What caused the fall of the roman empire

The notable historian Edward Gibbon attributes the decline and fallof the Roman Empire to the “insidious effects of Christianity”.Edward Gibbon thought Christianity is to be blamed for the declineand ultimate fall of the Roman Empire. He actually callsChristianity’s role in the fall of Rome “the triumph ofsuperstition”. But it is interesting that the process Gibbon refersto took four hundred years – considering that Christianity was bornaround 33 AD and Rome finally fell in 400 AD. This is a long periodindeed to provide a mortal illness and collapse of Rome. By allmeans there should be other factors other than Christianity thatcaused the Roman Empire to fall.

Unlike Gibbon, most present day historians concentrate not onChristianity, but on social and economic factors and that isreasonable because those issues can be measured and traced for someextent.

One of the most striking versions of the fall of the Roman Empirefocuses on all the fertile soil – upland farms – well-drained andirrigated areas owned by landlords and passed over to theiroffspring over generations. The poorer areas, especially the marshlands, were left to the peasants. In these marshes malaria andmosquitoes bred. The disease and the poverty that resulted fromthese drove the victims into the cities where they spread theinfections and perhaps that contributed to the fact that most Romanpoliticians, if you look at their statues closely, were of afeverish kind. So according to this theory, malaria, joined perhapsby smallpox or some other plague, moved outward to the frontiers ofthe empire, decimating the garrisons, depopulating the towns, andeventually leading to the final breakthrough of the barbarians. Ifthis theory is true, then the Roman Empire was actually destroyedby mosquitoes.

I believe that the lack of religious freedom in Ancient Rome itcaused the fall of the Roman Empire

Another View:

While a highly plausible cause, religious intolerance was hardlythe sole factor in the fall of the empire. Poor leadership, massivedemographic shifts (i.e. barbarian populations moving south), and awide variety of issues all contributed to the fall of the empire inthe west. Keep in mind that the Eastern Roman Empire (modernEgypt, Greece, Turkey, etc.) would continue to thrive for severalcenturies and remain as the Byzantine Empire until the 15thcentury. The fall of the Roman Empire is primarily a westernaffair.

Another View:
The lack of religious freedom is imaginary. Rome tolerated allreligions that were not destructive of social and politicalharmony. Religious intolerance is a product of the offshoots ofJudaism seeking to impose a single religion, but this was laterwhen Christianity and Islam were able to impose dominance in theterritories they controlled.

The Roman Empire was limited to defensible boundaries by Augustusin the late First Century BCE, and as long as these could be held,there was a chance of maintaining a degree of social harmony andprosperity. The westward movement of a succession of peoples intothe Empire from eastern Europe and Asia – the Germanics, the Goths,Vandals, Bulgars, Franks, etc etc, then Turks and other Asiatics,were an unstoppable force which inevitably overran first Western,then South-Eastern Europe. While internal disputes and socialfactors did not help internal cohesion and resistance, the movementof peoples simply over-ran the Empire and different ethnics andregimes were substituted for the Roman gegemony and pax romana.

The Western Empire was gone by the sixth century BCE, but theEastern Empire hung on for nearly another thousand years untiloverwhelmed by the Ottoman Turks. In all this, religion, politicsetc was background noise, not the major force.

The causes for the fall of the Roman empire are many and if anyonetries to list them they are bound to leave something out. Some ofthem are the weakness of the military, the corruption and/orweakness of political leaders, the lack of revenue, pressure on theborders and lead poisoning. There was no one cause. It was aculmination of many causes that brought about the fall of thewestern empire.

A steady stream of demented dictators didn’t help.

Other reasons include: dictatorship (emperors were bad leaders, yetthey could not be voted out of office); the spread of Christianity(unlike Roman religion, it was popular with slaves, the poor, andwomen); wars with hostile peoples (trade was disrupted, economicdecline); Rome hired its conquered peoples to be soldiers(Visigoths were not loyal to Rome, and as they became responsiblefor running the army, Rome lost control of its provinces); socialunrest (Rome needed the army to suppress poor riotors, yet themoney that paid the army came from taxes, which made the poor evenpoorer and the rich even richer, the gap just got bigger andbigger).

The western part of the Roman Empire crumbled under the weight ofthe invasions by the Germanic peoples. The eastern part of thisempire was not affected by these invasions and continued to existfor nearly 1000 years.