The Roman Empire

The Roman Empire

The Roman empire, situated in the city of Rome, had a monarchial type of government and was ruled by emperors. It grew bigger hence the need to be divided into Eastern and Western Empire. An empire to be successful it has to have a brave and courageous leader who is conversant with leadership skills and given powers can run the empire smoothly. Also a skillful, equipped and a well-trained army is very important to secure the borders and help in maintaining law and order within the empire. In addition, unity and teamwork is key to a successful empire.

In my point of view, the Roman empire was not successful. It experienced a lot of internal leadership wrangles leading to more division within the empire. Greed to control the vast empire dominated almost every successor and resulted in the assassination of emperors like emperor Pertinax, Commodus and Caracalla. Most of the emperors were harsh and cruel, they mistreated their people making them work as slaves and imposed them high taxation (Edward P.99).

Although the empire was not successful it gained prominence in the region. It rose day by day due to good transport networks which enhanced movement of people and goods across the empire. Furthermore, they assisted in power administration and economy growth. It had adequate skilled engineers and architects. They invented bridges built using domes and frequently used hydraulics hence increasing water supply across the region. The Colosseum, temples and cathedrals were also built.

The introduction of the Roman laws led to the growth of the empire since they were tough and favored no one in the empire. Anyone found breaking the laws was punished accordingly either through jailing or crucifixion leading to efficient governance. They were more advanced in the field of literacy and arithmetic hence improved communication; the used Latin language, Roman alphabets and numbers. It had a large equipped army too.

Regardless of the empire being so vast and having great works in engineering, architecture and technology skills it came to fall. Poor governance and leadership led to its downfall; Some of the emperors were full of greed and wanted to live lavish lifestyles at the expense of the peoples’ taxes hence mismanaging the revenue, for example, Emperor Julius Caesar led the people putting his interests first.

There was economic instability in the region. The empire had run out of funds used to run its activities. They had relied on slaves and since the rate of their supply had reduced they lacked enough labor in their fields of work decreasing their produce. This was due to series of wars and the empire had spent a lot of funding them. A lot of money was used by Emperor Hadrian in building the wall in Britain to keep enemies away (Leslie P.235).

Political instability due to constant attack from Barbarians was a huge blow to the empire. Groups like the Goth’s and Vandal’s kept on attacking the empire from time to time in the reign of Emperor Romulus Augustulus. Due to lack of funds by the empire, the military was defeated since it was so weak to guard the borders (Edward P.76).

Moreover, the empire had over-expanded and it was facing lack of enough administrative personnel. Corruption and incompetence of the Emperors led to lack of enough funds hence the collapse of the empire. Introduction and spread of Christianity displaced polytheistic Roman religion which gave the emperor a lot of powers.