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At the beginning of the Roman Empire, it was strong and powerful. Nevertheless, as the years went by it seemed it was going the other way. Four ways that I chose, where Rome was declining are as follows: economically, military, politically, and socially. As a whole, the empire was too big to control by one emperor. This posed many problems. . The military was not even true loyal Rome citizens; they were Mercenaries. The empire relied too much on slave labour, which caused for a great distinction between the rich and the poor. The military was not even true loyal Rome citizens; they were Mercenaries. The people did not have very high morals. They believed what ever the emperor believed. The empire was falling apart. One of the primary reasons, to the deterioration of the economy, was the lack of circulating currency in the Western Empire. Two reasons for the lack of funds are wholesale hoarding of bullion by Roman citizens, and the widespread looting of the Roman treasury by the "barbarians". These two factors, coupled with the massive trade deficit with Eastern Regions of the Empire served to stifle the growth of wealth in the west. In essence, the Roman Empire crumbled due to insufficient economic power, which came about for a variety of reasons. It lacked the resources necessary to keep such a vast empire intact. The empire reached such a point that it could no longer support itself, becoming top heavy, and crashed down like a tower that had grown too high for its own foundation. Ellsworth Huntington has proposed a unique hypothesis relating the changing rainfall patterns and climate in the Mediterranean with the economic problems encountered by the western empire. He writes that, as the climate became more unstable, it began to alternate annually between hot droughts and cold rainy seasons. This, for obvious reasons, would decrease crop yields, and would force the Romans to undergo widespread irrigation projects on land, which had formerly been self-sufficient. The huge quantities of water needed for this project had to be contained in large reservoirs, and the standing water became stagnant. Stagnant water is the ideal environment for breeding mosquitoes, the carriers of malaria. Malaria began manifesting itself at epidemic levels, weakening and killing a large percentage of the population. When one thinks of the Roman Empire, the first thing, which may come to mind, is the strength and stability provided by its army. It is widely held that the fortunes of Rome were directly tied to the prowess of her military. Many scholars have maintained that in the later period of the Empire, Rome's military might have steadily declined for a variety of reasons. In the end, it was this lack of security, which allowed the barbarian hordes to topple what had once been the mightiest empire in the world Historian Arthur Ferrill has stated this theory succinctly. "The destruction of Roman military power in the fifth century A.D. was the obvious cause of the collapse of Roman government in the West".
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