Why Did Rome Fall?

Historians have wondered for centuries.

Hot History

Oct 30, 2023

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*The Romans in their Decadence*, by Thomas Couture (from the Paris Salon of 1847)

Geography

Italy was strategically positioned in the center of the Mediterranean world. This was useful for the Romans. When the Romans expanded their control across the Italian peninsula, they were in an advantageous position to further expand overseas. Placed at the heart of Mediterranean trade, the Romans enjoyed a monopoly over the flow of goods and people across the two sides of the sea. Especially after the Second Punic War, when Carthage was subdued, the Romans emerged as the de facto superpower of the Western Mediterranean. By that point, it was only a matter of time before the Romans would wedge their way into the eastern half of the Mediterranean world.

Economy

The Roman forged their civilization on the ideal of the citizen-farmer. Agriculture played an indispensable life in Rome’s culture and institutions. It meant that ordinary Romans had a stake in the system, and were thus willing to fight and die on behalf of the Roman state. This was not the case in Carthage, for example. Carthage was a mercantile, naval empire. It had no tradition of assimilation. Carthage was just a loose confederation of disparate peoples who shared no mutual loyalty or common allegiance. Rome’s economy—and its unique political institutions, by extension—paved the path for its ultimate success.

Assimilation

The Romans extended citizenship to conquered peoples, which made them more loyalty to the Roman state. It also meant that Rome had vast reserves of manpower at its disposal. Rome’s culture became an identity marker, which was able to unite vastly different people under a common cause.

Belligerence

The most straightforward explanation for Rome’s success is that the Romans were simply more aggressive and belligerent than anyone else. This meant that the war-like Romans were willing to persist in a constant state of warfare on behalf of their state.

The Fall of Rome

Over the centuries, the Roman Republic lost its prestige. Its glory was gradually extinguished. This crisis was impossible to ignore by the late first century BC, as Rome became plunged into an endless string of civil wars.

Decadence

Ancient Roman writers themselves actually speculated on why Rome collapsed. They felt that the Republic had lost its morals. They blamed it all on decadence. The Romans loved to point to the virtues of their ancestors, and so Rome’s decline was attributed to a current lack of morals. Livy was the main historian to propose this view. Livy lived through the last decades of the Republic, and the chaos inspired him to write his classic History of Rome. Times of crisis often result in such nostalgic views of the past. Livy felt that the Romans of his day had sold out the good old-fashioned values of Rome’s founders. He excoriated them for luxury and self-indulgence, blaming such behavior on the decline of Rome’s empire. This is an unmistakable moralism in Livy’s account. Similar sentiments were shared by Cicero, Sallust, and Plutarch. This explanation has proved popular, even today.

Institutional collapse

Another explanation holds that Rome’s institutions were at fault. The institutions of the Early Republic no longer sufficed for the Late Republic. Rome became the victim of its own success. Centuries of conquest brought massive wealth and prestige to Rome. But it also resulted in destabilizing changes within Rome itself. The administration of the small Early Republic no longer applied. Administrative institutions were stretched out, and eventually collapsed. Rome’s ad hoc solutions were not able to solve the problem. The Romans were extremely conservative, and resistant to change. The ruling elites were far too slow to adapt to the new circumstances of the expanding Republic. This alienated many segments of society, such as the Latin allies, who eventually declared war on Rome during the Social War. The small-time family farms of Early Rome were replaced with massive, large-scale slave plantations. The unbridled ambition of politicians and military generals, such as Marius, Sulla, Pompey, and Caesar, led to a degradation of the Republic’s institutions. Rome’s imperialism created a vicious cycle. Devoted citizens sold off their family farms to fight on Rome’s behalf, only to return back to homelessness. Many Roman veterans were left without food, housing, or employment. Rome’s elite class grew smaller and smaller, and power became concentrated in too few hands. This instigated the resentment of Rome’s aristocracy, which had earlier served as a necessary bulwark against the monarchy. Rome’s allies were mad. Rome’s enemies were mad. The more Rome expanded, the more Rome was hated. The Romans could have found ways of sharing the benefits of empire, but they were too conservative and obstinate to change their system. Some ancient writers, such as Tacitus, held this view. It is also popular among modern scholars.

Private armies

There were many later developments in Rome’s culture which caused the Republic to fall. One of these was the creation of private armies, who were loyal to their commanders, not to the Roman state. Men like Marius and Caesar were able to seize power in coups, because they enjoyed the personal allegiance of Rome’s professionalized legions.

Political violence

When the Gracchi attempted reforms, they were outright murdered. The normalization of political violence was a sure sign that Rome’s decline was nigh. The increased use of violence, intimidation, and armed gangs in the Late Republic eroded respect for the laws and institutions of the Republic. Unscrupulous figures, such as Pompey, were happy to use the tribunes as a way of undermining and circumventing the Senate. The Late Republic was deeply divided between Optimates and Populares. The leaders of both factions were unscrupulous, power-hungry leaders who cared little about policies or ordinary people.

Military strongmen

In the Early Republic, the Roman state was viewed as more important than any individual. By the Late Republic, the situation was reversed. Charismatic strongmen began to dominate Rome’s politics, which loosened the constraints of Rome’s traditional constitution. The turning point was the rise of Scipio Africanus in the Punic Wars. Scipio’s success in defeating Carthage meant that his family would dominate Rome’s politics, which undermined the separation of powers. Later generals, such as Marius and Caesar, simply took this trend to its extreme conclusion.

Did Rome fall?

Sometimes, the question itself is flawed. Did Rome really fall? Was the Late Republic a sharp departure from Rome’s early days? Not necessarily. Some scholars emphasize the continuity between the Early and Late Republics, even if Rome’s latter days were marred by civil war. Many scholars disagree about whether Rome had a single “moment” of collapse. Some point to the Battle of Actium. Others point to the rise of Scipio Africanus, which happened much earlier in Rome’s history. In the Late Republic, the Romans were well-aware that there was a crisis, but they didn’t necessarily see their civilization as reaching an endpoint. Augustus himself would have rejected the idea that he killed the Republic. He claimed to restore the Republic, and saw himself as reversing the crisis. The Greek historian Polybius, writing during Rome’s heyday, proposed that all civilizations pass through an inevitable cycle of rise and decline, which he called anayclosis. Gibbon himself blamed Christianity, which embroiled the Late Roman Empire in a series of endless wars of apostasy and persecution of heretics. In many respects, the enlightened Englishman’s conclusion equally indicted the harmful religious fanaticism of his own day, in the 18th century, as that of ancient Rome. Whichever explanation one chooses, the decline and fall of ancient Rome continues to fascinate, intrigue, and inspire modern-day students of history.