Roman Society and Culture

[dukessheila]

Historians continue to debate the factors that caused the decline and downfall of the Western Roman Empire. What were the political, economic, military, and demographic causes for the end of the Roman Empire in the West?

[kempie]

Are you going to give us the credit?

Something along the lines of:
Coursework by AnswerBank

[vehelpfulguy]

homework...homework...homework

[Lil O'lady]

Homework or possibly re-sits.

[factor-fiction]

Why not make a suggestion on AB suggestions that a new topic category is created called dukessheila's coursework/homework

[scakebread]

nlike the previous answers this is (I hope) a serious response. I may be wrong but I have long thought that a major factor in the failure of the Roman Empire, particularly as it became larger and needed mor central administration, was the sheer difficulty of book-keeping in Roman numerals. Even without a calculator it is (or used to be...) relatively easy to work out, say, 3 items per man per day x 4850 men x 156 days = 2269800 items required (and yes, I did use a calculator).
It is much more difficult to work out III x MMMMCCML x CLVI (I think) to get a result that I'm not even going to try to put into Ronan nuumerals!

[jobplease]

Thats not entirely true because half the roman empire managed to stay intact untill the ottoman empire started to expand dramatically thanks to the cannon in the medieval ages. This was known as the Byzantinium empire which was previously the eastern roman empire.

[jobplease]

Before that the ottomans couldnt breach constantinople because of its massive wall and large port that could bring in supplys.

[jno]

many causes have been proposed from mass poisoning (from the lead in drainpipes) to overreliance on foreign troops. (Not sure about the Roman numerals, though: I think they just used the abacus, which is very much quicker and easier.) Tough question; you're just going to have to investigate them all and make up your own mind which is the most persuasive. As you say, historians are still arguing.