Topic 3 -- Early World History, Level I

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Date Posted: 16:59:11 03/07/02 Thu
Author: Anoush Essajanian
Subject: Topic 3

The Roman's success and downfall is a result of different aspects of their army,
government, and people.
At first, the Romans were vicious. Anything and anyone that stood in their way was no
obstacle for them. They knew what they wanted and they didn't hesitate in any way to
reach all of their goals of controlling the Mediterranean. For example, all of the Punic
wars were, overall, in the favor of the Romans. This was because of their extremely
strong and ruthless army. Their soldiers were so disciplined and trained that fighting and,
ultimately winning, just came naturally to them. The Roman government also played a
major role in their beginning success. For example, when the plebeians wanted to have as
much power as the patricians, Rome granted them this power to avoid violence and
revolution. This was a very smart move by the government to keep the people of Rome
united and feel like equals. Another reason why Rome was very successful in their
beginnings was because of their leaders. Julius Caesar ended the bitter fighting among
Rome's political groups and he also gave jobs and provided political land for the poor.
After Caesar's death, however, things started to go bad for the Romans.
It wasn't just Caesar's execution that caused their downward spiral, it was a number of
things, of course. First of all, their emperors kept getting worse and worse. How can
Rome keep being successful and controlling lands if their emperors (their leaders) don't
do a good job of guiding them through crisises? From 180-476 A.D the empire spun out
of control and perished.
The causes of the fall of the Empire are many. In the late 200s to the mid 300s new
emperors took over Rome and divided the army into border and mobile troops. The
border troops declined in efficiency and the emperors made the mistake of allowing
�barbarians� into the army which decreased their efficiency even more. This called for an
expansion of the army so the emperors recruited more and more of these barbarians who
knew nothing about the Roman army. The army turned very weak-cause number one.
Another cause was that these barbarians banded together to revolt against the Empire and
formed powerful confederations. Once one tribe of barbarians had entered the Empire,
the Romans could not militarily keep them out, since their army had dwindled.
A third cause of the fall was that, the Empire faced financial difficulties. In the late 300s
and mid 400s, the west received less of the wealthy provinces which decreased the taxes
collected by the Romans. Paying for troops to fight against invaders could have been the
problem.
The last reason that the Empire may have fallen was because of poor leadership. The
support of the emperors that were supposed to hold Rome together was lacking, having a
major effect on the citizens of Rome and of course on the government.
The Mayans also experienced a crumbling in their society, however theirs was much
different from the Romans. From about 790-889 B.C, the Mayan civilization collapsed.
Unlike Rome, the Mayans didn�t have a strong and united army, even in their beginnings.
They were very small and warfare was not conducted on a large scale. They had small
raids and city-states tried to conquer each other, but this fighting was not a common
occurrence. The warriors were also not trained or disciplined like the Romans were.
There were only a small number of warriors and most were nobles. Whenever there was
fighting, it was more religious than about gaining control of land. Mayan rulers, would
try to sacrifice one another for ritual purposes and most destruction was aimed toward
temples.
Kings ruled Mayans and they were both political leaders as well as religious leaders. I
think that these rulers were probably more effective than Rome�s emperors because since
they had two positions to live up to, the kings were probably more disciplined and
reserved. Since they themselves were religious, they had to follow rules and teach their
people morals and values and keep the Mayans in line.
The fall of the Mayans could be explained by natural disaster, disease, agricultural
problems, peasant revolts, internal warfare and foreign invasions. Only a few of these
resembled what happened to the Romans. For example, the peasant revolts can be
compared to the barbarian tribes entering the Roman Empire. Also, the Mayans suffered
from foreign invasions that their army could not control because they were weak and so
was the Roman�s army.
Survival of any civilization depends on how united their army is. If they are not
disciplined well or not trained well, then how will they be able to keep out foreign
invasions? In the case of the Mayans, the future of your civilization can just depend on
how nice mother nature wants to be to you. If natural disasters occur and drive away all
of your people, then your civilization may not exist. For any civilization to succeed, good
leadership is the most important. If the culture has somebody trustworthy, honest and
intelligent then that culture has a better chance of survival!

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