Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire Term Paper

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Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire

According to historians, the key to the establishment, survival and fall of historical societies is their use of resources and surplus income (Perkin 2002). Except for the most primitive, no society "would be able to afford the protection, law and order, administration, defense, spiritual advice, personal services, cultural production" and other essentials without "the extraction, by the elite, of products surplus to immediate requirements, such as food, arms, luxuries and other goods and services produced by farmers" (Perkin 2002).

Moreover, before conquerors, such as the Romans, are able to take over a society, it must already be organized and to make it worth the effort of the conquerors, the society must also be at a level of material production (Perkin 2002).

The fall of early empires was due to the fact that the elites were greedy and took more than their share of income and resources, resulting in internal malaise, depression, rebellion and possible conquest by external forces (Perkin 2002). In an article from "History Today," Harold Perkin explains that "Surplus extraction, without which civilization and decent human life are impossible, can too easily slip into exploitation and so lead to self-destruction" (Perkin 2002). This certainly applies to the rise and fall of the Roman empire.

Like the Greeks, the early Romans were awed by fire and believed in Vesta, the goddess of fire and had a sacred temple of fire tended by four females, the Vestal Virgins (http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch15.htm).The legend of the Vestal Virgin, the greatest legend among Romans, begins with a Vestal Virgin giving birth to twin boys, Romulus and Remus, fathered by the god Mars (http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch15.htm).Romulus killed Remus, and became Rome's first king, populating his city, Romulus, with people gathered from other countries (http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch15.htm).After a long reign, he vanished into a thunderstorm and became a god, reappearing and declaring that Rome would be the capital of the world and that other would be helpless against the Roman arms (http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch15.htm).This legend dates the founding of Rome at 735 BCE, however, there is evidence that Rome was already a collection of villages in the 1000 BCE (http://www.

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fsmitha.com/h1/ch15.htm).

Romans were organized around tribal clans and in 600 BCE Etruscan chieftains conquered Rome, from which the Romans learned to grow grapes and olives, adapted an alphabet and learned military organization (http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch15.htm).Then the leading Roman patrician families took power and ruled as members of the Senate, making Rome a republic (http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch15.htm).Later, representatives from Greece and other states appealed to the Roman Senate for help in settling local disputes, thus resulting in a new role for Rome that would lead it to become the world's greatest empire (http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch15.htm).

As wealthy Romans invested abroad, loaned money at high interest rates, and created slave plantations, Roman financial operations became greater than the Greeks and Near Easterner (http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch15.htm).Rome was soon spending eighty percent of its budget on its military, increase in fraud rose as luxury items were imported from the east, however, since slaves did most of the work, freeman were poor and unemployed (http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch15.htm).Family feuds and violence were frequent, there was no medical professionals, and life expectancy was around forty years (http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch15.htm).

By the fourth century A.D., the Roman Empire extended "extended entirely around the basin of the Mediterranean Sea, including modern Turkey, Israel, Egypt, and North Africa" (http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/uc_dorrington1.htm).The Empire also included Iberia, which is today modern Spain and Portugal, Gaul, modern France, the areas know as modern England, with the northern borders of the empire extending to the Rhine and Danube Rivers (http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/uc_dorrington1.htm).The Romans had "brought stability, prosperity, and order to the civilized West...excellent roads connected the far reaches of the empire with the capital at Rome" which improved all communications and trade….....

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