With this being the anniversary of the Visigoth sacking of Rome, I ask you - what do you believe was the biggest contributing factor to the fall of the Roman Empire?

The transition from Republic to Empire perhaps? And if so, why was the Republic more suited to governing the empire?
The barbarian invasions? If so, what failures within the empire meant that they couldn't deal with this threat?
The emporers themselves? The division of East from West? The squabbalings, weakening the empire?
Too much expansion, too few resource?
Poor management?

Go nuts. But remember - the most important factor you believe to have contributed to the downfall of the Roman Empire.

Nero was one of the most important factors, in a way. His persecution of the Christians and the things he did and blamed on them (hi, burning down rome and playing a violin) made a lot of people view the Christians in a more favorable light.

He was insane, and (un)fortunately his actions led to Christianity prospering which was the a large step downward in the fall of the Roman Empire.

Time. Conditions change over that many centuries and other people caught up to the Romans in terms of military effectiveness, wealth and ambition. No one stays on top forever.

I think if one of the earlier Roman leaders had been faced with the same conditions, he would have fared no better.

In my opinion the watershed moment when it became inevitable was the splitting of the empire into two entities if that is what you are looking for.

Time? Is that really true? Towards the end of its life, the main enemies of Rome were the barbarians, and I can't really believe that they had somehow caught up to Rome's technology, both practically and militarilly.
Atilla and his Huns lived on the open grass and still ate raw meat, for example.
And the migrating Visigoths? Again, hardly a people capable of matching Roman contemporary elements.

Had so much changed in the known world in 450 years, since Caeser conquered Gaul and the Visigoths sacked Rome?
And Nero? Well, emporers like him certainly never helped. But Nero came much before the fall of the Roman Empire, at least in the West.

Interesting point about Christianity, though. Though hard to carry, as it prospered in the Eastern Roman Empire for another 1000 years.

But it changed the day-to-day lives of so many Romans that it caused their foundations to slowly crumble. Nero was partly responsible for Christianity rising, that's why I named him. Had he not persecuted them as he had, people wouldn't have been so willing to aid them/join them.

Corruption.Falls under several things you have listed: internal squabbles, poor emperors, poor management

I wouldn't rate Christianity's rise as very high on the list. Rome had plenty of other problems. For example, the birth rate of Roman citizens had fallen considerably by the 3rd and 4th century. Ultimately, the qualifications for citizenship were eased, diluting Roman culture with members of other cultures and creating a diversity that was anathema to an empire whose foundation was Roman pride.

The Romans themselves grew soft on their luxuries, lost their devotion to traditional Roman faith (despite efforts by emperors like Domitian and Diocletian, who did far more than Nero to persecute Christians), and ultimately lost their pride as barbarian invasions took their toll. Pride in the empire devolved into pride for one's self, corruption, Roman vs. Roman, and the final collapse of the empire.

I'll post more later, after I've had time to sleep, but this:
And the migrating Visigoths? Again, hardly a people capable of matching Roman contemporary elements
Come on. Alaric and the Visigoths *served* in the Roman army- they had the same training, the same equipment, and Alaric was able to match tactics well enough - Hell, I'd even listed him in the "under rated" history thread.

If he hadn't died early, the Visigoths might have carved a very real niche for themselves.

Ok. Bedtime. I'll chime in with a 4 page response tomorrow. I *love* entropy.

Halo, for your edification even the barbarians had technical and tactical innovations that gave them an edge over the Romans in combat. Stirrups, composite recurve bows and cavalry tactics in particular. As time went on, they also learned infantry tactics. Their civil technology may have sucked, but militarily they did just fine.

Earlier in the history of the empire, the barbarians they faced used rudimentary tactics (line up and charge!) or ambush as their favored means of fighting and lacked effective armor for the most part. Later you began to see the barbarians emulate the Romans somewhat (many having served as auxiliaries with the Romans) and many had access to improved gear as well. With exposure came learning and the "barbarians" that sacked Rome later on were not all that far behind the Romans in gear and training.

Nooo. Bloody backspace wiped my answer away.
Hmm, lemme see..

Right - but surpassing or matching the Romans?
Many of these peoples didn't even have homes, and mostly all had travelled from Asia, and continued to do so, with neither the resources nor the stable and structured society that Rome possessed.

I guess you're right though, I do underestimate the barbarians of the time. It's hard not too, of course, when you're confronted with the likes of Atilla and his Huns.
However, I don't doubt tactics. Any general can possess good tactics, technology or not.

The bow I mentioned was smaller, had longer range and was just a better bow than anything the Romans had. Romans copied the stirrups from the barbarians later on. So yeah, in some areas of military utility the Romans were *behind* the barbarians.

One thing to remember, with sufficient numbers and some organization you don't *need* big cities of stone or a large trading network to enable you to conquer land.

Sorry for the late reply.

I've actually never heard of the barbarians using such a composite bow before. Any links? (not to prove you right, just actually interested).

On thinking about what you said - I would mostly have to agree.
Carthage, though advanced, did not support a civil or political structure as efficient as the Roman Republic in its earlier days. Though they ultimately lost the war, Hannibal of course managed to bring the city to its knees. Only a superb Roman feat of defiance enabled them to last out and hit back.
And I guess the same goes for the squabbling Greek states being disunited in all but their decision to stop Xerxes, which enabled them to beat off the entire Persian Empire.

Perhaps I thought of it the wrong way round. Maybe Rome's size was a hindrance to Rome, and a help to the invaders, barbarian or not.

Though I do stick to my initial belief that there was far more to Rome's downfall - far more important factors - than the barbarian invasions.
One of which definately has to be the rift between East and West. The other, the excessive conflict between would-be-Caeser or greedy Generals.

