How over Expansion and Militarism Led to the Fall of Rome (Research Paper Sample)

How over expansion and militarism led to the fall of Rome.
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How over expansion and militarism led to the fall of Rome
The fall of the Roman Empire remains unknown to many. Its causes are narrated to date and several reasons have been given in relations to its fall. History shows that the Roman Empire was one of the strongest and best Empires that one could admire, but as its leadership progressed, several things happened. After a long period of time, what happened resulted in the fall of the Empire. Though several issues let the fall of the empire, over expansion and militarism are believed to have played a key role in its collapse. This paper seeks to analyze how over- expansion and militarism led to the fall of Rome, among other known factors caused it’s fall (Parson,2010).
The term Roman Empire refers to a period in the history of Ancient when Rome as well as its territories was ruled by tyrannical Emperors. The empire is believed to have lasted from 27 BC-475 AD, a period believed to be more than 500 years. During this era, the Roman Empire was very powerful and had territories covering south and west Europe, land around the Mediterranean Sea, Britain, North African and Asia Minor(Goldsworthy,2009). From the mentioned continents, it is evident that Roman Empire had widened its boundaries extensively. However, its expansionism strategies were diminished by its fall. Though this may be one of the aspects that led to the fall of Roman Empire, there are also other major factors that contributed to the same (Gibbon, & Bury, 1946).
According to Gibbon (1932), events took place in a chronological manner, and therefore, one cannot say that there was no order in which these factors occurred over the period of about five hundred years. The five hundred years that took place before the rise and fall of Rome Empire were accompanied by many factors that resulted in its fall. The major causes of Roman Empire’s fall can be detailed as follows:
* Antagonism between the Senate and the Emperor
* Political Corruption and the Praetorian Guard
* Decline in Morals
* Constant Wars and Heavy Military Spending
* Barbarian’s Knowledge of Roman Military Tactics
* The 'Mob' and the cost of the 'Games'
* Decline in Ethics and Values
* Fast expansion of the Empire
* Unemployment of the Working Classes (The Plebs)
* Failing Economy
* Christianity
* Barbarian Invasion
* Natural Disasters and slave labor
Antagonism between the Senate and the Emperor
As in examples above, antagonism between the senate and the Emperor could be counted as one of the major causesof the fall of the Rome Empire. At this time, the legal powers to rule the Rome’s religious, the civil, and military associations was under the emperor while the senate acted as an advisory body. Though the two bodies were meant to act together, things never worked as their relationship started to change (Perkins, 2005). The emperor had no authority over life and death. The two bodies started taking different directions as the authoritative and affluent roman Emperors unavoidably become corrupted and lived a dishonest, deceptive and dishonest lifestyle (Parson, 2010).
As a result of this, Roman Empire experienced a lot of opposition between the Emperors and the Senators. In his case, everybody saw each other as the most corrupt, viewed each other as enemiesand asenmity persisted, poor leadership set in resulting in the collapse of the empire(Nardo,2001).
Constant Wars and Heavy Military Spending
This being one of the results of the fall of Roman Empire, constant war played a vital role in its fall. Since the empire was growing at a rapid rate, it needed more soldiers for it to remain a great conqueror. In this case, constant fighting needed heavy military spending. This demand for the military was high since the Roman Empire became over stretched, and the need for more solders was proportional to its needs for expansion and protection of their overstretched territories(Fagan & Stone barger,1999). Due to this, there was overspending in the military body, hence other fundamental activities were left with few resources. Vital issues such as provision of houses to the public, quality roads and channel were left untouched. This also resulted in emperors raising taxes repeatedly resulting in increased levels of in inflation (Lafferty, 1971).
Not every person was pleased by ways of governing and therefore aggrieved Romans lost their desire to defend their empire. This gives no option to the expirers and they had to begin hiring soldiers, recruited and trained them. This process was much demanding, but since there was no option and they wanted to remain in the power, they made unacceptable decisions, which turned against them later. This was one of the mistakes that they did by not considering the fact that for every nation they conquered, the citizens of the conquered nations became enemies and could do anything to revenge (Burgan, 2004).
