What caused the irreversible decline of the Roman Empire?

SOMEONE POST THE PIC.

>this meme
I heard some other idiot claim it started with the battle of cannae

Nothing. A good string of emperors without usurpers would have been enough to reverse it, just like it happened in the east.

Antonine plague

What happened that caused the West's manpower to drop like that?

It was unstable since the beginning. It's amazing how long it actually took to random generals to realize they could use their own military bases to attempt to usurp the Empire.

It was never irreversible. The Augustan institution of the principate was arguably a reversal that ended civil wars, as was Diocletian's institution of the Dominate that ended the crisis of the third century.

It didn't drop that's where the empire divided into the east and west, the graph before contained both combined

The Empire ceased to exist during a chunk of the third century. The new empire afterward had to deal with more competent and better armed opponents than before, on top of that their economy hit a slump.

he makes a good point though.

whatever underlying factors influenced the final collapse, it was the disloyalty of the generals which caused chronic succession problems leading to the gradual enfeeblement of the empire, after they ran out of people worth conquering in the late 2nd century.

Yes, but it could've easily been fixed with a simple reformation of the military

I don't see how easy it would be to go to all of your generals and the armies loyal to them (because the armies were primarily loyal to their generals above all else at the time) and say "hey I'm going to take away your power and also you guys are going to not be allowed to do or be the following things if you want to keep your jobs" and not expect there to be a massive, even worse civil war from probably the ENTIRE military.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century

tl;dr plagues, wars and famines.

This, Roman economy was very dependet on slaves.

...

We can all agree that female rights caused the collapse of the Roman empire right?

;^))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

>vigorous northern people
>snowniggers

Romans were slavers right up until 1453.

Sulla
Caesar
Octavian
Barrack emperors.

Rome had too much history of charismatic strongmen trying to take over the power until its politics devolved into nothing but strongmen taking power all day every day.

That pic fails at engendering any compassion towards op by having him start the discussion with just as shitty a meme as those he got answered with. First bubble should be a question rather than a statement.

What I want to know is why the East didn't collapse. They got fucked just as hard by the crisis of the third century, the huns, not to mention Adrianople and the Goths.

On top of that they always had to watch out for Persian attacks.

So why did only the West collapse?

The East had a long tradition of urban economy, and was in that sence much more stable. On the other hand, the West reached a peak around 200ad and most of the western economies stagnated. In addition there were the barbaric invasions and constant civil wars.

East had the economic base to fall back on. Most of the wealth and personnel (administrators, philosophers, etc.) output was in the east. The West barely had a population and was nowhere near urban enough by the end, the Emperors staying mostly cooped up inside Ravenna when he wasn't out leading armies.

And the civil wars mostly affected the west because the usurping generals and armies generally fought in Italy and the western provinces, usually leaving the countryside in rubble, Italy itself was very destable economically in the last few centuaries of the western roman empire.

that's what empires DO

The hunns and the other barbarians are very overestimated in history. Alone even the combined forces of these peoples wouldnt do much harm against the Roman republic if it was united to a larger extent. The fall of the western empire is very complex and there are a ton of factors that were in play. You could say that the invasions were the last drops that made the cup spill.

The invasion of the Huns delivered the killing blow, which was already hasted by galactic levels of corruption.

Although the Germanic tribes did rape the carcass of the Roman Empire in the end, being assimilated into it's culture.

>What caused the decline?

>1
replacing the legions with mercenaries from Germany. the legions became expensive so military positions were just given to bands of men loyal to gold and not the idea of Rome, so when the gold stopped flowing, their allegiance turned against Rome very quickly.

>2
The division of East and West, a blessing that extended the life of the East, but doomed the West.

The Eastern Empire got Rome's most lucrative provinces in Greece, Anatolia, the Levant, and Egypt, while the West only received North Africa and Italy as their real money makers, while propping up the comparatively rural Gaul, Iberia, and Britannia, with Gaul in particular sucking up much more money than it could produce.