Speaking of barbarians though, it's interesting to wonder if the empire could have saved face if only the emporers of the time would have allowed certain tribes to just settle beyond the Rhine (or Danube) as they mostly wanted to do. Or, as someone mentioned, would that have created more problems than not allowing them? (Romans becoming a minority in their own empire..)

Rome fell because of another event you arent mentioning.
The move of the Huns into eastern europe. This moved several barbarian tribes into closer proximity to Rome, elevating the population of the area into one that the Rome could no longer manage effectively. The Huns in this case count as a sort of cataclysmic event that altered the physical makeup of Europe by rapid forced Migration of massive groups of people

But then that boils down to Gulor's suggestion - the barbarian invasions.
But we're talking about an empire that conquered most of the known world.
And so it isn't too hard to believe that a working, juggernaught of an empire such as Rome wouldn't have had a harm time sending the influx of tribes (that usually created a traffic jam in certain germanic/rhine passes such as the Bavarian Gap) packing in the opposite direction.
The Rhine frontier was perfectly capable of keeping Germanic assaults under control for centuries.

Which leads me to believe other factors had more impact than the shift of migrational patterns in the steppes of Asia and so in Europe.
Yes - they happened, and had an effect. But something internal to Rome had to have allowed it to have happened.

And I think that's well illustrated when the Scots and Pics penetraded Hadrian's Wall in Scotland. Away from the theatre of continental migrational patterns, the Scottish and Pictish assaults just goes to show the internal disorganization of the empire.

I have to agree that the barbarian invasions (the Huns in particular) were catalysts, but certainly not the dominant factors.

But what about Xena?!
I bet SHE had something to do with it!

i think it was a lot of reasons that contibuted hard to pin it down on just one .


The splitting of the empire to east and west , the east empire held the rich trade routes of the west and east also was smaller in size then west so expenses were less .

lots of the legions in the west left and joined the east empire when the west had trouble paying /supporting troop cost . that weakened the west city state .

rome had a habit of constripting peoples it defeated into it`s army to bolster troop size, while an ok practice many of the people would join for a few years learn roman strageys, tactics, etc then defect back to their people and train their people for an attack on rome .

at the time rome fell western empire they were stretched to thin do to lack of funds, and lack of loyal legions, ie. to many forgein troops in their ranks .

also standard roman policy of being your ally one year to tricking you into fighting someone else to weaken both their oppssition and you eventualy got the best of them as in all their allies turned on them,

the visgoths s an example , rome denied them citzenship after promsing , then starved them and only gave them food in return for their children as slave labor .

thus alrac rose up and smited them hehe . soon to follow were the vandals .

if there was only one thing you could pick to say brought about the fall of rome , i would have to say rome itself was it`s undoing .

go go history channel !!

You are misjudging the reason for the fall of the Greeks and Carthage(and the rise of the Romans).

All about Syracuse.

I don't think anyone was talking about that either of those, Crist0.

I blame the Christians :p

" Faith, such as early Christianity desired, and not infrequently achieved in the midst of a skeptical and southernly free-spirited world, which had centuries of struggle between philosophical schools behind it and in it, counting besides the education in tolerance which the Imperium Romanum gave--this faith is NOT that sincere, austere slave-faith by which perhaps a Luther or a Cromwell, or some other northern barbarian of the spirit remained attached to his God and Christianity, it is much rather the faith of Pascal, which resembles in a terrible manner a continuous suicide of reason--a tough, long-lived, worm-like reason, which is not to be slain at once and with a single blow.

The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice the sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit, it is at the same time subjection, self-derision, and self-mutilation. There is cruelty and religious Phoenicianism in this faith, which is adapted to a tender, many-sided, and very fastidious conscience, it takes for granted that the subjection of the spirit is indescribably PAINFUL, that all the past and all the habits of such a spirit resist the absurdissimum, in the form of which "faith" comes to it. Modern men, with their obtuseness as regards all Christian nomenclature, have no longer the sense for the terribly superlative conception which was implied to an antique taste by the paradox of the formula, "God on the Cross".

Hitherto there had never and nowhere been such boldness in inversion, nor anything at once so dreadful, questioning, and questionable as this formula: it promised a transvaluation of all ancient values--It was the Orient, the PROFOUND Orient, it was the Oriental slave who thus took revenge on Rome and its noble, light-minded toleration, on the Roman "Catholicism" of non-faith, and it was always not the faith, but the freedom from the faith, the half-stoical and smiling indifference to the seriousness of the faith, which made the slaves indignant at their masters and revolt against them.

"Enlightenment" causes revolt, for the slave desires the unconditioned, he understands nothing but the tyrannous, even in morals, he loves as he hates, without NUANCE, to the very depths, to the point of pain, to the point of sickness--his many HIDDEN sufferings make him revolt against the noble taste which seems to DENY suffering. The skepticism with regard to suffering, fundamentally only an attitude of aristocratic morality, was not the least of the causes, also, of the last great slave-insurrection which began with the French Revolution."

Interesting use of big words, but it forgets to take into account historical reality.

Rome and Romans were not overtly religious people. Constintine, when he took Christianity as his religion transformed the belief into one that was freeform and word of mouth to the institutionalized and regimented faith we know the today. The adaptation of festivals and holidays important to roman civic life were merely renamed to have christian significance. The equinox festivals and such... IF anything, the conversion to Christianity helped sustain a level continuity in the Roman empire.
What it DID was introduce the concept of "Caesar-Papism" and divine rule that would shape and mold Europe for hundreds of years.
Christianity at its core was more resembling of Islam, in that it was a introverted philosophy of faith and mans relationship with God on a personal level. The combination of the it with the Roman God Emperor cult (which traces back to Egyptian beliefs that the Romans also adopted for political expidence) was the point of its corruption and just now is christianity starting to come back to this point of it being a personal faith and relationship.