Barbarians’ Knowledge of Roman Military Tactics
The overexpansion of the Roman Empire demanded more militaries and therefore, Roman alone could not raise the number of Armies required. As a result, they had to get them from those nations that they subjugated(James,2006). The other nations’ soldiers (Barbarian) were to assist the Roman Empire "theconquerors" and therefore they were given the same training that was given to the Roman soldiers. This resulted in them gaining tactics and knowledge as they served in the military. The barbarians used the attained tactics to turn against them and Rome was attacked by the Visigoths who were led by ex-army soldiers (Nardo,2001).
Though Rome was doing well and had evidence while conquering any nation, over expanding resulted in need for more soldiers. The foreign soldiers could only become their enemies since they were not contented for being conquered, the reason why they took the benefit of gaining military tactics to turn against their enemies (Burgan, 2004).
The ‘Mob’ and the cost of the ‘Games’
In this case, the Roman Empire was becoming bigger every time they conquered a nation. This therefore contributed to big population growth in the Empire. When thousands population in Rome were jaded, they were rioting in the streets since they had nothing to do and sometime opposing what was being done. To solve what was happening, there was a need to amuse them (the mob) and therefore extravagant gladiatorial games had to be endowed with to keep people busy(Marcovitz,2012).
The Emperors were to sponsor the games and this opened a loophole for others to use Emperors’ funds. As mentioned above, the Empire had already had corrupt persons who only wanted to benefit themselves. Just the same way, there emerged a group of corrupt politicians who sponsored the games but with an aim of having favor and support from the ‘mob’. This continued for some time and the coast of gladiatorial games rose at an alarming rate, to account a third of the entire revenue of the Rome Empire. This squeezed the Emperors who could not meet people’s needs properly, as they wanted to keep bored persons amused, a fact that contributed to the collapse of the empire (Readers Digest Association, 2003).
Decline in Ethics and Values
The Roman Empire was most interested in conquering other nations and therefore, people with different backgrounds, ethics and valued interacted. Life changed and people no longer considered ethics in any way. There was more bloodshed and brutality among the people (Bauer, 2007). This marked the decline of values, customs, the ideas and tradition institutions that Romans had. Decline in morals was conspicuous in the upper class which belonged to the rich, nobility and emperors. They practiced immorality as well promiscuous sexual behavior which among them were adultery and orgies (Marcovitz,2012).
It was said that Tiberius kept juvenile boys for their pleasure; Nero had their male slaves castrated, so that they could take them as their wives. Elagabalus forced nuns into marriages. The lower classes and slaves were as well affected by the decline in morals. During religious festivals like Saturnalia and Bacchanalia, there was sexual promiscuity and brothels were forced into the acts. There were no human principles and no one cared about what was wrong or right since human ethics and values were lost (Chua, 2007).
Fast expansion of the Empire
Expansion of the Rome Empire can be referred to as one of the major causes of its collapse. Rome kept conquering many nations and therefore there was rapid growth in the land they owned. Consequently, there was great need to defend the borders and the territories of Rome. As they struggle to keep this under their control, emperors increased taxes on non-Romans and these created more enmity where frequent rebellions arose. Lack of enough solders to safeguard their territories forced them to employ foreigners who were against them resulting in the collapse of the empire (Condon, 1994).
Unemployment of the Working Classes
Over expanded territory had people from different ethnics and over populated. As a result of these, labor was informed of slavery, and cheap slave labor was introduced resulting to unemployment. Plebs in Rome were not able to compete with foreign trade and therefore the government was forced to reduce the working class by coming up with different prices. After such a decision by the government, the Romans decided to sacrifice their way of leaving by depending on the government. The other challenge that resulted from this is that the Barbarians who were from the military also abandoned their places of work and this resulted in high crimes in Rome hence its decli...