What Causes the Fall of Empires

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Looking back through history on the classic civilizations, one will observe many strong and powerful empires. Empires such as the Romans, Greeks, Gupta, and the Han, all seemed so dominate and indestructible. However, as time has told, all these great empires have fallen into the history books as greatness that has passed. What is it that caused these great empires to fall, was it the results of external factors such as invasion, or the spread of a dominating religion, or was it due to internal factors such as political or economic issues. The answer to this question is found by examining two of the greatest classic empires, the Romans and the Hans. While there is no one single point of failure that caused these empires to collapse, after examination of these two empires it will become clear that the driving force that caused these empires to fall was due to internal issues. Issues such as failed political systems and economic issues were the main culprits in these empires’ demise.
The first major contributing factor to the fall of these two empires was the strength of their government, or lack thereof. Looking at the Han and Roman empires they both began with a strong leader, the republic for Rome, and刘邦 for the Han. The leadership provided by these governments was what led these two nations to emerge as dominate world powers (Chua, XXIV). The subsequent governments of these empires allowed the empires to remain mostly dominate. It was not until a series of corrupt and disinterested leaders had gained power that these empires began their fall from glory.
For the Han empire this started in the 170s (AD/CE) with the partisan prohibition, which was a lead up to the Yellow Turban Revolt. Court eunuchs fought for control of the g...

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Boek, Johannes Alexander. "Taxation in the later Roman Empire." (2008)
Brunt, P.A. "Reflections on British and Roman Imperialism." Comparative Studies in Society and History 7.03 (1965): 267-88. Print.
Chua, Amy. Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance - and Why They Fall. New York: Anchor, 2007. Print.
Duiker, William J., and Jackson J. Spielvogel. World History. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2001. Print.
Lendering, Jona. "Roman Emperors." Roman Emperors. Livius, n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2014.
Lintott, A. W. "Imperial Expansion and Moral Decline in the Roman Republic." Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 21, H. 4 (4th Qtr., 1972), pp. 626-38. Print.

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