Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire with Regards to its Economics.

During the rule of Constantine in the 3rd and 4th centuries, Christianity became a staple in Roman life, ultimately aiding in the decline of the empire.  When Constantine granted religious tolerance to the empire and eventually made Christianity the official religion, he not only set Christians free to establish their own culture and society but he also opened the doors to religious conflicts between monotheistic and polytheistic worshipers.   This conflict would become apparent once Christianity began to take a strong hold on Roman life, leaving pagans to be ridiculed and eventually subject to Anti-Pagan laws during the rule of Constantine’s sons. After Constantine II’s victory over Magnentius he ordered his subjects to, “close the temples and abstain from sacrifice under pain of death; moreover the same penalty was to be applied to the governors of the provinces if they neglected to punish the disobedient.” Up until the decline of the Roman Empire, pagan followers clashed with Christians, creating slight unrest throughout the cities.

By Constantine establishing Christianity as the official religion of the empire and creating himself pontifex maximus, he allowed Christian culture to flourish and spread throughout the empire.  This spread eventually led Christian officials to gain sufficient power over the empire to in fact have more control than the emperor. Towards the end of the empire, the Roman culture had shifted its focus from its politically driven society to one based on Christianity and the structure of the church.

        Most notably put forth by Edward Gibbon, the empire’s decline may be attributed to loss of “civic virtue”, or societal decay. The morals and ethics of the people of the Rome were considered by many to have collapsed. The Roman virtues, once highly esteemed in the Roman Republic, had been all but forgotten a hundred years into the Empire. Valor, duty, and learning were replaced by idleness, egotism, and indulgence. Men were more interested in attending luxurious parties and viewing theatrical spectacles than marching on the battlefield, while women would flaunt themselves in translucent silk dresses. Once this process began, there was little to stop its runaway course, except for the remote chance of radical and intelligent reforms, which no Emperor had the courage or perhaps capability to perform.  It can also be noted that the fact that the height of this decay corresponds with Constantine’s conversion of the empire from paganism to Christianity as a factor. This prompts the question, “When people believe that the afterlife is the ultimate goal, and such qualities as meekness are desirable, how can those same people continue their ambition to conquer the world?” This viewpoint is however doubted by many, yet the underlying cause is considerably more complex and deeply embedded in the society and its development.

The Roman Empire was riddled with social and political problems whose causes are to be found long before the third century. However, there were other serious problems developing during the empire that were independent of economic, political, and social factors. Problems with the army and the rise in military and political anarchy that ensued were very serious. Closely linked to the previous point is the weakening of the Roman military. Beginning in the 3rd century, it became customary to generate much and eventually the majority, of the force by creating loose alliances with barbarian tribes. Such groups of warriors were called Foederati, primarily composed of Germanic tribes led by Germanic chieftains. In hindsight, one can see the transformation of the Roman military from a force composed mostly of Italians in the early empire, to one where only the commanding elite was Italian at the beginning of the 3rd century, and finally to one that was virtually entirely barbarian for the century before the ultimate fall of Rome. It is not surprising that putting the control of one’s armed forces effectively in the hands of your enemies and eventually becoming dependent on them should come back to harm. Indeed, the very leader of the people who sacked Rome in 410 AD, Alaric of the Visigoths, was a commander in a Roman foederatus, federated legion, in his early years, even spending some of his youth in Rome itself. Laxness, and even plain stupidity of the later rulers of the Empire may be blamed to a large extent for Rome eventually succumbing to foreigners – yet this does not even approach the core of the issue. It was noted by the historian Tacitus in his own time that the virtues upheld by the Germanic tribes, while differing greatly in certain ways, resembled in many respects the ancient Roman ones, and were crucially upheld while Rome was full of decay, especially well the luxuries of the civilized world could least penetrate. The warlike and ferocious nature encouraged in these tribal societies may not have made them a civilized or advanced people, but they excelled at one thing in particular: fighting.  This aptitude for violence and warfare eventually came to hurt the empire when it was faced with barbarian attacks towards its decline.

Though the Roman Empire had proved to be vast and wealthy state, the centuries leading up to its decline proved to be filled with economic missteps from inflation to hoarding gold and silver. Economic weaknesses and their social repercussions were largely to blame for the decline that Rome went through during the third century. Due to the nature of economic development during the Republic and the ramifications thereof, Rome developed an economy riddled with weaknesses and problems. These inherent economic weaknesses began to manifest themselves during Gibbon’s “golden age”. The system of small estates developed during the Republic gave way to the system of the great imperial private estates. The growth of the large estate was a catalyst to the general decline of Rome as a symptom. By the third century the great era of the industrial city-state was over and during the second century we see the reversion from an industrial life based on the wide use of coinage to more primitive conditions of payments. As the empire grew it needed a state system of credits able to support the intricate and highly organized commercial life of the empire we see a retrogression of this sort of system if anything. The decline of the slave-market lead to a system whereby the free peasantry increasingly became the work-tool of the state and the landowners also became a work-tool bound to the place where they were needed. The social structure resulting from this sort of economic system also had the bad effect of creating a very restricted internal market. The empire seemed prosperous and successful but it was essentially thriving on borrowed time. The artificial supports provided by expansionism helped to conceal these problems, but at the price of eating up huge amounts of money and further reinforcing the problems of limited demand, technical inadequacy and decentralization. The costs of running the empire continued to increase exponentially along with a corresponding decrease in productivity and the ability of many to pay. From this we see the rise bureaucracy and therefore further pressure on the Roman citizens, the middle classes in particular. The increasing materialism of the Romans also seemed to contribute to a general weakening of the Roman “spirit”. The empire had dug itself into a hole from which it could not escape and went into terminal decline. The barbarization of the military beginning under Hadrian and the disastrous political effects of this were also very important. It was the legions that had repressed the Republic and it was the legions once again who violated the “majesty of the purple”. The civil wars, which were the result of this along with its political, economic and social problems, affected the empire to such an extent that it could no longer defend itself effectively against its enemies. By the fourth century such damage had been inflicted that the Roman world was never the same again and eventually went into terminal decline. 

        Through an examination of Roman society throughout the later years of the empire, one is able to efficiently provide and explanation for its demise. In the case of the Roman Empire, its main deterrent was its economics.  Through overspending, inflation, and universal greed; the Roman Empire was not powerful enough to sustain its level of dominance in the ancient world.  As mentioned earlier, the decline of the Roman Empire cannot be defined through one specific event or factor but should viewed as a transition brought on by a combination of volatile factors. As Edward Gibbons states, “The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight.” 

Works Cited:

Antonio, Robert J. "The Contradiction of Domination and Production in Bureaucracy: The Contribution of Organizational Efficiency to the Decline of the Roman Empire." American Sociological Review 44.6 (1979): 898-899. Web. 27 Jun 2011.

Heather, Peter. The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. Oxford Univ Pr, 2007. 202, 342. Print.

Garnsey, Peter, and Richard P. The Roman Empire: Economy, Society, and Culture. Univ of California Pr, 1987. 51-52. Print.

Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 3. 1993. 386, 152. Print.

Grindle, Gilbert E.A. The Destruction of Paganism in the Roman Empire: From Constantine to Justinian. Blackwell, 1892. 10. Print

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