What lead to the fall of the Roman Empire?
The Roman Empire was plagued by several problems. One of them was no stable line of succession. When one emperor died, often the top generals would fight it out to see who would replace him, throwing the empire into a ruinous civil war. Once a new emperor was in place he would give a ‘donative’ (basically a huge cash bribe) to all the soldiers to keep them loyal to him, draining the treasury. The Empire was split and remerged into the eastern and western halves several times from the 3rd century AD onwards. This was done to make it easier to defend the borders, and at first it worked well. But when the split became permanent in 395 it exposed a weakness – the east was richer, meaning it could raise more money from taxes and support armies and/or payoff rivals. The west had less money, so they struggled to maintain an army that could defend its lands. Ultimately it was barbarian invasion that finished off Rome. At least the western half, since the eastern half lived on for another 1000
