What Caused the Fall of the Western Roman Empire?

There were many factors that contributed to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, all of which will be discussed throughout the video. The Western Roman Empire took 300 years to decline before it eventually fell in c. 476 CE. The Eastern Roman Empire continued 1453 CE.

By the Third Century CE, the emperor Diocletian made the decision to spit the Roman Empire into the Western and Eastern Empire, as it was too large to govern as one entity. After the division of the Roman Empire, factors such as political corruption, over reliance on slave labour and invasions from barbarians caused the gradual decline of the Empire.

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- TIMESTAMPS-
0:13 Overview of main causes for the fall of Rome
1:03 Split of the Empire
1:24 Invasion of Barbarian Tribes
2:09 Corruption of the Government
2:32 Over-reliance on Slave Labour
3:08 Rise of Christianity
4:14 Cult of the Emperor
4:40 Crisis of the Third Century
5:23 Image Attributions

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World History Encyclopedia

[WorldHistoryEncyclopedia]

Do you think there was one cause for the fall of the Roman Empire which was more destructive than any other? Let us know which one and why!

[HOMER]

Sounds like history about to repeat itself in the United states.

[BringJocBackToAtlanta]

Thanks Mate Helped me with my schoolwork got 96% Great Vid BTW

[slleddovahkiin]

Is this feeling like America in a political, corruption, militia, job and inflation aspect?

[liddyyamaha]

I love history and regret not educating myself more when in school. Its easily the most important subject.
School really does a poor job teaching and more or less just pushes their agenda of having students mash information to test better and produce better scores to make schools look good.

[beyondlegendDiomand]

Greeds and corruptions which no one could stop it even the Rome emperors and the classes made the empire fall.

[njhoepner]

The problem with most of the explanations given in this video - which are merely a list of the standard reasons out there among historians - is that: 1) all of the same "problems" existed in the Eastern Empire as in the Western Empire, yet the Eastern Empire thrives for centuries more; and 2) most of these reasons were not a change from the empire of the time of Augustus. For example: the Roman government was always corrupt, it was based on tax farming and self-enrichment opportunities for its officials; the loyalty of the Army hadn't been to Rome since the days of Marius (around 90 BCE), the soldiers were loyal to their generals, who fought each other for power; Germans and other "barbarians" had been a large part of the army since the days of Augustus; slavery was more common in the empire's years of "greatness" (the Julian emperors, the Antonine emperors) than in the fifth century; from the days of Julius Caesar onwards, virtually no one had a say in politics, the empire was a military dictatorship from beginning to end; people in the city of Rome being "on the dole" began in the days of Julius Caesar as well...and the free "bread and circuses" did not apply anywhere else in the empire.
I would say the real causes are complex, but mainly two: first, the Germanic peoples on Rome's borders, responded to Roman pressure by becoming more militarized themselves, and transitioning from hundreds of small "tribes" to perhaps a dozen powerful groupings, large enough to stand up to the Roman military (the Goths, Saxons, Franks, Vandals, Brugundians, Alemanni, etc), which greatly increased the pressure on the Roman military and its border regions; second, strategic errors, both the decision by Constantine to give up border defense for defense in depth, and the decision by Aetius and others to focus on trying to hold on to Gaul and failing to stop the fall of North Africa to the Vandals...the damage to Rome's tax base from these decisions meant they could no longer pay a sufficient army, and thus had to accommodate the "barbarian" "tribes" and accept their occupation of more and more of the western empire.

[addisonbullard]

I think the corruption of military had a lot to do with it.

[wzra_]

thanks very much for the hard work of such usefully description

[jmk]

Corruption is an aspect that is understated here. Corruption is typically the cause of most problems in empires as the rulers seek to benefit themselves rather than others which ends with the citizens feeling alienated and not willing to stand up to foreign threats. This can manifest itself in many ways, like the people dont go into the military because they think the war is pointless, they dont research techs and form industries (like why did Rome never industrialize... the rulers invested in themselves and their lifestyles rather than the security of the nation and making it able to supply troops), people in general care less about the government and wouldnt mind watching it collapse and many more things. The insatiable greed of the rulers also distracted them from actually running the economy, and it really started crashing in the west which ultimately lead to their defeat. They were also heavily militaristic and with the corruption of the government officials, they were willing to pay for bloated wars which resulted in the military contractors soaking up a lot more money without a significant increase in performance... kinda like the modern US military that somehow manages to spend more than the next 10 countries combined, yet the other countries only lag behind the US a little bit regarding their tech, with the main difference being the US has more stuff

[brianmaquena]

A couple of incorrect assertions.

1. Rise of Christianity
--> You state that before the emperors were treated as gods during the Principate and through the time of Constantine, but this is not true. Under the Principate system (roughly, Octavian through Marcus Aurelius or Alexander Severus, depending on your viewpoint), the emperors weren't treated as gods till after they died. Rather, they were First Citizens, holding a wholly-republican veneer over the regime. Routinely, you had the "bad emperors" such as Domitian and Constantine who tried to pass themselves off as gods, but these dudes always got killed.