>3
The Huns advance through Central Europe, forcing other Germanic tribes to seek refuge within Roman borders destabilized the state, having these tribes then rise up and take the land for themselves is a no-brainer on why West Rome suffered.

>4
constant civil wars between emperors and generals vying for the title of Roman Emperor. Between the Crisis of the 3rd Century and the civil wars that produced rulers like Constantine and Theodosius, Rome was in bad shape from all the civil strife that left deep scars among the citizens of the Empire and split personal allegiances.

Rome's later history is essentially just throwing money at their problems until they went away, when West Rome's treasury evaporated, the writing was already on the wall, but the Eastern Empire fared better with a larger treasury, and even able to buy off the Huns who were planning to put Constantinople to siege.

Governors.

Christianity can't govern Roman empire.

Memenuyx's video has some good points
youtu.be/qh7rdCYCQ_U

>so when the gold stopped flowing, their allegiance turned against Rome very quickly.

Fucking Odoacer get out of my penisula REEEEEEE

It would have required some kind of state pension program for veterans, which the senate steadfastly refused to fund. After Sulla's reign of blood, Rome's democratic institutions were basically rendered irrelevant and non-functional

The problem was primarily owed to the fact that the individual soldiers were totally dependent upon their general to supply them with a good quality of life after their service was up, which is what produced soldiers more loyal to their general than they were to the state.

The parallels he draws are pretty great.

after the thrid punic war rome did not have any enemy left that was a real, equal threat to them. this is when the republic started to go down, because politicians cared more about their own power than before, bc the danger was gone. this ruined it slowly, but steadily

except there is pretty good evidence that the eastern empire paid very little to the huns, they paid a small up front fee then promised to pay more. Those payments never came which is why the huns came back but were turned away at Constantinople

>replacing the legions with mercenaries from Germany.
the problem was that no sane Italian wanted to join the military and be shipped to a distant frontier on the ass end of the world to go live in a rural shithole inhabited by piss reeking barbarians who don't speak Latin. So they basically paid Germans to kill each other.

>The division of East and West, a blessing that extended the life of the East, but doomed the West.
Which was a necessity at that point, as the empire had simply grown too large to be that dependent upon a single power/economic broker. Any major economic or military activity had to be supervised by the Emperor himself, and the division between East and West was to create co-rulers who weren't constantly trying to stab each other in the back.

Of course the Eastern section was the one who got the better end of the deal because now they're no longer subsidizing dirt poor Europeans.

>The Huns
Were not the first great migration weathered by the Romans, the difference was that the Romans wanted to have their cake and eat it too: they loved all the free Germanic manpower settling along their borders providing security, but they didn't want them actively participating in state affairs, so they tried to maintain them as permanent second class citizens, fostering resentment and sense of betrayal among the foederati

>constant civil wars between emperors and generals vying for the title of Roman Emperor.
This is ultimately the mechanism that brought Rome to its knees: wealthy aristocrats and generals investing in blood politics rather than in the public system, using soldiers who were loyal to their paychecks rather than to their country.

The WRE was beaten to death over the course of 80 years. It was a series of new problems that just kept pilling up. Inflation, economic decline, the underdevelopment of the West, military degradation, and several plagues.

Transferring most important, prosperous and populous provinces under a parallel administration, fool.

A lot of the reasons that people have already posted are true, but I would argue that it was the hyperinflation of the Denarii, vast slave estates forcing millions of farmers into the cities to live off of the grain dole and the subsequent massive economic inequality killed any incentive to invest in the system. Obviously its not the only reason but economics play a huge part.

>that drop at 410~
what the fuck

sack of rome

The murder of Stilicho, which caused massive desertions from German soldiers who were fed up with the Roman court

you have to be blind as a fuck or do it on purpose not to see it was christfaggotry. you did not mention it as a choice and it triggers my pagan gods. hell

...And how are you going to fucking do that when all of your money goes to the military you already have, which is loyal to their generals, not you, who are, in fact, the problem.

