The fall of Rome was due to many different factors. These factors included an economic crisis, barbarians, the weak military, lost battles, and political decay. The reason for the economic crisis was that the income was gone. The military couldn't protect the borders so barbarians or raiders started going in Rome and stealing things on land and in the sea. The Romans continued to import luxury items such as silk, and pearls. However they didn't consider the fact that their exports weren't enough to cover the cost of these things. Their soil was too well-worn to produce enough food for everyone so another problem that appeared was inflation. Because of the inflation, the Romans thought that making more money would help them overcome this problem, but they used less silver, which lowered the value of the money. .
The military started hiring barbarians because they were cheaper to employ. Except barbarians are not trustworthy. They lost many battles and were overrun by the Persians on the Danube River. The emperor was the captured. People started caring less and less about politics. The rich stayed out because if the tax quota was not met, you had to come up with money of your own to cover it. The Praetorian Guard ran politics from 218 A.D. until 268 A.D. and appointed fifty generals as emperor in fifty years. The senate approve twenty-seven of them, seventeen were killed, and two were forced to commit suicide. When it seemed like there was no hope for the Roman Empire, two saviors, Diocletian and Constantine, appeared.
Diocletian, a Roman general who was the son of a slave, was proclaimed emperor by his troops in 284 A.D. Diocletian realized that one man could no longer govern the empire. To bring back order, he separated the provinces into smaller units. Each unit had its own government and army.