Causes for Fall of Roman Empire

Given below are various reasons that could have caused the fall of the Roman Empire, as given by historians from different schools of thought:

1. Decay of the empire due to general malaise

• Historian Edward Gibbon is known for this theory of attributing the fall of the empire to general malaise. According to him the foundation on which the Roman Empire was built on was not strong, hence the fall of the empire was inevitable. His masterpiece novel “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” was published between 1776 and 1788, and in that he blamed the ruin of Rome on moral degeneration.
• Gibbon saw the Roman Empire as a unified entity and stated that its fall was due to the ideals of political and intellectual liberty being diminished by the adoption of Christianity as the state religion by the empire. He placed the responsibility for the decay of the empire on the influence of Christianity and is often, though debatable, acknowledged as the founding father of the school of monocausal explanation.

2. Catastrophic Collapse of the empire due to invasions from indigenous people

• Historians state that throughout the 5th century, the Roman empire’s territories, mainly the territories in Western Europe and Northwestern Africa, including Italy, were invaded by indigenous people or tribes; This period is also referred to as the Migration Period. The Migration period (400 to 800 CE), was a time of intense human migration in Europe, also known a period of extensive Barbarian invasions ( from the perspective of Romans).
• We find that the Roman Empire became weaker since 395 CE, after its spit into two empires( Eastern and Western); Also the ascension of relatively weaker rulers, due to the Crisis of the Third Century, leading to the empire being haphazardly ruled by more than one emperor at once (usually two), over different regions led to many indigenous people, especially the Germanic tribes like Goths, Vandals, Angles, Saxons, Lombards, Suebi, Frisii, Jutes and Franks began to migrate and invade lands in the Western Roman Empire.
• Indigenous tribes were frustrated after being refused lands by the rulers and being treated like slaves so a chain of attacks began in western empire. In 476 CE, Germanic mercenaries, under the leadership of the chieftain Odoacer, took Ravenna, the Western Roman capital at the time, dethroning Western Emperor Romulus Augustus. The whole of Italy was quickly conquered by them.
• Much of the rest of the Western provinces were conquered by waves of Germanic invasions, most of them being disconnected politically from the east altogether, and continuing a slow decline.

3. Splitting of the Roman Empire

• As the Roman Empire reached the peak of its power and became bigger and bigger, it became increasingly difficult to maintain its power and stability like before. Administration could not be carried effectively in remote regions of the empire and the lack of supervision led to constant civil wars. There was also a succession crisis from the 3rd century CE onwards ( part of the Third Century Crisis) which created an environment of lawlessness in the empire due to the lack of an authoritative figure. All these reasons ultimately led to the Empire officially being split in the year 395 CE when the Eastern and Western halves of the Empire ruled as de facto independent states.
• By the late 3rd century, the city of Rome no longer was an effective capital for the empire, and we find various cities rising as new administrative capitals. Starting with Emperor Constantine, the successive rulers all preferred the eastern city of Byzantium, later renamed Constantinople and it went on to become the largest and most powerful city of Christian Europe in the Early Middle Ages.

4. Socio-cultural differences between regions

• There was a decline of political and intellectual liberty in the Roman Empire after the adoption of Christianity as the state religion by the empire. There was a cultural shift and many values and traditions of ancient Rome were left behind and a new, more authoritarian laws were created for a new Christian Eastern empire.
• The West, which was predominantly Latin speaking and the predominantly Greek speaking East, began to diverge politically and culturally. Although this was a gradual process, it deepened further later on, and had lasting after effects on the medieval history of Europe.

5. Population Decline

• Historians speculate that the population of the empire could have diminished in many provinces significantly, indicated by the reduced size of fortifications built to protect the cities from barbarian incursions from the 3rd century onwards.
• Historians also note that the peripheral regions appear to be uninhabited from the 3rd century CE, and only the center of the city appear to be populated since we can only find fortifications in the center of cities and not the peripheral areas.

6. Transformation theory on Fall of the Roman Empire

The Transformation school of thought questions the whole idea of “fall” of the empire and states that instead of the idea of decline one must really think if its the diminish in popularity of a particular political dispensation. According to this school, the ancient Roman world underwent a gradual series of transformations, transitioning into the medieval world. The historians belonging to this school often prefer to talk of Late Antiquity, instead of the Fall of the Roman Empire.

The Fall of the Roman Empire is a highly debated and theorized issue because the Roman Empire is probably one the greatest and most powerful and impactful empires the Western world has ever experienced. History has yet to see another entity with the political and cultural legacy left by the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire came into existence from the Roman Republic in 27 BCE when Augustus became the ruler and established an autocracy.

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