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Podcast Transcript

For over 1200 years, Rome, either in its Republican or Imperial form, was the dominant power in the Mediterranean. 

Then, at least in the West, the empire eventually fell apart. 

Ever since, historians have been asking the question….why?

After 1500 years of debate, there still isn’t a consensus. 

Learn more about the various explanations for why the Roman Empire fell on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. 

The Western Roman Empire is said to have ended on September 4, 476, when the eleven-year-old emperor of the Western Empire, Romulus Augustus, was deposed by a German barbarian king named Odoacer. 

When it happened, it wasn’t a big event. If there were newspapers at the time, the headlines would not have read “Roman Empire Over.” They would have noted the change of rulers, but no one would have thought it to be some seismic shift. 

Nonetheless, it was. 

As I mentioned several times before, the Roman Empire only collapsed in the West. For centuries, it had been split between East and West, and in the East, it continued for another 1000 years until the Ottomans’ conquest of Constantinople in 1453. 

Since Rome was founded in 743 BC, the Kingdom, Republic, and Empire based out of the city lasted 1,229 years.  That was a pretty good run and there are few political or cultural institutions that lasted that long. 

So, the big question historians have asked for centuries is, “Why did Rome fall?”

The German historian Alexander Demandt once cataloged 210 different reasons for why the Western empire fell. 

In the episode, I’ll discuss some of the popular theories and explanations for the fall of Rome. I don’t believe there is one single answer to the question. Most of the theories I’m going to discuss are not necessarily exclusive of one another. They all could have been contributing factors. 

Some are stronger arguments than others, but I’ll let you decide how persuasive each one is. 

Let’s start with one of the more popular theories about the fall of Rome, the rise of Christianity. 

The theory holds that the Roman religion offered a certain amount of civic cohesion. Everyone, from rich to poor, worshipped the same gods, made similar sacrifices, and honored the same religious festivals. 

The Roman pantheon was highly Rome-centric. The Roman gods looked out for Rome, and the Roman religion was intricately tied to the Roman state. 

Rome tolerated other religions, but their religion was a unifying force. When Christianity came along, it was a totally different system of beliefs. Because Christianity was monotheistic, it was a universal religion. It claimed to be for everyone, and it didn’t hold Rome in any special status. 

When Constantine the Great came to power, Christians made up about 10% of the population, and it was more represented in the lower classes. 

By 380, Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the state religion under pressure from Christian bishops, who took power away from the Emperor. 

To be sure, the rise of Christianity coincided with the decline of the Western empire, so it makes for an appealing theory. However, there is one massive problem with it. 

The Eastern Empire did just fine for over 1000 years with Orthodox Christianity at its core. If Christianity was that destabilizing, why was it destabilizing only in the West? 

The answer to this might be that different variants of Christianity arose in the East and West, with the Western variant putting less authority in the hands of the emperor. 

Another theory holds that the split of the empire between East and West was itself a cause of the fall. When the political center of the empire moved to Constantinople in the east, the east already had the larger economy and most of the population. 

Ever since Emperor Diocletian, split rule of the empire between four different people, two in the east and two in the west, the east became more important, which was why Constantine moved the capital. 

Another explanation that is often given has to do with political instability in the West. Throughout the entire period of the Roman Empire, beginning with Augustus, there was never a consistent method of transferring power from one emperor to another. 

Eventually, this became a huge problem during a period known as the Crisis of the Third Century. There were 20 emperors during a period of 75 years. Almost all of them were assassinated. Instead of an orderly success, Roman legions or the Praetorian Guard often selected the emperor, and in the case of Didius Julianus, which I covered in a previous episode, he purchased it in an auction. 

This instability ended up putting children on the throne, including the last emperor, Romulus Augustus. 

Much of this instability encouraged the spread of corruption throughout the empire, weakening political institutions at every level. With so much corruption, few people had an incentive to fight for or support the empire. 

Rome’s biggest strength was its military, so it should come as no surprise that there were several military causes often given for its fall. 

Roman legions were made up of Roman citizens during its rise. These would often be Roman elites who thought that military service was a critical part of their successful public careers. 

Eventually, the military became permanent and professional. Legions became concerned with their own financial well-being and determining who the emperor was. 

More and more money was spent on the military to keep them happy, which drained Rome of its coffers. 

Moreover, Emperors such as Constantine and Diocletian began hiring foreign mercenaries. The military eventually became dominated by German barbarians to such an extend that the word barbarian became synonymous with soldier. These soldiers could fight, but they had no real loyalty to Rome, only to money. 

Another closely related explanation is imperial overstretch. This holds that Rome simply got too big. The cost and difficulty of defending so much territory eventually became too much, both militarily and economically. 

At its peak, the Empire extended from the Persian Gulf to Britain, to the border of Sudan, the Blacks Sea, and the Straits of Gibraltar. It was really big in an era when people and information traveled slowly. 

This leads me to the economic causes of the decline. 

