At the beginning of the Roman Empire, it was strong and powerful. Nevertheless, as the years went by it seemed it was going the other way. Four ways that I chose, where Rome was declining are as follows: economically, military, politically, and socially. As a whole, the empire was too big to control by one emperor. This posed many problems. . The military was not even true loyal Rome citizens; they were Mercenaries. The empire relied too much on slave labour, which caused for a great distinction between the rich and the poor. The military was not even true loyal Rome citizens; they were Mercenaries. The people did not have very high morals. They believed what ever the emperor believed. The empire was falling apart.
One of the primary reasons, to the deterioration of the economy, was the lack of circulating currency in the Western Empire. Two reasons for the lack of funds are wholesale hoarding of bullion by Roman citizens, and the widespread looting of the Roman treasury by the "barbarians". These two factors, coupled with the massive trade deficit with Eastern Regions of the Empire served to stifle the growth of wealth in the west. In essence, the Roman Empire crumbled due to insufficient economic power, which came about for a variety of reasons. It lacked the resources necessary to keep such a vast empire intact. The empire reached such a point that it could no longer support itself, becoming top heavy, and crashed down like a tower that had grown too high for its own foundation.
Ellsworth Huntington has proposed a unique hypothesis relating the changing rainfall patterns and climate in the Mediterranean with the economic problems encountered by the western empire. He writes that, as the climate became more unstable, it began to alternate annually between hot droughts and cold rainy seasons. This, for obvious reasons, would decrease crop yields, and would force the Romans to undergo widespread irrigation projects on land, which had formerly been self-sufficient.
