Whether religious or not, any reasonable person decently fluent in history knows that the fall of the Roman Empire was a loss to the enlightened world. The Romans held the most power in the world in their time. Their philosophers and scientists made many advancements, which respectively formed the basis of modern thought and scientific progress. More importantly, however, is the fact that Rome held the western world together. The ancient world was filled with various ethnic groups, which were used to governing themselves until they were annexed by the Romans, who though they allowed these groups to continue their customs, pressed their Roman rule onto them. The world grew dependent upon the Roman order, also known as the pax Romana, or Roman peace.

So what happens when the greatest and most powerful entity on earth is pushed over by barbarians? The world goes mad, with warfare raging across the countryside. There is no more order. The stability that used to foster progress is dead and is replaced by cavemen clad in loincloths throwing dung at each other. People yearned again for peace, and only one institution has the weight necessary to restore order, the organisation that was already established to a length during the Empire: the Catholic Church. Aided by the Byzantines from the East, the Church seized control.

The Pope, however, was not a caesar. The Church failed to give the conditions necessary for the same sort of enlightened golden age that reigned during the Romans. Instead, the western world was forced to endure a thousand years of Dark Ages. Knowledge was witchcraft, and God forbid knowledge should survive without the Church's guidence!—Though a sliver of discovery was usurped by the Church, much knowledge faced the same fate as the library at Alexandria. One keen example of this is Archimedes' original discovery (as opposed to that of Newton) of calculus, which was carefully documented on several pages only to be haphazardly erased and be obscured by prayers scrawled on the same pages. I can objectively state that the "Roman" Catholic Church was not a fare trade-off for SPQR.

 

 

 

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Rome being the worlds super power in its time had domininated other nations culturally, militarily and economically. They rose to their position of power over time through the hard work of the people in the nation. Once they had achieved their pinacle as a nation the Roman people had become richa and prospeous. There is no need to push oneselve physically and mentally due to the abundance of wealth. Because of this the Roman people became lazy. When an entire generation becomes lazy the wealth of that genrations parents is spent and diminishes. Then the following genration will fail to maintain the wealth. That following generation could not maintain the vast empire the previos generations had created. And thus the fall of the Roman Empire.

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I think thar Roman Empire was fall becouse of the church and religion... When the religion was broken apart in two pieces in both of parts was those peoples who was confused what to belive in... Yes, they was living in same country, but they was fighting about what is wright, and what is wrong... In these days church had a most powerfull afect on population, and if you look closer, even today you can feel there is a diference between these two religion. But that is just my opinion, and it might not be a real thruth, but..... Here is a fact: Most of population belive in God, and we are still fighting in holy wars......

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I've talked with my history teacher on this subject... I asked her if she thinks the decline and fall of the Roman empire has anything to do with Christianity. She said that thru the provinces of the empire any religion was permitted as long as the people would swear faith to the emperor. Some people even adapted there own faith to that of the empire and imported some gods from the romans. When Christianity came... well the christians weren't that eager to swear faith to an emperor which was not God or did not have anything to do with the church. The religion prohibited this... What happened? Less and less people obeyed the orders of the emperor, the trust and respect for the emperor diminished and with it came the Empire's collapse, of course on top of many other problems. It seems a pretty valid theorie.
What nobody can attack is the fact that the collapse of the Roman Empire was a severe blow to menkind. Dark Ages followed and so on... We can say that menkind lost 1000 years of progress due to the collapse of the empire and "thanks" to the efforts of the church. I can only imagine where we would have been now if is weren't for the Dark Ages...

 

 

 

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YOu could also say Romans fell due to the fact of greed. every man in rome probably wanted to be and emporer and every man in rome probably had the money and poeple to do that so they fought against each other. not in the sence of blood shed and huge armies but small bickerings that slowly resulted in deaths of leading poeple.
the roman leadership was always unstable i dont think there was a time when it was actuly safe?

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Yeah but you see... if there wasn't for the competition only weak emperors would have ruled Rome. Not as if there where a lot a great emperors... only a few could be in the hall of fame.
I have read somewhere on the internet another theorie that I would like to discuss with you. It is said that the Roman Empire fell because it's economy was based on plunder and slaves. Those two things were of course provided by conquest. That wasn't a problem until the empire became to big to defend and to weak to conquer further. Romania, the place where I live, is the old roman province of Dacia, the last province to be conquered (it marked the very peak to territorial conquest) and the first province to be abandoned. So you see everything was well until they could not conquer anymore... the enemies where to many, the frontiers to large to defend, the army to small and ill prepared to further conquer. As nomore plunder and slaves came to Rome the economy started to decline, starting a chain reaction that would end only with the Empire's fall. This theorie suggests that the Roman Empire was doomed from the very beginning, because it was built like an extremly efective war machine (maybe the most efective of all times), but once it was stoped there was no way to start it again. But why did it stop!?

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Seriously do not blame Christianity for the fall of Rome. They crucified Gods one and only son. Wake up blinded humans! I Call me crazy but its Satan's wish that you don't think he exists. Well.. he does! When god takes his people there is going to be a man who comes proclaiming peace..

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I guess it's just a reality that most empires (well, we still have to wait for China to fall) will have to fall, someday, one way or the other.

When you have eaten most of the world, what's left to eat than yourself?

It's true for most empires. Egypt Empire, British Empire, Rome, etc. Each have their own specific reasons but somehow, the old ways fell and the empire crumble. Ozymandias.

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Julius C. was the leader, the backbone of the roman empire, without him, after his assassination of course, perhaps by coincidence or not, the roman empire started to fall, in my opinion, because there was not a single leader or even a politician thas had the same dream as Julius C. which, in my opinion, was to create a world where he could develop and control, besides, he had a lot of enemies, even if there was others with power and with the same ideas, there was so many enemies of him and his ideas that no one had the courage to fight to keep the roman empire alive and safe from the the other enemies, the outside enemies of the roman empire.

The reason, if i had to simply answer just like that, it was the death of Julius C., he was the heart and soul of it all, obviously, despite the fact that he was so much like hitler in the matter of killing inocent people/enemies, but it was another age.

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I'm sure that most of the things that happened during the time of the Roman Empire still happen today, but most of them never get on TV or in the newspaper or on the Internet. Besides there has been time to unveil most of the secrets. Who knows? Maybe in a thousand years some scientist will discover that 9-11 has been done with the full cooperation of the US government. Besides you can hardly compare Julius Caesar to Hitler since the second was a genius (at least in the first part of his political career) but an evil one and the first could be named a military genius.
Julius Caesar is the builder of the Roman Empire but the one that has taken it to new heights was Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. Augustus (as he was known) is known for the policies he implemented which lead to a period of great prosperity (most think it was the greatest) known as Pax Romana or Pax Augusta. As I have said many think that after this 40 year period (which essentially had small wars) of peace the Empire started to slowly but surely decline. This 40 year period could be called the peak of the Roman Empire, after which everything started going wrong.
What Julius Caesar didn't realize is that by naming itself dictator and completely disregarding the institution of the senate he sealed his fate. As history shows Augustus hasn't made the same mistake, he kept the senate even if only as a facade. Many centuries later the same "traditions" are kept. Many dictatorial regimes call themselves democratic and even organize elections. I guess Julius Caesar didn't understand the importance of legitimizing his rule... But I don't think that if he had lived the assassination history would have taken a much different turn.

I have a theory and I would like to hear you opinion on it. I think that the fall of an empire is directly proportional to the time it took to be built. Do you think that is right?

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