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 media type="custom" key="29528543" align="right" =Explain how the inner forces (including the rise of autonomous military powers, political corruption, and economic and political instability) and the external forces (shrinking trade, attacks, and invasions) led to the disintegration of the Roman Empire=

**//Focus Question: What forces led to the fall of the Roman Empire?//**
====Link to dramatic event page on the **The** **Weakening and Transformation of the Roman Empire**====

Peter Brown, “ [|The World of Late Antiquity] ,” considers the collapse of the Western Roman Empire to be part of a larger process of transformation, not a decline and fall. Rome had become peripheral to the empire it created, whose center of political and economic life shifted to Constantinople, modern Istanbul, over the course of the 4th century A.D.




 * [[image:timeline2_rus.svg.png link="@http://courses.wcupa.edu/jones/his101/web/t-roman.htm"]]Roman Empire Timeline **

Lacus Curtius, from the University of Chicago, provides a number of maps, pictures and texts. Including the whole of J. B. Bury's 1889 book, "The History of the Later Empire."

Why did Rome Decline?
There are adherents to single factors, but more people think a combination of such factors as Christianity, decadence, monetary trouble, and military problems caused the Fall of Rome.
 * Imperial incompetence and chance could be added to the list.
 * Even the rise of Islam is proposed as the reason for Rome's fall, by some who think the Fall of Rome happened at Constantinople in A.D. 1453.

This map shows the different invasions that the Roman Empire faced from 100-500 CE.
 * Overview of the factors that contributed to the collapse of the Roman Empire**:
 * Income from taxes shrank causing inflation
 * Fall of the trade: economic power of cities declined.
 * Debased coinage increased inflation
 * Slavery became ineffective due to the inflation
 * Barbarians invaded Rome

The period known as //Pax Romana// is frequently cited to have concluded with the rise of Emperor Commodus in 180 CE, and by proxy his reign also signifies to many the start of Rome's decline.
 * Click [|here] to read a biography of his life.


 * Click here to read an article on the Fall of the Roman Empire.
 * Click here to read an article on the Fall of the Roman Empire from the city of Rome.
 * Internet Ancient History Sourcebook, from Fordham University, offers a number of valuable resources, including a number of primary sources, as well as some more modern reckonings of what happened.
 * [|This BBC article explores why the western empire fell, but the east continued to be successful.]


 * Fall of Roman Empire Video
 * Click here to watch a classroom lecture at Yale on the fall of the Roman Empire.
 * The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire from Mental Floss, includes two videos from Crash Course and Atlas.
 * "Inflation and the Fall of the Roman Empire" -- a lecture given by Professor Joseph Peden at the Seminar on Money and Government in Houston, Texas, on October 27, 1984.
 * Click here for Lecture 26: Fall of the Roman Republic, 133-27 BC --Professor Nicholas Rauh of Purdue University.
 * Khan Academy [|video] on the Fall of Rome
 * [|This video shows, as well as explains, both the rise and the fall of the Roman Empire using maps.]

[|This game] lets students play through the rise and fall of the Roman Empire from the perspective of the emperor. To play a Rome strategy game where you can manipulate taxes, conquer new lands, and fight off barbarian, click [|here].

Lesson Plan -- The Rise and Fall of Rome

One point which is frequently cited as a cause of Rome's decline is the acceptance of homosexuality. This stems back to remarks made by a religious Italian historian, but while many people in the field of study have discredited this notion, the idea has taken on significant popularity.
 * Read [|this] article to learn more about it.