The Fall of the Roman Empire
The Roman Empire at its peak governed over most of the Eastern world. After the death of Julius Caesar, who had destroyed the Roman Republic, an empire was the easiest was to keep the state going (Kagan-1998-pg. 92). An empire is rule by an emperor, whose range of power is virtually unlimited (Grant-1990-pg.164). Because of the Emperor's supreme power, careful selection of these persons is necessary. Changes in the Emperor selection process lead to a selection of leaders who were distracted with tasks other than the development and continuance of the Empire. These changes in the selection process and the irresponsibility in many emperors was a major factor in the decay and collapse of the Roman Empire. After the death of Julius Caesar, the Roman Empire was born. His successor was Octavian, his adopted son, who was titled Augustus. The tradition was to keep the position in the family. However, this was not always a wise move. Chosen as Emperor at age seventeen, Nero was the last Emperor of the Julio-Claudian family (Gibbon-1776-pg. 63). "He brought the Julio-Claudian dynasty to an ignominious end." (Brooks-1972-pg.147) His reign was officially stricken from the record by members of the Roman Senate, and his descenda
65) He was more concerned with art, drama, and games that ruling the Roman Empire (Brooks-1972-pg. The social conditions were not acceptable; there were conflicts between the government and between the different social classes. It is obvious of the instability of the Roman government at this time. However, to further complicate things, this economic drought occurred around 275 AD, which was a time of a great decline in trade for the Romans (Cairns-1974-pg. The trade was bad and the Roman Public could not afford to compensate for the loss of money with heavy taxes (Cairns-1974-pg. All but one of these emperors were murdered, the remaining one dying of natural causes (Brooks-1972-pg.
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