The Roman economy had serious problems by the time of the collapse of the Western empire. One of the big problems was inflation. 

During the reign of the Julio-Claudians, from Augustus to Nero, the Roman denarius, the principal silver coin, was almost pure silver. However, subsequent emperors began to debase the denarii. They put less and less silver into the denarii as a cost-saving measure to make more money. 

By the reign of Emperor Aurelian, silver only represented 5% of the denarius. 

Diocletian instituted a horrific collection of economic reforms that stifled the economy by freezing in place prices and what careers people could pursue. 

The need to support such a large military, which increased demand for money to keep emperors in power, resulted in higher taxes, which also resulted in reduced trade and economic activity. 

However, one of the worst aspects of the Roman economy ever since its inception was slavery. 

Rome was heavily dependent on slavery. Slavery created serious long-term problems for Rome. 

For starters, meeting the demand for slaves necessitated new conquests and new people that could be conquered. However, Rome eventually reached its limits, and the supply of slaves dried up. 

The heavy reliance on slaves also resulted in unemployment among Roman citizens. To pacify the citizens, they were given games and a grain dole, which cost money. 

Perhaps the biggest problem with slavery was that it led to a lack of technical innovation. Most technical innovations improve human productivity, allowing people to do more than they could without the technology. 

However, when you have slaves, there is little incentive to improve productivity. Why bother using a machine to make something easier when you can just throw more people at something? 

A great example of his is using windmills to grind grain. The Romans almost never did this. They just had slaves grind it by hand. It wasn’t until after the fall of Rome and the end of slavery that windmills started to be used. 

Rome was unusually inept at technical innovation. Very few innovations were developed in Rome, and most were discovered in places like Alexandria. 

This economic and technical stagnation eventually led to long-term problems. 

Everything I’ve covered so far involves the obvious political, military, and economic spheres. 

However, other explanations are more indirect explanations for the fall of Rome. 

One of the more interesting explanations is lead poisoning. Some theories suggest that lead poisoning from the extensive use of lead pipes and cookware in Rome contributed to the decline in the health and intellect of the Roman population, affecting leadership and decision-making abilities.

If you remember back to my episode on Clair Patterson, lead poisoning can cause serious problems. The Romans did use a lot of lead in objects that we would never put lead in today. 

However, the problem with this theory is that lead poisoning wouldn’t have affected everyone, and it isn’t something that would have built up over generations. It would affect individual people in places like the city of Rome but not necessarily people outside of major cities.  It is also hard to see how this is something that would have built up over centuries. 

Furthermore, while Rome didn’t excel in technological innovation, philosophy, or mathematics, those were cultural things. There were plenty of shrewd Romans who exercised intelligence, and it is doubtful that even if lead poisoning was prevalent, it was enough to hobble an empire. 

A much more credible theory has to do with climate. 

Climate researchers have identified a period that has been dubbed the Roman Climatic Optimum. It was a period of increased temperatures in Europe from about 250 BC to the year 400. 

The warm and stable climate during the Roman Climatic Optimum supported the growth of various crops, including wheat, olives, and grapes. Regions across the Mediterranean and parts of Europe experienced increased agricultural productivity, which contributed to food security and population growth.

The surplus of agricultural produce supported the economic expansion of the Roman Empire. Trade flourished as surplus crops and goods were exchanged across vast distances, fostering economic integration and wealth accumulation.

The end of the Roman Climatic Optimum brought less favorable and more unpredictable weather patterns, including colder temperatures and increased rainfall variability. This led to reduced agricultural productivity, crop failures, and food shortages, which undermined the empire’s food security and economy.

There is one final theory that I think has some validity as well: Plagues and epidemics. 

Prior to the Plague of Justinian, which I covered in a previous episode, which was the first true pandemic, several epidemics caused a great deal of death and disruption. The Antonine Plague, which took place from 165-180,  and the Plague of Cyprian from 249-262 were two of these events. 

The Antonine Plague might have killed the co-emperor Lucius Verus in 169 and it is estimated that as many as 5 to 10 million people may have died. 

The Plague of Cyprian was responsible for food shortages and shortages in manpower for the Roman Army. This, too, had deaths in the millions and was so severe that the population of Alexandria, the second-largest city in the empire, was cut in half. It may have also been responsible for the death of Emperor Claudius II.

These and other epidemics weakened the Roman Empire across the board, reducing the population and hurting the economy and military. 

All of the theories I’ve presented have some kernel of truth to them. The all may have played some part in the collapse of Rome and many of them worked in conjunction with each other.

Some of these things might have contributed to the fall of the empire but might not have done so if they had occurred centuries earlier when Rome was more stable. A strong, stable country can weather storms that might ruin a weaker one, and that also might be what happened. 

Whatever your favorite theory is, the collapse of the western Roman Empire had wide-reaching impacts, many of which can still be felt today, and for that reason alone, the Fall of the Roman Empire is something that we will be debating for centuries to come.