Why did the Roman Empire Fall?

The question should be why did the Roman Empire disintigrate. It did so because its political make-up left it unable to defend itself against invasion. The Roman Empire was disunited and with many opposed to its rule -- as empires have been throughout history. Empires are not nations. And empires are by nature authoritarian. Rome's emperors feared arming their subjects. Many people in the empire lacked the sense that "Roman" rule was worth protecting. The empire's military security was not communities of men ready for mobilization at command from central authority. Instead, people from outside the empire were able to march into the empire with only feeble opposition.

Around the year 395, Huns pushed on Germanic peoples, and these Germans crossed the Danube River in great numbers into the Roman province of Pannonia, and the Roman population there fled westward. The empire was further challenged in 399 when Alaric and his army of Visigoth warriors and civilians moved across the Alps and into Italy. Then, in the winter of 406-7, a coalition of Germanic warrior tribes with their farm animals and children crossed the frozen Rhine River into Gaul. The invaders found only feeble opposition as they spread out, some of them going as far as the Pyrenees Mountains, while only a few towns, among them Toulouse, attempted a significant resistance.

Granted, communications were slower for central Roman authority than communications are today, but the question is why Rome fell given the technological circumstances of those times. Some dislike singular explanations and prefer a host of equivalent contributions to the empire's breakup. There are subsidiary factors, namely all that went into the political decay within Rome and its empire. There was the economic decay that accompanied the political decay. Some add Christianity to the mix of causes, and some add paganism. These aside, the political system was geared for occasional failures in competent leadership. And one might want to throw in an increase in population among those living outside the Roman Empire.

Refraining from mixing the subsidiary with the primary, I claim again that Rome fell because its political make-up left it unable to defend itself against invasions.

Why Did the Roman Empire Fall?