What ever happened to one of the ancient world’s most powerful civilizations like the Western Roman Empire? It couldn’t possibly have just vanished overnight. This much is correct, the roman empire didn’t collapse in a matter of days, it was torn apart by years of corrupt government making poor decisions, a dying economy, and the decline of the citizens of the empire. Together all of these factors provided the final blow that would reduce the empire to remains.

Before the Romans’ internal issues started to negatively affect the wellbeing of the Empire, for hundreds of years the civilization prevaled as Europe’s most influential power. It was thought to have been founded by Latium village members, and the city became known officially as Rome in 625 B.C. The Roman Republic thrived for almost four hundred and fifty years because of huge military advances, and the expansion of borders outside present day Italy. At one point the empire was over one million square miles. These military advances ultimately caused the growth of the economy too, this is caused by the influx of slaves to work on farms and help to produce more goods to trade with. This economy was also boosted by the growing number of trade ports that Rome conquered. The Roman Republic came to a screeching halt with the infamous name Julius Caesar taking power after a civil war that he had played a part in starting. He proclaimed that he was dictator of Rome for life. While his reign was short lived, cut off by his murder about a year later, Rome had fallen into some turmoil. This was all restored by Augustus Caesar taking power. His time as leader started the Pax Romana, 200 years of peace and self improvement. It was after this when the trouble started to overwhelm Romans.

One of the most obvious issues that could arrive after the Pax Romana is government issues. These problems had been set off by leaders and the senate carelessly spending Rome’s riches on expensive parties, colosseums and, luxuries. This reckless behavior was never stopped by the citizens because they were content as long as the emperors kept peace. The government was corrupt due to the fact that no one had ever established a reliable way to choose new leaders. When the senate started to frequently have disagreements with the poorly chosen leaders, they would often murder them. In fact, within the span of 75 years close to 20 dictators rose to power and were murdered. This was due to the fact that the senate was also concerned with taking absolute power of Rome.  Once the political violence and corruption got out of hand, military generals would sell the position to the person who would pay them the most amount of money, some would even take the position by force. Military generals would do this because, like the senate they too were power hungry, and never had the interest of the empire at hand. This unruly system of taking power was so catastrophic because near the collapse of the empire, no one had any desire to take on the role of leader. Close to every leader was murdered in a brutal way by either the senate, military officials, or the people of Rome itself.

To add onto the problem, Rome’s economy had started to deteriorate. One of the first signs of trouble, was the widening gap between wealthy and poor. Once the richer started to erect plantations, and use slave labor to grow crops, the small farmers started to suffer. Desperate the farmers would move to the larger cities to look for work, and without luck would often wind up homeless, or extremely impoverished. They would end up on the streets because many of the wealthy would use slave labor instead of hired and paid craftsmen, and artisans.

Because slaves were so heavily depended on you can imagine the problems that would arise if the military stopped supplying Rome with slaves. This is exactly what happened, as the government started to fall into chaos, expansion halted. This meant that once the empire stopped conquering new lands, and taking the citizens as slaves, slaves would stop being imported. So, as the slaves started to dwindle, plantations started to suffer and weren’t able to produce as many goods. In cities, the absence to slave labor meant that Romans weren’t selling the products crafted at the hands of slaves. The economic trouble didn’t end here. While the richer thad been gaining more money, they were also wasting it on luxuries from Asia. By doing this they were spending Rome’s riches, and causing inflation. This is because Rome’s currency was made of precious metals, but once they were used up Rome used more semi precious metals decreasing its value.

To complete this trifecta of issues that would destroy the empire, we have the decline of the citizens themselves. One of the first more preventable issues was deaths, the wealthy citizens used lead pipes to run water to their homes consequently, they would often suffer from lead poisoning them. For the lower class, hygiene was a life threatening issue; Romans would throw their waste out onto the streets, including human waste. The main reason living in filth could be so dangerous was that homeless didn’t have access to clean water, so for anyone who had to spend their days on these streets without a home to go and bathe in this could very easily cause diseases that could become deadly. The waste would additionally contaminate the water supply for the working class as well, so the diseases born from human waste would harm multiple of the cities’ social classes.

In 284 AD a powerful Roman general took power as the dictator. Diocletian split the empire into two sections, eastern and western halves. Diocletian then gave his close friend Constantine power of the new half of the empire. He theorized that this would make the vast land easier to govern. He believed that the two halves could work together, and would share resources and military support. This plan did work for a little while until the empires started to drift apart, and finally cut ties with one another. The eastern half survived as the Byzantine Empire from 330 AD to 1453 AD.

In the end, the Roman Empire finally fell the day that the Goths, a Germanic tribe entered the city of Rome without opposition from military forces. The factors that led up to this day include government corruption, economic instabilities, and the decline of public health. I  believe that the issue that had the most effect was, the government’s issues, due to the fact that an empire depends on its government to keep itself safe, and stable in all aspects; the Roman Empire’s leaders failed to do this. Leaders had tried to save the Empire, but it was beyond repair. It was the collapse of one of the most powerful Empires of the ancient world. Even though the Roman Empire dominated most of europe, parts of the Middle East, and Africa it was victim to small factors, that added up to its demise.