Kate,+Mario,+and+Ethan

=__Fall of the Roman Empire__=

Rome’s decline started during the Pax Romana period. Despite the name, this time wasn’t completely peaceful. Revolts and border wars occurred often, but the Roman army kept it in control. The Pax Romana finally ended when large armies from northern Europe began to invade the empire in the late A.D. 100s. The northern invaders were German-speaking people. There are many theories for why Rome declined. The Roman empire had started becoming too big to control. They were starting to have problems with communicating and collecting taxes. The army started weakening, and the empire had become poorer. Thieves held up travelers, and pirates were hijacking ships. The trade started suffering. Invaders from the north and the east were attacking the Roman empire. Cities and farmlands were destroyed by the raids of Rome's enemies, and the empire’s roads and coasts became unsafe. There was climate change in Asia, forcing them to move into Rome’s empire, with nowhere else to go. In Rome there were just too much people working in their government. Rome was also holding too much slaves. There were also things going on with their money. There were declines in ethics and values and the cost of the games at the Colosseum. The mob was even encouraging the gladiators to kill the other gladiators in the stadium, and when the gladiators didn’t kill his opponent, the crowd got mad. The Roman empire started hiding themselves. Many cities in the western part of the empire hid behind thick, new walls. In the countryside, wealthy landowners withdrew into their well protected villas. In the west, where most of the invasions were taking place, the Roman empire was rapidly falling apart. This wasn’t the end of the Roman empire though. Soon, in A.D. 284, an emperor who was named Diocletian came to power. He was a powerful general and realized the empire was simply too big to be ruled by one man, so he divided it into two main parts. Three of his assistants took charge of the troubled western empire, while he took care of the eastern empire, which contained wealthy cities such as Egypt, Greece, and Palestine. Power in the Roman empire started to shift from west to east when Diocletian took charge. In 306, Constantine became the new emperor and he reunited the Roman empire under his rule. He started making the eastern part of the Roman empire better. He based the empire in a new city on the site of an ancient Greek colony named Byzantium. It was renamed Constantinople in his honor, and it became the capital of a huge empire. The location of the new capital was also very convenient, with it being easy to protect, being on major trade routes between the eastern empire and Asia, and finally, the city was far away from Rome and all of its traditions of government and religion. Constantine even became a supporter of Christianity, while in the past, Christians were killed for refusing to honor Rome’s gods and goddesses. Meanwhile, back in the western empire, it was continuing to weaken. The northern people were settling in more parts of the empire. In 410, the soldiers took Rome itself. In 476, Rome’s last emperor was removed from the throne. The city of Rome, which was once the most powerful in the western Mediterranean, had no longer much influence. This was the end of the all-powerful empire of Rome.





=Bibliography:= (Pictures): [] [] Information: Social Studies Textbook, [], []