding factor. All this pressure was to much for Rome to handle, it had struggled endlessly with immense problems for hundreds of years. Alaric, leader of the Visigoths sacks Rome in 410 AD. Later, Rome is spared from being pillaged again - Attila the hun, another barbaric warlord decides to retire his reign in 452 AD but destroys many cities in Italy 3 years after Rome is looted by Geiseric, King of the Vandals So Rome endured a lot of economic damage and infrastructure demolishment
Comments