The Roman Empire was formed when Julius Caesar was assassinated by members of the senate. His son Octavian was then the emperor of Rome and a period of peace called the Pax Romana began. Octavian later died and the Roman Empire slowly began to fall. The Roman Empire fell because of weak and corrupt emperors, a bloated empire, and high inflation.
The first reason why the Roman Empire fell was because of weak and corrupt emperors. “After Commodus, Roman emperors were almost always successful generals not politicians. They often stole money from the treasury. They used the money to make themselves rich and to bribe the soldiers. Under these emperors, the government and the economy lost stability” (Hayes Jacobs, 2005, p237). Because of this, people of Rome didn't know who to trust. They would have to defend themselves and starve while the emperors would have fun with their friends. Also they bribed the mercenary army which usually didn't fight so that they could have power for a longer time which would give them a less chance of assassination. Because of weak and corrupt emperors, the bloated empire had started to shrink.
Another reason why the Roman Empire fell was because it was too big. The Roman Empire was too big and could not rule from one place. Tribes that the Romans had recently conquered would start to fight back and they had invaded the empire (Hayes Jacobs, 2005). Because of this the Roman Empire was not safe from other tribes or provinces. Small tribes could now start to conquer more land as the Romans didn't have enough manpower to stop them. This meant that the Romans couldn't attack other provinces; instead they had to defend themselves. This is important because the Empire started to slowly shrink. Because of this the Romans could not conquer any more land.
The last reason why the Roman Empire fell was because of its high inflation. When the Romans had stopped conquering new land, new sources of wealth were not available anymore. They couldn't pay their mercenary army, which refused to fight. They raised taxes to pay the soldiers (Hayes Jacobs, 2005). This is important because the money wasn't worth much so the price of everything in the Roman Empire had gone up drastically. The money became worthless and the traders would also want a lot of the newly produced coins because they had so little value. Because of high inflation, the Roman currency was not worth anything.
The three reasons why the Roman Empire collapsed was because it had weak and corrupt emperors, it was bloated, and it suffered from high inflation. These 3 reasons are important reasons of how the Roman Empire fell. It is interesting that some might have thought that the Roman Empire would have lasted forever. But the question is, will this ever happen again?
