Yea, rome was by far the most interesting period of history.

The empire was pretty brilliant in its expansion early on. Areas that were conquered had their lifespans double, their taxes cut by 70%, and an essential end to war and banditry. Most countries welcomed being conquered.

By the end of the empire, the taxes and the laws were so cumbersome that most people inside honestly wanted the empire to fall.

This isn't a great summary.

There was never a "mass exodus of wealthy producers" as far as I know. For a good portion of the fall the "wealthy producers" were actually doing better than ever as they were able to take advantage of other well off families that were serving in the army. The wheat from Egypt was part of an agreement between states where Rome would help secure their empire in exchange for stable excess food (see below about land owners being soldiers). The grain dole was also wildly successful for hundreds of years and very sustainable. Caesar made an effort to clean up the grain dole since poor families who had become wealthy were still receiving free grain. This is another of those things that lasted so long calling it the cause of the fall misses a lot.

Honestly your summary sounds like a tortured right wing version of history by Molyneux.

Rome was always sustained by conquering, not through internal taxation. It effectively fell because it had so much conquered that it couldn't effectively defend the east half of the empire at the same time as the west. Meanwhile, the soldiers fields were laying fallow and not producing wealth for the soldiers (remember that in Rome all soldiers were well off land owners and serving in the army was a privilege where you bought your own gear to do it) so the farms were being bought by those who weren't serving in the army. So you ended up with this weird system where those who were dedicated to keeping order in the state were getting screwed out of wealth and the people who shirked their civil responsibility were rewarded with cheap land and more wealth, which in turn allowed them to get greater political power. As a result there was an outcry to ban owning of too much land and to return it to the families of soldiers who were keeping the empire secure.

At least for part of the fall.

One thing you have to remember is that Rome's "falling" was something like double the entire history of the United States, so a "summary" will always ignore a shit load of crucial information. There was no single set of causes for the fall of the eastern part of the Roman empire because the fall took place over hundreds of years and causes of the empire's problems cycled in and out as they were solved and replaced with other problems.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Nov 16 2020 01:30pm

thats cool and all but im pretty sure a pack of druids cast a spell from the center of stonehenge and that is what made rome fall

This post was edited by thesnipa on Nov 16 2020 01:32pm

it got quite quite here... where is goat?

thats where the famed o dudu circle came from

slavery was the biggest reason so check your privilege.

The statement that egyptian grain helped is so simplistic that it betrays your lack of understanding basic incentives. Social policy has multiple effects on multiple people, you cant just say its good or bad.

This post was edited by EndlessSky on Nov 16 2020 02:13pm

When something happens over the course of 400 years, there is no "biggest reason".

Ok

these are too good