Fall of Rome

The Fall of Rome

When Western Rome collapsed in 476, the world saw Rome at its weakest point. The Eastern Empire was about to collapse but with the help of the Byzantine people, it didn't. With the collapse of one of the strongest empires in the world, many people were wondering why and how could such an influential empire fall? The collapse or fall of Rome is one that is very unthinkable. Although it is unthinkable there is one reason why Rome fell, nomadic and tribal invaders.

Rome has always had a problem with invaders, for example Britannia and in Gaul just to name a few. These invaders were problem for Rome because they did not have a big enough army not saying their armies were not huge, which they were.Just think how you would defend 6.5 million km of land from invaders who wanted it? Tough question to ask and the Romans didn't have the answer either. The Roman's problem all started with a people called the Goths.

The Goths were made up of western Visigoths and eastern Ostrogoths. They were nomadic people that lived around the area of the Rhine and Danube Rivers. These people were trying to flee from attackers in the East and they ran into land owned by the Roman Empire. The Romans let them in but as history reads, Rome is never nice and just gives away their land. There is always a price to pay for Roman land. The Goths had to pay this price by being mistreated and abused. Finally the Goths revolted in AD 378 and defeated the large Roman army near the Rhine River. By defeating the large army with their heavy armor, they killed the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens. After Rome's defeat at Adrianpole, there was nothing stopping the Goths from pillaging Rome. In AD 410 the Visigoth king Alaric and his troops sacked Rome. This was the first time Rome was sacked in over 800 years.

That attack on Rome proves the point that, The Roman Empire could not defend itself well enough to defeat an invading peoples with not nearly the power or strength that Rome once had. How could such a small army defeat an Empire that once ruled all of Europe and the Mediterranean? The answer is they could not get it together and defend what they thought was theirs. Many empires have fallen due to invaders such as, the Inca, Aztec, Persian, Byzantine, Assyria, and the Romans. All of these empires have one thing in common. They all collapsed after barbaric tribes invaded their lands.

Rome embraced barbarians and used them as a way of making more money by taxing and also building a bigger army. Although this all sounded good to Rome, they ultimately lost territory to barbarian tribes over time. The Roman Empire lost the most land in Carthaginian Africa near present day Tunis. Rome lost this land in present day Tunis to the Vandals, which happened during St.Augustine's reign. With Rome letting barbarians ultimately " steal " their empire,