Also, many experts say that it fell because of the lack of heart the people had to the Empire, the rise of Christianity, it was too immense to govern and protect, the decline of the economy and jobs, the army being made up of mostly foreigners, and outside invaders. Thus, one can say that the Empire collapsed more internally than externally. The first reason why the Western Roman Empire fell was because the people that lived in it had a lack of heart in the Empire. People didn’t believe the Empire was worth saving anymore. As Strayer, Gatzke, and Harbison state in their textbook The Course of Civilization states “The basic trouble was that very few inhabitants of the empire believed that the old civilization was worth saving… the overwhelming majority of the population had been systematically excluded from political responsibilities.
This is demonstrated in documents 4, 5, and 6. Henry Haskell states that “The government undertook such far-reaching responsibility in affairs that the fiber of the citizens weakened” (Document 4) This shows that the decline of the empire was due to heavy taxation that couldn’t support the government. If the taxes couldn’t sustain the government then it wouldn’t be able to control the people. According to Montanelli “The military crisis was the result of… proud old aristocracy’s… shortage of children” (Document 5) This means that many children weren’t old enough to go into the military which caused the decrease of soldiers. With the lack of soldiers, it would be easier to invade Rome, which could’ve led to the decline of the Empire.
The magistrates made laws and decided the most important decisions affecting the state. When Emperor Augustus died, popular elections were outdated. It was expected instead that the imperial household would produce the successor to Roman power. The power had moved from the hands of the people, to imperial rulers, their households, and their heirs. This dramatic change was the culmination of civil strife and open warfare that created the conditions for powerful men to dominate the state, and to exclude the will and
One of the causes of the decline of the Roman and Han Empire is the internal problems within the state. The problem in the Han Empire involved the development of fractions within the ranks of the ruling elites. That led to backstabbing among the ruling elites which in turn reduced the effectiveness of the central government. Like the Han, the Roman Empire emperors faced internal opposition. One of the problems was that there was fewer that twenty- six claimants to the imperial throne, known as the “barracks emperors.” Generals was mainly who seized power, held it briefly, and then suddenly lost it between rivals.
They would raise rent on peasants who didn’t have much which resulted in people going against authorities. One more reason is the Yellow Turban Uprising; this group of people rose up due to the hardships on the poor. The bureaucrats did not help at all and actually raised taxes and rent even when peasants didn’t have anything to give. The yellow turban rebels revolted against the Han dynasty gradually hurting the government little by
Compare and Contrast Essay Decline of the Han vs. Decline of the Roman Empire The collapse of the Han and the Roman Empires were both due to internal conflicts within the government and among their people. Both empires started to fall apart as disorganization and lack of a central government began to influence the whole empire. Political chaos led to the breakdown of the economy which spread to other things, and the spread of new religions came too late to save the crumbling empires from the destruction of themselves. The downfall of both civilizations began as their political rulers’ superiority became so disorganized and chaotic that everything just started to fall apart. Citizens began to revolt and in the Han dynasty in 220 C.E., the emperor was rebelled against among middle and lower class peasants and was eventually disposed of.
Landlords often borrowed large sums of money and, when serfs died or demanded higher wages, landlords could not raise money to repay creditors. If the landlord succumbed to the plague, there was no way for creditors to recover lost money. Widespread labor shortages led to a rise in labor prices. This occurred in all aspects of the economy but was especially evident in the agricultural sector. Serfs who for centuries had worked the land for little or not pay, suddenly began to demand higher wages and, increasingly, revolted against a nobility that sought to work them for lower wages of the past.
One internal factor that led to the weakening of the Tokugawa rule was the building discontentment among the social classes/groups that made up Japan’s society at the time. The nobles, for one, were insistent on the emperor being restored power. The daimyo were simply long-time enemies of the Shogun due to some of the restrictions put on them, such as sankin kotai (alternate attendance)—where groups were required to travel to Edo every second year and stay there for a year—which ultimately resulted in expenditure of their limited money that is also used to pay their samurai. The samurai as well were discontented due to their lack of money, too. Their rice allowance was cut by up to half, and rice had small buying power.
Revolts and unruly satraps caused serious economic problems for the empire. Persian taxes became heavier and more unfair, which led to economic depression and rebellions, which in turn led to more cruelty, heavier taxes and so on. The Persian kings also started hoarding gold and silver rather than recirculating it. This created economic chaos without sufficient gold and silver for doing business. As a result of this economic disorder, the Persian kings got weaker still, which fed back into the problem of revolts and powerful satraps.
The lack of usable land in Russia and the subdivison of land between families both resulted in an incredibly low income, especially for larger families. This combined with the illiteracy of the people and refusal of the Tsar to provide basic education meant that there was no way to escape the misfortunes of life as a peasant. The poor harvests of 1900 and 1902 worsened matters even further and fuelled the peasants anger. The famines and starvation that followed provided sufficient evidence that the Tsar was not a born leader, “gifted and sent from God” as they had been taught to believe, but a weak and incompetent leader, incapable of making decisions or change. Another issue was that whilst the Tsar encouraged the industrial growth of Russia, and was keen for the country to become an industrial power, when peasants then left the land to work in the developing enterprises, they discovered that their living conditions did not improve.