How do you even lose an empire...

In the biggest, macro picture, an empire dies when it begins to consume more resources than it can obtain.

DIMINISHING

RETURNS

>Why did Rome fuck up so bad?
Rome lasted about 900 years longer than any other empire

internal issues often wreck havoc. also the bigger you are the bigger your issues and wars tend to be. it took 2 massive wars to bring the British Empire to it's knees. they put so much into those wars and they were so costly they just couldn't recover and they knew it so they willingly let their empire dissolve

in the case of Rome there was a lot of factors but civil wars really took a toll. splitting the empire was also very costly as the western side wasn't anywhere near as wealthy. they were also on top for so long without any real rivals keeping a strong professional army didn't seem as important(not that they could afford it anymore) which of course meant when shit did finally happen they got utterly fucked. of course having a bunch of really shitty emperors didn't help nor did those emperors constantly getting assassinated

reposting what some other user said that I thought was very on point

>Roman emperors could not derive legitimacy from the consent of the governed, from the gods, or from noble ancestry
>Romans had hated kings since the days of the Etruscans, so there wasn't really any "legitimate" place in Roman society for an emperor
>this made them profoundly vulnerable to military coups, as their only real base of support was money
>at the same time, the influx of cash from military conquests ended, at the same time that the costs of protecting and administering a huge empire started to really sink in
>during the republican days, citizen-soldiers would defend the realm for free, but now there were professional soldiers that needed to be paid all the time, both due to the huge amount of area that needed to be protected and to prevent them from sacking Rome
>the system worked alright most of the time, but there was simply no wiggle room to deal with a crisis
>crises happened, in the form of foreign wars at the edge of the empire, and pandemics caused by the unprecedented amounts of trade and movement
>to deal with the excess costs of war, Roman emperors debased the currency (mixing silver into gold coins, for example) which led to hyperinflation and decreased trade
>after the plagues (probably some of the first smallpox epidemics) the tax burden on the average person increased so intensely that the populations never fully rebounded, they were taxed too heavily to expand onto marginal land and survive farming there
>farmers were now the first people to die during crop failures, and people did everything in their power to avoid any representative of the Roman state, for fear of literally being taxed to death
>at the same time, Roman slaves did not regenerate their own population, due to the harsh conditions not allowing for reproduction
>archaeological evidence shows the population of Western Europe falling steadily from 200 to 700 AD

>after the Crisis of the Third Century, a thirty year long civil war which saw something like twenty different emperors, Diocletian took power to rule with an iron fist
>Diocletian abandoned the pretense that Rome was still a republic, turning the Principate (after princeps, the title that Caesar adopted) into the Dominate
>Diocletian establishes the tetrarchy, splitting the empire into two halves and creating emperors for each
>in order to control the hyperinflation, Diocletian implemented price controls, which further depressed trade
>in order to control the peasants fleeing for the cities (the cities had a grain dole that the emperors paid out to keep the loyalty of the mob) he introduced laws stating that people had to practice whatever the profession of their father had been
>to avoid taxation, because trade had collapsed, and because nobody was legally allowed to leave, people began to move into self sufficient communities called latifundia, a system which would later evolve into feudalism
>because the population of Rome had declined so dramatically, it was no longer possible to have the legions be all Roman, let alone all land-owners
>a marked Germanization of the legions occurred in the later empire as foreigners were recruited as mercenaries
>during the fifth century AD, a horde of Germans fleeing the Huns flooded into Western Europe, and the Roman states was too weak to stop it
>in some places, such as Britain, the Roman military simply leaves, never to return, in others, the Romans entrust the protection of areas to local chieftains, effectively delegating themselves out of existence
>in 476 AD, the German king Odoacer invades Rome and deposes the last Roman Emperor and doesn't bother to name a new one
>in the Eastern half, which is much wealthier and more defensible, a theocratic version of Diocletian's dominate continues until 1453

People get content and lazy. Then some other non content non lazy people fuck their shit.

civil wars

inflation

Rome couldn't project its power into the Germanic forests.

Eventually a new civilization developed there, learning to farm heavy soils and fight in shield walls rather like Roman formations. The Romans could call upon the resources of the empire to reinforce the Limes (border), however occasional civil war and a general cooling of the climate sapped their resources.

Justinian tried to retake Italy, and succeeded, as per your theories that it is just a matter of using your power to make people give you their wealth and power, however it was very expensive and difficult and soon Germanics were making their way back into Italy again, it was an endeavour that did not yield net returns for the empire.

How do you even lose a monopoly? Can't you just use all your vast amounts of wealth and power to continue bullying others into giving you their wealth and power indefinitely? Why did U.S Steel fuck up so bad?

That isn't how Spaniards lost their empire

large empire require large amounts of money and resources to function. Its not easy at all.
>bullying others into giving you their wealth
that leads to war
war is expensive

He confused Seljuks with Ottomans or took Ottoman as synonymous with Turk.

How come Romans have little loyalty? Is it in Latin blood? Look at 20th century Italy for example.

lead pipes

Im a pleb at Roman history but apparently they were more loyal to their commanders than to the empire.

Enlighten me, please

Climate change

Muslims destroyed it, duh

Not him, but the Spanish Empire was basically gangraped. If letft alone it would've stayed alive and mostly untouched (albeit probably not completely), with some problems and all of course, until the cuckoldry of Europe forced them to decolonize like with the portuguese empire. The colonies didn't have the force to become independent without massive foreign help and half of them didn't even want to become independent anyways.

.,

Gaius Marius fucked everything up with his military reforms by making the general directly responsible for paying and supplying his troops, tying the armies to the general rather than the state.

What? The Spanish Empire was in sharp decline way before decolonization was happening. It died because of inflation issues and hollowing out it's domestic production in favor of importing goods.

4 reasons:

1. Alaric (410)
2. Genseric (455)
3. Attila (451-453)
4. Odoacer (476)

Those fellas about did it for the West. I can do the East if you'd like

(((The)))?

The state always paid the soldies' wages, the general ensured their pension.

Infighting

you don't