What could have caused the fall of the Great Roman Empire?

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Gladstone

That's interesting to know. It is something I'd wondered about...that is just how much aware they (the Byzantines) were of their Roman past.

Not quite the same, I think. "Greek Romans".

This is just an idea of mine. In my view, in the long process over which the Roman Empire and Civilization was built, there were two slopes: one western ("Celto-Roman") and one eastern ("Helleno-Roman"). And if we agree with this sketchy scheme, we can speculate that the convergence of these two slopes in Rome, made it the great Imperial Civilization that it was. And the foundations of Europe.

I don't know if any scholar or researcher has speculated about this idea before. But I would be interested in a comparative study of the western and eastern inputs, at all times since the birth of Rome and until its fall and beyond.

And it would also be interesting to see how these two slopes were later modified, or adapted, with the Germanic addition in the west and the Slavic addition in the east.

[Gladstone]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Not quite the same, I think. "Greek Romans".

This is quite right, the Byzantines had quite a strong Greek element within their identity, ie the langage, among other things. I was speaking in the broad sense the term 'Roman'.

This is just an idea of mine. In my view, in the long process over which the Roman Empire and Civilization was built, there were two slopes: one western ("Celto-Roman") and one eastern ("Helleno-Roman"). And if we agree with this sketchy scheme, we can speculate that the convergence of these two slopes in Rome, made it the great Imperial Civilization that it was. And the foundations of Europe.

I don't know if any scholar or researcher has speculated about this idea before. But I would be interested in a comparative study of the western and eastern inputs, at all times since the birth of Rome and until its fall and beyond.

And it would also be interesting to see how these two slopes were later modified, or adapted, with the Germanic addition in the west and the Slavic addition in the east.

If it's not been done, that would make quite an intriguing study indeed.

[BeornWulfWer]

What could have caused the fall of the Great Roman Empire?

All this said,though and not one person has mentioned one possible conclusion: They just didn't use a good enough cement mix

[Sifjar]

Well the expansion of the Mongolian Empire could have caused the fall of the Great Roman Empire. It's one of the contributing external factors.

[Rex Chroatorum]

Well the Western Empire lacked sufficient military resources to maintain order and to secure borders. However, by AD 300, they only had an estimated 500,000 troops, which meant that they could not control the territory the empire possessed. Therefore, they became increasingly vulnerable to attacks from the outside of the imperial borders. Finally, an economic crisis later hit the empire, which arose from the lack of plunder of outlying territories and of slaves from Roman conquests.

[Tarabos]

I agree that were more than one cause, but, in conformity with Ishikava theory, always one or two causes will perform 80% of defaults. And, the main cause was economic. The vast teritories needs permanent huge armies in every province, and that necesite lot of money. Romans had more and more shrinked army, and only central armies, and that because they didn't afforded anymore. But the real chalenge is what provoked the decline of the economy. An brief explanantion is the disapearence of sclavagism sistem, followed by an undeveloped feudal one. And why the sclavagist sistem disapeared? Here are many causes. The roman extention was followed by a tremenduous prosper period. This developed every branch of society, including philosophy and emancipation of the mases. And this emancipation begun to undermine the sclavagist weakness philosophy. The unity of the empire was given, at the begining, by the religion, and i mean the worship of the emperor like god. with the emancipation of the masses, the emperor image "paled" in their minds, and fanatic pseudo-humanistic religions, including cristianism arosed. This was facilitated by the obstinacy of romans for cruelties, like gladiators, public "games" with animals, extermination of the uprising participants...To survive, they would need to improve the sclavs, peasant rights, and to improve the religion, in the way that the all roman citizens to have a common mighty god, who would don't disagreed with sclavagist sistem, till a feudal sistem would been developed. When they realised that, was little late, because cristianism spreaded very much and it didn't aproved sclavagism. Constantine thought that would be sufficient to impose a mighty religion for all, but wasn't, because the feudal sistem wasn't developed.