Roman Empire Culture Essay Example for Free

capital of Italyn Empire Culture EssayWikipedias gateway on the Fall of the Roman Empire is a comprehensive and multifaceted visual sense of the scholarship which seeks to indicate a certain period or event or series of events which caused the legislate of the Roman Empire. One of the important differences between the Wikipedia entry and a traditional encyclopedia entry is the extensive analysis with which the Wikipedia entry is up to(p) to devote to sub-sections and sub-theories under the general banner of discussion. The question of assigning a specific accompaniment for the fall occupies a great deal of the Wikipedia article. The traditional date acknowledged is September 4, 476 when Romulus Augustus, Emperor of the Western Empire, was deposed by Odoacer. But the Eastern Empire continued until the fall of Constantinople nearly a century later in 1453. Other dates in contention are 395, the year of the death of Theodosius, the last time the Empire was coupled the cross ing of the Rhine by Germanic tribes in 406 after the withdrawal of the legions to battle Alaric I or the radioactive decay of the western legions following the death of Stilicho in 408. M whatever scholars disdain the term fall, preferring to describe what was contingency as a complex transformation. The Wikipedia entry while seeming to dwell inordinately on a specific time or date of the fall is in actuality providing the researcher with a alter primer on the myriad theories which attend the question of historical dates of the Roman Empires fall. Though the tone of the Wikipedia entry is scholarly, the lengthy digressions and somewhat scattered patterns of information make the entry less streamlined than a typic encyclopedia entry. In addition, the numerous off-site links and cross-references can prove to be distractive. And although the Wikipedia entry itself well resembles scholarly writing there can be no assurance regarding the veracity of off-site links. The almost obvio us bias that is apparent in the Wikipedia entry is resounding insistence that there is a date of collapse for the Roman Empire. The entry cites Edward Gibbon who argues the Roman population lost its way by allowing the Germanic tribes and other barbarian mercenaries a greater role in defending its interests. Gibbon claims Christianity was a bring factor as well, turning the populations attention to other-worldly as opposed to here-and-now events. Rather than examine contradictory theories in detail, the Wikipedia entry consumjes most of its energy revealing the survey of theories which argue for a date of collapse for the Roma Empire. Wikipedia surveys the Pirenne Thesis, wherein Henri Pirenne argued the Empire continued until the Muslim conquests in the 7th century, which disrupted Mediterranean trade routes and low-spirited the European economy. Pirenne sees the crowning of the Frankish King Charlemagne as the first Holy Roman Emperor in 800 as a continuation of the Empire. But it is J. B. Burys contention in his History of the subsequent Roman Empirewhich receives critical attention in the Wikipedia article. His theory is that what amounted to a perfect storm of events unite to spell the downfall of the Empire *Economic decline *Germanic expansion in the population and multitude *De-population of Italy *The treason of Stilicho *The murder of Aetius and the lack of a leader to replace him Bury says the Empire could have survived any of these events separately, but could not overcome the convergence of them. William Carroll Barks Origins of the Medieval World reasons that basic economics was the Empires undoing. As a pre-cursor to feudalism, the tenant farmers obligation was to pay a fixed assessment of taxes on his grain supply. The oppressive taxes kept the farmers impoverished and unlikely to move into the more than prosperous middle class. In fact, what middle class there was was forced to become collectors of the taxes for the unable central reg imen. Government coffers suffered as a result. Also, the scarcity of gold late in the Empire made matters worse. pretension of the currency in relation to its value in gold resulted in more people demanding retribution in gold. The governments cash-flow problems required them to seek cheaper mercenaries as defenders. Radovan Richta says technology contributed to the Empires demise. The Germanic invention of the horseshoe and use of the new Chinese compass allowed mercenaries quicker access to Roman defenses. Arnold Toynbee and pile Burke also examine economic causes at the root of the Empires fall. The Romans had no budgetary system and wasted available resources as a result. The economy was basically based on trophy alternatively than production of new proficients, and that declined along with territorial expansion. Landowners were exempt from taxation, making revenue production inefficient and unfair. The middle-class, the backbone of any free economy, was nearly non-existen t. Exports were scarce. Military and bureaucratic costs increased. In overthrowing Romulus Augustus, the barbarian conqueror Odoacer assumed neither the title nor the responsibility of governance. William H. McNeill in Plagues and Peoples notes a 20-year-long plague in the late morsel century killed half of Europes population. The reduced tax base was unable to support the government and military and the resultant economic and social decline also killed the Empire. Further theories of the cause of collapse grow through the Wikipedia article. So much so that one begins to feel that each sub-section of the article has been contributed by an partisan of that particularly pet-theory, sacrificing a general tone of scholarship for a tone of specificity and personal expertise. Examples of this include Wikipedias survey of Peter Heathers theory that the threat posed by the Sassanid Persian Empire has been overlooked as a cause for the Roman Empires fall. He used archaeological evidence t o suggest the Romans were stretched militarily by their intentness with the Persians, allowing a succession of Huns, Goths, and Germanic barbarians access to their territory. A researcher who is searching for a very good primer regarding the abundance of theories which exist in scholarship to examine the historicism of the Roman Empires fall will beget excellent information in the Wikipedia article, as a general and unverified outline of the scholarship. However, a deep-researcher would plausibly find the entry inconsistent, erratic, and of little value for serious scholarship as a go-to source rather the Wikipedia seems to serve better as a thumbnail sketch of info and links to other sources of potential value. beginning The Fall of the Roman Empire. wikipedia.com. Retrieved from the Internet March 16, 2007.