When Rome Fell, the Chief Culprits Were Climate and Disease. Sound Familiar?
<i>&quot;From the eighteenth century onward, we have been obsessed with the fall: it has been valued as an archetype for every perceived decline, and, hence, as a symbol for our own fears.&quot;</i><p>~ Glen Bowersock<p>The most important reason for the fall of Rome is frankly obvious, so obvious it&#x27;s never mentioned: the severe political divisions within the Empire which caused it to fracture. The bulk of the intellectual and economic power in Rome shifted to the Eastern Empire, which lasted in its original form until the eighth century, and in some form until the fifteenth. The seeds of the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century were sown when Theodosius divided the Empire among his sons in 395, and there is hardly any comparable event today. There were various other reasons, of course; disease certainly didn&#x27;t help, neither did the appearance of the Sassanids, the increasing irrelevance of the Senate, or famines in Gaul. But everyone on the right and the left wants Rome to have fallen because of its mishandling of their favorite political issue, be it inflation, military conscription, climate change, taxation, or as one amusingly inaccurate meme charges, <i>religious intolerance</i>. These accusations are all silly. The Roman Empire saw <i>multiple civil wars</i> between the reign of Constantine and the conquest by Odoacer. No developed country today faces such an issue. As soon as it was no longer able to draw support from the East, the Western Roman Empire began eighty years of monotonic decline.<p>If there is any moral to the story, it&#x27;s that monarchy is unsustainable -- but we all knew that, anyway.