Tasia,+Levi,+Josh

=__The Decline of the Roman Empire __=

Rome fell for many reasons, some of those reason are because of bad choices made by Emperors. As the Roman Empire expanded it became too big to control. When Diocletian split the Empire he thought he was helping it, it worked but didn’t last. When he did this he also split the army in half causing it to become weaker. As this was happening northern German speaking invaders started to attack Rome’s big empire. This caused Rome to increase their problems of taxation and communication. The army weakened and the empire became poor. As the raids continued they did more and more damage to the empire. They destroyed farmlands and cities. The raids made Roman roads and coasts unsafe. Pirates hijacked ships, thieves stalled travelers. These draw backs made trade suffer. Many cities within the empire isolated themselves within the walls of their cities. The wealthy hid in their well protected villas. The western half of the empire was rapidly declining. Rome's government was always at the brink of being bankrupt. One of the reasons this was is because of the cost it took to run the large military. The solution, more taxation, only created more problems. The only way that the citizens of Rome could get out of having to pay taxes was to become part of the government. As more and more people signed into the army and government the amount of tax needed increased, and as it increase the population that had to pay it decreased causing them to have to pay even more.

Another reason Rome fell is because of Christianity. The Christians beleived in an afterliife which gave hope and courage to many of the poor miseribale people in he Roman empire. They also taught that one of the worst sins you could commit was to kill. This made some Romans go from being cold-hearted, agressive, and blood thirsty killers into poeple who believed in peace. Many people who became part of this religion were willing to die for their new found relgion. Constantine called himself a Christian and allowed Christianity to become the main religion of Rome. With Christianity the number of slaves greatly decressed. With all this kindness the Christianity brought they brought down the empire.

The death blow of the empire was caused by the barbrian invasion. Rome had many enemies and some of these enemies were fierce warriors. Some of these were the Visigoths and the Vandals who attacked the empire when they knew Rome was the weakest. The city of Rome was attacked by the Visigoths led by Alaric in 410 AD. Then in 455 the Vandals attacked led by Genseric. The Attila the Hun also declared war on the Roman empire. All three of these forces attacked Rome when Valentineian the 3rd was in power. These unexpected attacks are what finally cause Rome to fall.

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[] [] 6th Grade Social Studies text book