Empire Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Roman Empire === {{Further|Fall of the Western Roman Empire}} The fall of the [[Fall of the Western Roman Empire|western half of the Roman Empire]] is seen as one of the most pivotal points in all of human history. This event traditionally marks the transition from classical civilization to the birth of Europe. The Roman Empire started to decline at the end of the reign of the last of the [[Five Good Emperors]], Marcus Aurelius in 161β180 A.D. There is still a debate over the cause of the fall of one of the largest empires in history. Piganiol argues that the Roman Empire under its authority can be described as "a period of terror",<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Piganiol |first=AndrΓ© |year=1950 |title=The Causes of the Fall of the Roman Empire |journal=The Journal of General Education |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=62β69 |jstor=27795332}}</ref> holding its imperial system accountable for its failure. Another theory blames the rise of Christianity as the cause, arguing that the spread of certain Christian ideals caused internal weakness of the military and state.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bury |first=John |title=History of the Later Roman Empire |publisher=Dover Publications |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-486-20398-0 |location=New York}}</ref> In his book ''The Fall of the Roman Empire'', Peter Heather contends that there are many factors, including issues of money and manpower, which produce military limitations and culminate in the Roman army's inability to effectively repel invading barbarians at the frontier.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Heather |first=Peter |title=The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-19-532541-6 |location=New York, Oxford}}</ref> The Western Roman economy was already stretched to its limit in the 4th and 5th Centuries C.E. due to continual conflict and loss of territory which, in turn, generated loss of revenue from the tax base. There was also the looming presence of the Persians which, at any time, took a large percentage of the fighting force's attention. At the same time the Huns, a nomadic warrior people from the steppes of Asia, are also putting extreme pressure on the German tribes outside of the Roman frontier, which gave the German tribes no other choice, geographically, but to move into Roman territory. At this point, without increased funding, the Roman army could no longer effectively defend its borders against major waves of Germanic tribes. This inability is illustrated by the crushing [[Battle of Adrianople|defeat at Adrianople]] in 378 C.E. and, later, the [[Crossing of the Rhine]] in 406 C.E. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page