The city of Rome was the largest in the world. The Roman Empire had one of the most extensive social structures and best political structure at the time. After 500 years of ruling, the Roman Empire came to its fall in 476 A.D. Many factors lead to the fall of the Roman Empire such as religion and many wars.
One factor that led to the fall of the Roman Empire was religion. Christianity, unlike the typical Roman religion, was monotheistic. Their doctrine told them to believe in only one God. Unlike the Roman religion, which was polytheistic. This meant that they believed in multiple Gods. Due to this, many Romans killed Christians since they only believed in one God. However, Constantine the Great ended the killing of Christians.
Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Empire (In 313 C.E.) Many started to believe that the emperor was the God, but the religion stated this wasn’t true. The religion weakened the emperor’s powers and credibility over time. Constantine then divided the empire into two. The economy of the Roman empire was also a factor leading the downfall of the Roman empire.
The decrease of agricultural crops made prices skyrocket. To make up for this, the government started to make more coins. However, more coins led to an inflation. Inflation decreases the number of goods money can buy. This was bad for the citizens as they could not get many items such as food and clothing. Since money was causing such a strain, the government hired cheap soldiers. Government corruption was also an issue. The Roman empire was very big and therefore lead to many emperors having a hard time to control it.
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It was very difficult to govern and being an emperor was no easy task. The emperor’s bodyguards (also known as the Praetorian Guard) installed sovereigns. They even auctioned these to the highest bidders. This lead to the Roman citizens to lose trusts in their government. Over time the Roman military started to weaken. This was due to emperors like Constantine and Diocletian started hiring many foreign mercenaries. These mercenaries then joined the Roman army.
These soldiers had no loyalty to the Roman empire and government, and the officers started turning against the Roman empire. Many of these officers were, in fact, the barbarians who sacked the city and brought down the Western Empire.
