G9 Fall of Rome essay

FCAs                                                                                       Brendan McGrath

10% Spelling, caps, end marks, commas                                             E period

25% Explain at least 3 internal causes                                     Mr. Schreider

25% Explain at least 3 elements of the external cause             November 24, 2003

40% Analysis supported by 3 logical reasons

The Fall of Rome

The fall of the Roman Empire was caused by not simply one particular incident; it fell because of many events that eventually lead up to its ruin.  A famous historian recently said, “Rome fell not primarily because of the barbarian invasions but because of its own inner weaknesses.” This means that there were numerous reasons that were responsible for Rome’s decline.

            There were many internal reasons that explain the fall of Rome.  One reason is their social life.  During the time of it’s decline the families were diminishing.  The rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer.  Most of Rome’s people were poor and because of this, they couldn’t provide for their family. The fathers were responsible to provide the family with their needs, but because they were so poor, they couldn’t afford the basic necessities.  This caused the men to have a low self-esteem so they would usually either abandon their family or even commit suicide!  This made Rome’s families very dysfunctional. Many of these troubled children joined the military, which was another reason for the decline and eventual fall of the Roman civilization.  Since the military had dysfunctional soldiers many problems arose.  Most of these soldiers just assumed that they were good because they were a part of the “Great Roman Army”, but it was quite the opposite. The army became so pitiable that at one time that the Romans even hired a group of barbarians to protect Rome from the other barbaric tribes.  A third internal problem of Rome was plumbism.  The Romans used aqueducts that brought the melting snow from the mountains into the empire with lead pipes.  As the water was running through these pipes some of the water absorbed the lead, which gave the Romans lead poisoning when they drank the water.  The rich, who were mostly the government leaders, even added more lead into the water because they thought it tasted better.  This made most of Rome’s leaders go insane, and that would have definitely been a contributing factor to the fall of Rome.

            Rome wasn’t completely responsible for its collapse; there were also external reasons that affected Rome and its people.  The major external reason was the Germanic Barbaric Wars.  These barbarians came from northern lands, and were typically tall, fair-skinned, and had blond hair and blue eyes.  They spoke an indo-European language and grunted a lot.  Their weapons were crude and the men hunted a great deal.  They were also incredibly vicious and aggressive, making them such good warriors.  When they fought the Roman soldiers they were ruthless and to them “might makes right”.  They came to Rome due to the fact that every few years they would move south because they had either exhausted their hunting grounds, needed more time to grow crops or just liked the warmth, or because they were curious what lay south of them.  When the barbarians saw the roman soldiers yelling and bragging to them, they didn’t know what the Romans were saying, so the Barbarians attacked them.  The Roman army was too weak to defeat the barbarians, therefore they lost and that was the end of the Great Roman Empire. 

            The major cause for the decline and eventual fall of the Roman Empire was the lack of strong family bonds.  Because families weren’t as close as they should be, they became extremely dysfunctional.  Families were not as supporting as they used to be because the father couldn’t provide for them.  This started a whole chain of events that lead to the downfall of Rome.  The next part of the chain was in the military.  When the children of the dysfunctional families were sent to the army, the army had many problems with their soldiers.  Because the military had such horrible soldiers they couldn’t really win a war, let alone fight in one.  This lead to political problems.  How could someone expect a leader to govern a country if they don’t have a decent army to protect them from their enemies?  Consequently, the Roman government leaders couldn’t provide strong forces to defend Rome from the barbarians.  These barbarians destroyed Rome systematically for about two weeks, which left Rome in ruins.  Therefore, it can, in part, all be traced back to the dysfunctional families in Rome.