Fall Of The Roman Empire Essay

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The Roman Empire was, for a long period of time, one of the greatest and largest Empires in the world. Rome had conquered most of Europe and parts of Asia and Africa too, and it stretched an area of over 2500 miles across and 1000 miles in length. Although the size of the Empire was extraordinary, like all Empires, it fell. There are a number of factors that contributed to the demise of the Roman Empire such as the introduction of Christianity, the economy, constant war or the division of the Empire but these factors would all take hundreds of years for the fall of Rome.
At the beginning of the Roman Empire, Christianity did not exist and the majority of Romans were Pagans. It wasn’t until a few hundred years after the execution of Jesus that his followers started gaining support and soon Christian leaders became very influential and started gaining power over the Roman Emperor. “This came in the early 4th century, with Constantine, who was actively involved in Christian policy-making.” (About.com, 2014) For a long time people for persecuted for believing in Christianity but Constantine put a stop to the persecutions. Constantine became Rome’s first Christian Emperor making Rome a Christian Empire and the Christian beliefs clashed with the working of the Empire. The introduction of Christianity into the Roman Empire directly undermined the states previous pagan religion. The Christian belief in only one God “weakened the authority and credibility of the Emperor” (ushistory.org, 2008-2014). Now that the Roman Empire was a Christian Empire, under Constantine’s rule he contributed to another factor for fall of Rome. He split the Roman Empire into the Western Empire and the Eastern Empire and he moved the capital of the Em...

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...he fall of Rome did not happen in a day either. It took hundreds of years for the eventual demise of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire had conquered many countries and had expanded its Empire so far that it became literally impossible to defend its borders from all four corners. The Roman army constantly needed new soldiers and heavy military spending which affected both the economy and the people within the Empire and when Christianity was introduced the Roman Empire was split into two parts. Civil wars erupted in Italy and all this caused the Goths to invade the borders and eventually take control of the Western Roman Empire. The dark ages followed which was not only the fall of Rome but the fall of literacy, architecture and education which more or less sent the Roman Empire back to the Stone Age. All of these contributed to the Demise of the Roman Empire.

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