The Western Empire fell in the year 476 A.D. Perhaps the premier cause for this decline was a massive economic crisis. The second cause for the decline of the Western Roman Empire was the generals of the military were creating private armies. The third reason for the decline was that the military and government were losing the loyalty of the Roman citizens.
             The decline initiated as a result of the economic crisis. The empire was over stretched, meaning the empire boundaries were too broad to manage and this was becoming very costly. When the Empire had gotten so big, the government decided to divide it into the East and West Empire. This affected the economy because the empire was running pretty smoothly when it was one, but the division weakened the West and strengthened the East Empire. The West Empire was weakened because the East Empire had the metals and goods and didn't want to share with the West Empire. This crisis made the government raise taxes to pay for the increased cost. When the government had highered the taxes the citizens were starting to purchase fewer goods. When the citizens purchased fewer goods, the businesses had to lay people off. This became a problem when the population was becoming overwhelmed with the unemployed. Instead of spending valuable money on expanding their businesses, the wealthy would spend money on foreign goods from China and Indonesia. The patricians, who were the wealthy citizens, generally owned two houses. They generally spent around six months in each house. When the decline was hitting the cities, the wealthy moved to their rural houses. They brought with them family and plebeians who would act as workers. This caused the population of the cities to drastically decline. The army was being affected by the decline of the population, because the Army was getting fewer people to be recruited to the Army. Also, it was harder to recruit men to be in the Army because they weren't...