Many lives were lost in external conflicts as well as internal civil wars. Small pox and lead poisoning in the aqueducts further decimated the population. " To worsen matters, plague from China spread through the empire." (Sherman & Salisbury, 153) Just as in China, the disease caused intense suffering and depleted the already dwindling Roman population. " Medical knowledge was helpless in the face of pandemics like the mid-third-century plague, and Roman families could no longer populate the empire."
This diffusion of goods throughout an empire also spread diseases. If one part of the empire had plague, then the whole empire would eventually get the plague. Moreover, plague also decreased the population of both Rome, and Han China, which led to a disadvantage. This primarily, led to a lack of security because the population would decrease and less of the population would be enrolled in the army because they are sick. Under these precarious conditions, the empires borders were left less guarded.
These great empires’ falls were similar in many ways, and also different in numerous ways. The Roman Empire and Han China were similar in their falls because they both crumbled from internal problems, such as their corrupt governments; however, their falls were different in that the Roman Empire fell from outside invasions while the Han Dynasty fell from an internal revolt of the Yellow Turbans. Both the Han Dynasty and the Roman Empire suffered from political issues in their declines. Both Empires had corrupt bureaucracies that led to their deteriorations. The Roman Empire’s major reason in why it failed politically is that the Empire was never able to find an effective way to pick the proceeding emperor resulting in the empire having crazy, profligate emperors.
Social factors involve people’s beliefs and the way they set up their behaviours. If this itself isn’t dealt with it can cause some major problems within the society. Rome was known for numerous of these social factors including the rich became lazy and showed very little interest in trying to solve Rome’s problems, literacy rates dropped dramatically very few people had the ability to read (most Greco-Roman learning was forgotten), the increased use of slaves put many romans out of work and as German- speaking people mixed with the roman population, Latin began to change and formed the languages we know today as French, Spanish and Italian. Latin was no longer a unifying force
The key problem in politics was the lack of loyalty. Citizens used to care so much about Rome’s republic that they would sacrifice their lives for it. As time progressed, citizens slowly lost that sense of patriotism and truly did not care about the empire’s fate. Holding political office used to be considered an honor but then people did not even want to be a part of the government. All of the citizens had lost interest in the government.
This can be argued was to do with this battle because Valen lost two thirds of his army. It also showed that the Roman legions were no match for the heavy cavalry which many empires started to recruit. This then led to the Middle Ages and knights. The weakness of the Roman legionaries was showed again in 410 in the sacking of Rome. This was seen as another step towards the fall of the Roman Empire because this defeat was inevitable after the defeat
But the empire were very inconsiderate and silly as people were paying the taxes by growing and harvesting crops which they would sell to the markets in order to pay for the taxes. The markets then started to bring in less money as there were fewer products being sold to the markets. They then had to raise the taxes leaving more people in poverty, which also caused many deaths. This is just one reason for the collapse for the Empire. The second reason for the collapse of the army was Religion, Christianity that had a massive influence on a lot of the population of
Possibly the greatest vulnerability was 'the weakness within' - the constitution gave the President, the states and the military too much control, whilst proportional voting meant that the Reichstag was separated and weak. There was no single party in complete control and parties had to join together to form a government. However, each party had different goals which caused in-fighting and instability making it difficult for the Reichstag, with its many changes in power, to govern effectively. This was reflected in 376 political assassinations up to 1923. From the start there was economic instability because of the cost of World War One and there was widespread disillusion within the German people.
His unfavorable actions sparked local revolts; even his own generals refused to fight in his stead. Once Yuan Shikai died in 1916, China remained divided and the Kuomintang powerless. Sun Yixian attempted to reorganize the Kuomintang, but true authority and power was in the hands of the warlords – they ruled territories as large as they could conquer. The country was in a state of chaos. The Chinese peasants and lower class suffered the most.
At this point in Rome’s history, it had stopped expanding and as a result stopped gaining wealth from conquering other countries. Also, during this period where Rome was not gaining any revenue, inflation started to occur. Inflation is the result of the devaluation of money. Most of Rome’s currency was silver coins and as a result of the empire not gaining any more wealth from the system, they reduced the amount of silver used in the coins. Because of this, roman citizens were charging higher prices for items so they would be receiving the same amount of silver.