The idea of the fall of the Roman Empire is a complex answer. Although there is no real answer to the fall there can be narrowed down to a few ideas. Most of my paper will be based off the idea of Gibson’s theory of “Its simply too big”. Gibson wrote a few books on this topic which made me feel as though he is credible. Also, most philosophers and historians tend to branch off and use his idea to create their own. The idea that Gibson brings up is very interesting, how the worlds biggest and strongest Empire just fell, because it was simply too big. So this raised a question: did it really just fall, because of Gibson’s theory of it being simply too big or was there more to it? I chose this topic to find this out and get to the bottom of his idea. The problem is, the answer is not as simple as it may seem. There are many options according to the sources I will be presenting to you. The fall of the Roman Empire can be very difficult to explain with one answer.
My research process began with coming up with a question that involved with the Roman Empire. I was curious to find out what caused the Roman Empire, which was once so powerful, to fall. To began I started to look into different historians view points on what lead to the decline of the Roman Empire. Some of the common theories I found involved Barbarian Tribe invasions, economic troubles, or change of religious values (Andrews, 2014). One of the most convincing theories was the idea of different religious values. The Roman Empire at the time didn’t have one true religion which lead to most of the kingdom feel separated. This separation could lead to a lot of problems, while yes the Roman Empire was massive the different view points of its people may of lead to its corruption. Also what played a big part is the with the Empire was so big and there was a lot of poverty most of the people were going really poor with poor people in your kingdom it. This could lead to what Evan Andrews was saying this could lead to barbarians rising inside the kingdom lines getting the Roman’s people to join them who had little to no money which lead them with an opportunity to steal from the king of Roman and getting an opportunity of wealth. This happened, because of the poor Roman Empire who is constantly defending enemy lies which cost a lot of money especially when it takes weeks to rely one message to one of these commanders. (Andrew, 2014) The Roman Empire did realize that there was no religious beliefs thats when they decided to come up with the Roman Catholic Church, most of the people of the empire were Christians thats why they decided to make it. Them making this was too little too late though the people of Roman had already started to turn their backs to the king in most areas. This started to make the Empire very weak, this started to make it seem like the Roman kingdom could only trust those who lived in Rome and no where else. That makes you wonder if they were able to fix the problem of religion earlier could that may change everything in the Roman Empire.
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There was plenty of sources on the Roman Empire and historians for years have been trying to get to the bottom of the decline of it which got me interested to see what I could find. The source that I feel like gave me the most out of it was the book by Gibbon. His idea of the “Roman Empire was just simply too big” was a good idea the way he laid it out really brought me in and influenced my own perspective on. Gibbon mentioned that it was too big, because of communication between the Empire. It took weeks or days depending what part of the kingdom they were trying to rely a message too. This idea made Gibbon believe that there is no way a kingdom can function how it needs to with how large it was. This idea led me to some questions. Yes, that could be a problem, and looking back now it seems like that was the main problem. But I believe the main problem was the division of the kingdom and the differences between the people of the Roman Empire. What if they had introduced a new religion and with this religion they could give their people hope and a way to all come together. I believe this is the biggest reason for the downfall of the Roman Empire, because they lacked something which united them.
What I’ve learned over the course of doing reaseach on this topic. At first I didn’t realize how complicated you could really make this topic, because there was so much that could play apart in what led up to the decline of the Roman Empire. What I knew before was not what happened at all. I knew very little about the Roman Empire it seemed very interesting to me. Along the way I’ve discovered a lot about the Roman Empire, not only how it fell but learned how it came to power as well. Some of the discovers was truly how big the Roman Empire was and how many people and cultures were apart of it. It truly was a world power that was a forced to be reckon with. Before researching I assumed that the Roman Empire was just powerful and no one could take it down and everyone apart of it was rich and very involved. After researching it realizing that was not the case at all. The Roman Empire was very much full of poor citizens and divided people. It was not how I envisioned it at all, there was so much more to it than looking at the big picture. It makes you wonder if they were able to bring everyone together which I believe was the main problem they truly lacked something to bring all the citizens together, they found away to bring the Roman Catholic Church sooner it would have maybe been able to revive the Empire. I believe that it would have, but by the looks of Evan Andrews, Edward Gibbon, Paul Spilsbury, and Joshua Mark that was not the whole picture that was just something to add to the long list of problems in the Roman Empire. Which made me believe that there had to be one core problem like Gibbon presented with it just being too big, it was the lack of foundation and religious beliefs everyone could get behind and come together.
