The decline of the Western Roman Empire was a drawn-out series of events spanning many centuries. By the fifth century, the Roman Empire had been split into two distinct regions: the Western and the Eastern Roman Empire. The western regions faced insurmountable external and internal pressures. From superpower to the focus of encroachment and the source of self-inflicted suffering.

Bad management of the economy played a pivotal role in the west’s decline. Military and bureaucratic demands led to oppressive taxation of the merchant and farming classes that resulted in soaring inflation and a debased currency. In turn, impoverished but ambitious nobility ravaged what remained of the devastated cities and the masses in the empire. Corruption coupled with vested interests in a cultivated bureaucracy led to an ineffective and oppressive government.

The Roman Empire was characterized by an elite military class, but during the decline of the Roman Empire, the military was steadfast in its campaign to recruit foreign mercenaries. The newly created military was characterized by a a loss of loyalty to the Empire, a mingling of customs and traditions, and a willingness to shift sides during conflict. The Roman Empire faced a relentless series of external threats that were created to serve the interests of the mercenary military. The Visigoths crossed the Roman Empire’s protective border of the Danube, ravaged the Roman Empire, and were the first to create an initial set of borderless Romanization in the ancient Mediterranean world that replaced the formerly Roman Empire in the Mediterranean.

The empire's leadership situation led to political disarray. Emperors had short reigns, often due to assassination or coups by their own soldiers. After the split in 395, the Eastern half of the Empire continued to prosper, while the Western half got worse, and remained largely defenseless and unable to raise revenue by either collecting taxes or maintaining infrastructure.

By 400, the Western half had essentially split into autonomous regions. Places like Britain, Gaul, and Spain declared independence, while Africa split into numerous local kingdoms. Rome would last another century as an Imperial Eastern city, but life had punishing endpoint restrictions, while regions outside of Rome used Rome's laws with bordering, available methods.

The gradual but steady decline has been blamed on everything from moral rot to lead poisoning, and of course, the stack of problems to deal with. The Western half of the Empire continued to decline, but the Eastern half survived for 1,000 more years as the Byzantine Empire, giving Rome's ideas and policies an impenetrable fort. Disarray in the Western half of the Empire became the dividing of the Middle Ages with new kingdoms and the beginning of the states of modern Europe.  This teaches us that the strongest empires weaken quickly by inability to change.