It was during the Dominate (starting somewhere from Commodus or Maximinus Thrax, depending on your viewpoint) that the emperors were treated as gods or as some sort of viceroy on earth of god.

2. Slave Labor
--> Slaves went out of style by the time of Commodus. There were less foreign conquests and, therefore, less slaves. That's why the Romans turned to coloni (the first serfs of Europe or proto-Feudalism). The problem wasn't that the serfs.

3. Division of the Empire
--> There's actually a lot of debate for why the division happened but it wasn't solely done for administrative purposes. Many times it was: Aurelius had his colleague Lucius Verus be the face of the imperial crown during the Parthian war and, after the death of Verus, Aurelius assigned another Roman general (Avidus Cassius) to be in charge of the east as the now-sole emperor fought the Macromannic wars. However, Diocletion divided the empire likely as a means of fending off challengers. Leadbetter talks about this in his book, "Galerius and the Will of Diocletian" and based off the history and the later actions of Galerius and Constantine, Leadbetter's hypothesis that the Tetrarchy was a means of instituting a sort of military junta system that allowed members of the new officer corps to cooperate in holding power, that seems like the likely reason for the institution of the Tetrarchy. Whatever the case, the Tetrarchy failed, Constantine established a hereditary monarchy again, and his sons divided the empire since none of them had the ability to rule alone like their father. So, yes, correct reasoning but an incorrect example in the Tetrarchy.

Also under this point was how you correctly pointed out that there was competition between east and west, with the latter getting the short end of the stick. This is true as the east bribed the Huns to not attack them and encouraged them to attack the west. I would argue, though, that this is a symptom of different and much larger problem: not so much the division of the empire, but rather the breakdown of the Dominate system. This would require further explication that I won't give out here.

Lot of good stuff in the video and I love discussing it all. Thank you for producing it.

[philipsullivan]

Probably the weak and corrupt rulers that wasted money on celebrations.

[truthgamingandvlogs]

Very informative and Enjoyable video. I recommend it to all people. Nice work! 👍👍

[gutsjoestar]

you also forgot, the heavily militaruzed government, only 2 emperor died of natural cause, the rest were assasinated, emperor were now military guys, generals, and fought to be emperor

[cookiemonster]

Who else is here from history class \/

[PeopleHealthTru]

Reasons 1. Tyrants 2. Govt Corruption 3. Too big 4. Massive spending, welfare 5. Devalue money 6. Divergent cultures, Immigration. 7. Irresponsibility 8. Imm-orality, ge-nder dis-orders. Familiar?

[truthgamingandvlogs]

Anyone here from Pakistan Online history class?

[stevenescover]

Presentation has a bias in it. Reference your comments about Rome supporting low income worker's with olive oil and bread and the United States Welfare systems.
The truth is the Roman System started when the empire shifted to a dictatorship, a emperor heredity. Victory games in the colosseum which ran for days. Then months and because of numerous wars the citizen army became a professional army which required larger and larger amounts of Treasury funds to support it. The military destroyed the social economic structure of the early republic days. Small businesses and farmers who raised crops were repeatly sent off to foreign wars. Those lands were taken over by wealthy individuals and the wars brought slaves back to these land owners. The wealth gap and the lower classes became pronounced which slowly destroyed the social fabric. Italy became a region of extremes in income distribution. Extreme wealthy on top and a very large body of poor people on the bottom. The wealthy abused there rights and privileges at the expense of the lower classes gradually. They caused corruption to spread through bribes and other vices.
The increasing taxes to support infrastructures grew when Rome stopped conquering other groups of peoples. Everytime they defeated an competing nation they sack it of its wealth in gold and silver. This paid troops. The grain to feed the masses moved from Italy to Spain, North Africa, Egypt and Anatolia (Turkey).
After 140.A.D. every emperor kept raising the wages of the Pratarian Guard and the regular troops. Politicization of the Military Commanders caused rebellions with horrible Emperor's.
There was a significant shift in the weather patterns in the granary producing provinces about 180 A.D.
Plus outbreaks of plagues killing upperward of 40% of the population required using the Germanic tribes (Federari) troops to supplement them in the ranks to defend the borders.
So the social values and economic structures changed gradually.
Now our own current situation in leadership has striking similarity. A extremely corrupt head of state tampering and destroying long established norms and laws for selfish needs. It matches Emperor Commodus or later in the cyclical pattern of the Empire. So my conclusion it is our species who fail to be on guard of our own strengths and weakness that
Cause these rise and declines in various societies and civilizations.
A side note is that with technologies now societies are subject now even more so to major shifts and self destruction.

[AlphaPOTUS]

This sounds far too familiar. I am praying that the United States will wake up.

[dangroom]

But during the crisis of the 3rd century, Christianity is just one of many religions, and it is not embraced by the powerful men of the upper classes who run government. It is a religion of the poor and women. It is primarily urban, and far more popular in the east than the west; it is the west where Rome "fell". You could try to make a connection to post Constantine, but pre-Constantine is more than a bit of a stretch I think. The power center and capital of the empire pre-Constantine is still Rome. It is the west.