Edward Gibbons Fall of Rome essays

Edward Gibbons Fall of Rome essays In Edward Gibbons, DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE he argues that the reason for Rome's fall is because of Germanic invasions, a decline in public morality, and the rise of Christianity. With all of the above statements I would agree that Edward Gibbons is correct. They all help in the fall of the Roman empire. Where I think he did go wrong was in neglecting to state the other numerous reasons that help contribute to its fall. Three of these other factors that I think are also very important are; the lack of further expansion, the low level of technological advances, and the natural reaction of the rulers to hole up in their country estates with all their slaves at the first sign of weakening markets. The first of these reasons does not begin at Rome's collapse but at its starting point. From the begenning Rome had always grown in both wealth and size. It was with this constant expansion that Rome's economy continued to flourished. With steadily expanding borders they collected more and more markets, and in so doing, gained access to many new goods and resources. One of these aquired resources that played a huge role in Empire is slavery. When Rome quit going to war it lost it's ability to gain POWs, or slaves. With this sudden lack of supply for new slaves, the cogs of Roman society began to falter and go unreplaced. The same thing that happened to the slavery industry was repeated with many of the other industries of Rome at approximately the same time. This general collapse in Rome's overall economy was a result of the empire consuming at a rate far greater than allowed. A reason that lead to Rome's inability to remain self-sustaining as an Empire was it's lack of technology. Technological advance did not increase at a rate proportional to the increase of the people per square mile. This lead to the inability of the Romans to become self-sustaining. Once again the slave trade was a reas...