Document-Based Essay

Park 2 Table of Contents Introduction............................................................................................................................4 Military Power .......................................................................................................................4 Economics..............................................................................................................................5 Social......................................................................................................................................5 Ineffective Kings....................................................................................................................6 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................6

Park 3 Outline I. Introduction II. Explanations A. Military Power B. Economics C. Social D. Ineffective Kings III. Conclusion

Park 4 Cathy Park Mr. Kosmack Ancient World History 31 October 2011

Document-Based Essay Introduction As we all understand and learned from the book, the Romans were a bright and mighty empire. Everyone who heard of them, trembled in their wake, and feared its supreme power and military force. But of course, every up has its down and eventually, Rome, one of the worlds strongest empires at the time, began to descend into the darkness of destruction and became just a memory in the minds of its antecedents. Military Power First of some of the reasons of Roman decline: Military power. As we know, Rome has been conquering cities, crushing everything that stopped their conquests yet showing kindness to all of the conquered people. However, even the mightiest of men can fall in the face of many weaker men. Despite having a strong military force, civil war between the east and west has been a heavy load for it bare. Slowly but surely, Romes military has slowly withered away and they eventually had to resort to hiring mercenaries, a professional soldier who has been hired into a foreign army. According to document 4, the Roman Empire was suffering from invasions. A large number of Goths overwhelmed the Roman army and attacks resulted in ruination. While the roman army was withering away, the constant attacks from the nearby barbarian tribes aided its destruction. Attila the Hun also decided to attack Rome with few of the Germanic tribes. The
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Park 5 Hadrians Wall from document 1 is one of the evidence of Roman having invaders and trying to protect themselves from invasions of nearby cities. The empire soon had to increase taxes to keep the army paid and which brings up the subject of economical crisis. Economics Economics: the branch of knowledge concerned with the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth. The inflation caused by price increase of goods and shortage of gold and silver has contributed to the weakening and eventual fall of the Western Roman Empire. According to document 3, Diocletian pointed out the dramatic increase of food prices. Prices were too high for people to pay for it and they were changed rapidly. Diocletian thought it was unnecessary to increase the prices but he couldnt stop it. As you can see the Romans, though achieved many great things, have been suffering internally for quite a long time, which brought forth their downfall. Social Now, talking about social problems, we know that there are an upper class and a lower class. The upper class consists of the Senatorial class and the Equestrian class and the lower class consists of Commons, Latin, Foreigners, Freed-people and the slaves. Their parents defined female and male children except for freed-people. We know that the lower classes were treated poorly and unjust compared to the richer people. The poor had worse houses, bad environment, little to no sewage system, and most likely no medical care as well. There was an epidemic called the Plague of Cyprian, which happened in the 3rd century. The severe fall in population left the state in ruin and the army was too big for the Roman Empire to support. Leading to even more economic and social decline that eventually killed the West. The Eastern half survived due to its larger population, which even after the plagues was still standing. Mostly the poor died
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Park 6 because they were clumped up so the disease spread faster causing more frequent deaths while the rich people had less of a chance to die of disease and also they had the money for medicine, therefore they could survive longer. Therefore because of such social differences, the poor died off faster than the richer people. Ineffective Kings The Roman Empire had tons of kings, whether they were good, bad, efficient, or ineffective. The ineffective kings generally made no difference at all during their time of ruling and usually the bad/corrupt kings generally made either no difference, or made the Roman empire a lot worse than it was. Soon there was this king named Diocletian, and he came up with an idea that it was good to split the empire into the east and west to try to ease the burden on kings. In document 2, we can see that there were four rulers and the description shows that Diocletian ruled in the East, his co-emperor in the West. Although it was a good idea in the beginning, eventually the plan had its flaws and the east and the west started to have building tensions and soon civil war broke out. Because of the civil war this also affected the military, cause more damage done than fixing. And at last because of the civil war, caused the country to break down politically. Conclusion The moral of this story is that no matter how big and tough something may seem, it will eventually come down. Rome, a massive nation of wealth, power, and knowledge, came crashing down in front of everyone and it couldnt be stopped. It doesnt matter if you have everything in the world, if you cant keep it all organized and stable. So we know that Rome was successful, with out a doubt, but even then, it still fell, and The bigger they are, they harder they fall.

Park 7 Reference "Decline of the Roman Empire." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Aug. 2012. Web. 28 Aug. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_Roman_Empire>. "Roman Social Class and Public Display." Roman Social Class and Public Display. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Aug. 2012. <http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/socialclass.html>. "Decline of the Roman Empire." Decline of the Roman Empire. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Aug. 2012. <http://www.unrv.com/decline-of-empire/decline-of-empire.php>.