You can't.

Nothing about that is easy or simple.

>replacing the legions with mercenaries from Germany. the legions became expensive so military positions were just given to bands of men loyal to gold and not the idea of Rome, so when the gold stopped flowing, their allegiance turned against Rome very quickly.
I man, sure, except this idea has been utterly discredited, as Romans with Germanic names tended to be retardedly loyal and no more prone to turning coat than anyone else.

Oh, and the military had been loyal to gold first before the fucking republic fell, much less the empire.

>and no more prone to turning coat than anyone else.
Which is to say, they turned coat a lot because Rome was plagued with unrest throughout the duration of its existence. And it was always for the same reason, too: people were fed up with being treated like second class citizens, forced to labor without representation in the government.

did the trade decline because of the declining population? Heard it was declining since augustus.

Please tell me how it was christfaggotry Gibbon, and don't give me shit about 'degeneration' and 'pacifism'

All of those things and more that the Empire couldn't solve in a timely manner, along with the (Western) Roman Empire handing more and more control to local governments over time and slowly delegating itself out of existence.

Any reason somebody credible might give for why the Roman Empire fell, other than "moral decay" or similar vague bullshit, is likely an accurate reason, but one of hundreds all working together, as to why the Roman Empire fell.

you can't really consider it a 'fall', it was more of a gradual change in the socio-economic systems of the Classical World.

The economy of the Principate (and before that) was based on the countryside being productive, and consumptive cities acting as commercial centres. By Diocletian's reign, following the crisis of the 3rd Century, this was changing. The economy was becoming more localised (an interesting bit of evidence for this is 4th Century amphorae in the west appearing with flat bottoms, meaning they were made for land transport rather than shipping), and cities started to become industrial centres. In Italy we see former grand public buildings being used as workshops. Cities themselves become smaller as investment dries up. The investment by powerful individuals becomes focussed on their villas, which become larger and more grandiose through the 4th century. They also take on elements previously reserved for large public architecture, such as apsidal ends. Diocletian's reforms actually reflect this shift towards localisation, with a move to smaller provinces and more autonomous local government.

This is also reflected in the social sphere (although this is a degree of conjecture), in that the old system of patronage evolves into a basic form of what would become fealty swearing from tenants to powerful landowners. Couple this localisation of the Empire with the growing number of external military threats and the idea of maintaining a united political structure in the Western Empire ultimately becomes untenable. It was obviously far more complex than this, but that's fairly close to a potted version of recent historiography on Late Antiquity

It really should include the "Rome fell because women had legal rights" meme

wtttf

Who gave you license to make thoughtful and informative posts? Imperial Rome threads are for alt-right memes and worship posts.

Actually, I was hasty say this. Most posts ITT have been reasonable.

>Imperial Rome threads are for alt-right memes and worship posts.
In the eyes of the /pol/tard, all threads are for shitting up with alt-right memes and worship posts.

It's a general cancer plaguing Veeky Forums, and society, in general, and not just something exclusive to Veeky Forums

Falling birth rates

Loss of what it means to be Roman

Roman armies consisting less and less of Romans

Germanic refugees

Rome was a utilitarian empire that united nations. The inevitable decline of the merchant class paved the way for wealth disparity among peoples, causing Rome to divide along national borders.

Why couldn't Rome just conquer Persia then?

The Sassanids were strong enough to resist but too weak to conquer the Romans.

Being a feudal state it was notoriously difficult and cost-prohibitive to invade. Living among mostly self-sufficient local estates allowed Persians to burn whatever farms and infrastructure lay in the path of the Romans without fucking over the rest of the economy and forced them to be completely dependent upon ever longer, ever more vulnerable supply lines. Even when they captured the capital, Ctesiphon (which they did on more than one occasion) they simply couldn't maintain a base of power that far east and had to withdraw.

It's similar to what happened to Napoleon when he invaded Russia, but with scorching hot deserts instead of bitter, freezing winters