Political Corruption

Political corruption was a big contributor to the fall of Rome. Rome always had a problem with electing new emperors. One reason for the difficulty of choosing new leaders was because the Praetorian Guard, the emperors private army, slowly gained more influence in the election. This worked for a little bit, but soon they were granting the title of emperor to the highest bidder in an auction (C). As powerful as Rome was, they never had an effective way of choosing a new ruler. This meant that many people were not happy with the new emperors and many people resorted to violence. The most common way that emperors died between the years of 235 and 285 CE was by assassination. Only three emperors died of  natural causes and fifteen were assassinated. The assassination led to many changes in the Roman leadership which suggests that the Roman government was insecure and did not have support from the people of Rome or the Roman officials. The constant assassinations of  emperors sent the message to Rome's enemies that Rome was unstable and was turning into an easy target. The civil war within made Rome easily conquerable. When emperors were chosen, they usually neglected to think about the good of the people and only used their power for selfish reasons. The emperors were self centered and the government was not well balanced. The problem of Rome being too large to govern was just enhanced by bad leadership (D). The unhealthy government could not gain the support from the people of Rome and it made Rome's enemies lose respect for Rome's power.



                                                                                             -Kaeso Hirtius Pulcher (Nicholas Tien)