What were the key reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire?
If by the “Roman Empire” you mean the Western Empire then the answer is that it never “fell”. It changed. By the 5th C AD it was Christian nation. It was no longer Roman in the sense of IVLIVS CAESAR of HADRIANVS.. What it mean to be “Roman” was significantly different and those differences created a sense that it was no longer necessary to be “Roman”. “Roman” was an attitude and an outlook on life. The very spirit of what it was to be “Roman”, say at the height of the Empire during the reign of HADRIANVS, for example, no longer existed in the 5th C AD. The Western Empire still exists in the Roman Church whose current leader is still titled “Pontifex Maximus”. One of the wealthiest nations on Earth and most populous… only surpassed by China.
It is true that the immediate cause of the fall of the Roman Empire was caused by barbaric invasions, but the main cause was the internal collapse of the empire. The many internal problems that the Romans faced; the empires large size and an inefficient government, lack of old Roman virtues and a new attitude that the empire was not worth saving, and the fact that the Roman army was filled with hired Germanic soldiers.
