Why did the Roman Empire fall? And I mean in the West, not in the East.
they were cucked by the celts
Endless civil war combined with an increasingly sedentary population once the empire stopped expanding lead to Romans identifying more with the land they were born in than the empire all together.
Remember when Julian was proclaimed Augustus by his own men? They were ethnic Celts/Gauls who had no intention of marching against Persia to defend the Eastern provinces they never seen nor cared about. So when Constantius asked for their reinforcement, they decided to rebel.
But I'd mostly chalk it up to Civil Warfare being seen as acceptable, gradually deteriorating any sense of shared Roman identity.
Incompetent leaders, christian devaluation of this world, reliance on mercenaries, etc
Civil War.
The fall of Stoicism probably helped the decline. Like it or not, ideology matters.
Read this shit.
http://monoskop.org/images/a/ab/Tainter_Joseph_The_Collapse_of_Complex_Societies.pdf
It does a pretty good job.
>>930094
It was already over by Diocletian's times. It didn't "fall" --- the decline was slow, began with different reforms, and the shift from Principate to Dominate.
The form of ruling seen under subsequent emperors is characteristic of eastern monarchies; by Constantine's time, the knowledge necessary to the creation of Triumphal Archs was lost; most new art and architecture (see late 4th century sarcophagi) tended to develop arabic features. For example, the acanthus leaf, moving from a simple "occupation of space", became almost a lifelike pattern which was represented "as-itself". When art or architecture seeked justification through archaism, or appeal to the past glory of Rome, older monuments would be modified, names replaced.
By 476, what you call the "Imperium Romanum" was a strictly bureaucratic structure, having nothing to do with "Rome" or the early Roman Empire.
Slaves, army, population
With a decrease of conquests the prisioners were decreasing in number and forced labour was sustented by slaves.
The army had ostentation and many of barbaries enlisted in roman empire
The barbariens wanted to practice agriculture in better lands.
>>930155
What makes you say that?
>>930155
Diocletian's reforms saved the empire for another two centuries nigger. It was closer to death in 250 than it was in 400. It was the incompetence of several emperors from 400-440 that fucked everything up.
The decline had nothing to do with becoming the dominate, the dominate strengthened what was an essentially an adhoc government and turned it into a fully fledged state.
>by Constantine's time, the knowledge necessary to the creation of Triumphal Archs was lost
You're a fool.
>tended to develop arabic features
Are you an idiot? Changing styles doesn't mean shit.
You sound like a chimp who has read snippets of Gibbon on wikipedia.
>>930204
>You're a fool.
Why then did Constantine rename someone else's arch instead of creating his own? Surely it wouldn't have been because of the decline of the arts, but because of a brilliant, growing culture!
>Are you an idiot? Changing styles doesn't mean shit.
I feel as if I were speaking Ancient Greek to a toad. It means everything. A culture's, or in this case, a civilization's "style" (how surprised would you be, if you could grasp the deep meaning of this very word!), is everything.
How surprised too, would you be, if you could understand that there is no fundamental difference between the use of the acanthus leaf, Constantine's basilica and baths, as well as Lactantius' concept of Providence! --- that we do witness here a new "style", as you so unwittingly worded it, a style violently opposed to Antiquity.
With an absolute ruler all that is required to undo several decades of good work is one tyrant or despot, given a long enough bad run of rulers any state would suffer to varying degrees, from total collapse to stagnation.
More than anything else, shitty luck.
Big crisis at a time of inept leadership.
More often than not, that's how empires fall.
>>930235
The arch of Constantine was built in the reign of Constantine.
I'm not one of this generation of baby boomers who thinks that nothing changed as a result of the fall of Rome and everything was hunky-dorey, but at the same time i'm not a retard who thinks that the Late Roman Empire didn't have continuity with the Principate.
The second part of your post is just silliness designed to provoke a response, just like the adoption of your trip.
Christianity was not fundamentally opposed to Roman values, fuck off Edward.
>muh degeneracy
>>930204
Diocletian's reforms calcified the professions and brought on feudal society. Not saying this is a bad thing, but it started Rome down the path to not being Rome.
>>930263
I don't recall ever discussing Christianity in any of my posts. I haven't read Gibbon.
The "Fall of Rome" began circa 60BC and ended around 250.
I don't wish to argue with an uncultured person of your likeness.
Christianity was fundamentally opposed to Roman values, but such values had left the Roman mind for a couple hundred of years when Christianity began to be something remotely widespread in Rome.
>>930275
Fuck off Fred.
>>930279
So what asinine reactionary writer did you read?
>>930094
Mostly it was civil wars. If the Empire had a good way of choosing succession it could have kept on expanding, especially in the years of Parthian weakness.
A string of civil wars and psychotic emperors when the Romans should have been at their height dragged them down.
The whole trade balance thing is over played, but Rome also would have benefited from a trade in ideas, and better terms of trade if they had cut Parthia out of the Silk Road and made more than passing contact with China.
>>930279
>I don't wish to argue with an uncultured person of your likeness.
I've got the Decline and Fall in my bookcase, I think i'm potentially more entitled to be able to come to a conclusion on when the "Fall" happened.
>but such values had left the Roman mind for a couple hundred of years when Christianity began to be something remotely widespread in Rome.
You what? It didn't even become widespread until the late 3rd-century.
>>930278
It's true that feudal society has its seeds many of Diocletian's actions, what with the division of society into humiliores and honestiores, coloni having their freedom of movement restricted and having to stay in your father's profession etc. But that didn't fundamentally change anything intrinsic to the Roman identity in any shape or form. People in 400 still sat around being served by their slaves, eating extravagant meals and complaining about the local aediles or decurions just as they did 400 years earlier. The poor still did the exact same shit they did before, except now they were taxed more harshly and got pissed about it instead of just laying back and taking it. The Roman world was Roman until like the 6th century.
>>930299
Fair enough. Feudalism had many fathers.
And sure, the early Middle Ages seem bleak as fuck compared to Antiquity, but I kind of like that.
It's when Europe is at its darkest and most superstitious. Muslims are coming up through Byzantium and Spain. Norsemen are coming down from the north. Steppe people keep sweeping in from Asia.
It's that pressure cooker that gave birth to modern Europe.
