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Decided to showcase someone I made a while ago, and as yet to reach its final purpose. So, here for your view, is it.

*NOTE This contains information not relating to Erepublik*





Why the Western Roman Empire Fell

There are many theories as to why the Roman Empire fell; this is just one of them. This theory starts with the Huns. The Huns were a nomadic people, moving from what is Mongolia across to Eastern Europe. The Goths, who had settled around the Black Sea, had started to get harassed more and more and started to slowly migrate west. Finally they came upon the Danube River, the border of the Roman Empires. There they stayed, until the leaders of the Gothic tribes decided that life under Roman rule would be better than being constantly raided by the Huns. Entering the Empire means they could become slaves, or die. But back then Rome was the New World that offered a chance at a better life. They didn't come to destroy Rome, but to be a part of it; it's just that they did just that in the process.

First Shockwave
The Goths asked if they could cross the Danube, and thus be allowed to enter the Empire, and with the Eastern Roman military might in the East facing the Persians (they weren't the same Persians that the Greeks faced), the Emperor Valens made a hasty peace with the Persians to get more forces on the Danube. At first only one tribe was supposed to cross. You should remember that a tribe is huge, and all the Gothic tribes that gathered could have numbered around 200,000 people. So, the Goths started to cross, and with such an influx of people, food dwindled and people began to starve. The Romans that were policing the Goths made a quick profit by selling dog meat to the Goths in exchange for selling their children into slavery. Then things started getting harsh, even for the Romans, so the chief commander sent the Goths to Marcianople to get food, the catch was that they didn't have enough troops to go with them and watch the border. So while the Romans were preoccupied, other Gothic tribes moved across the border and followed the first tribe. When the Goths arrived at Marcianople, the troops inside didn't want all the barbarians in at once, so they invited the leaders inside for a nice dinner. When everyone was eating, the Romans tried to kill the leaders to control the situation. The Romans failed, and then the Goths started a war against the Romans, and even killed the Eastern Emperor Valens at the battle of Hadrianople.

After Hadrianople, the Balkans was in Gothic hands, and with that, a large portion of the tax base, and with a smaller treasury, that means a smaller army. So when the empire needed an army, it was exactly when it couldn't pay for one large enough. In 382, Theodosius I was forced to make peace. As part of the peace the Goths were forced to provide troops when called on. So the Goths did, and in the Battle of the Frigidus in 394 A.D. One of the generals at the battle was Alaric, the future leader of the Goths, but was taught in Roman ways. So when he gained leadership of the Goths, he would change their place in the world. Another person at the battle who would play a part of the Fall would be Stilicho.

When the Emperor Theodosius had died, he made his sons emperors of the East and West, with Honorius ruling the West, but they were both young so he had Stilicho mentor both of them until they could rule alone. But Stilicho wasn't the Roman of earlier times. He was half Vandal, from his father, and half Roman, from his mother. Stilicho, a half barbarian Roman, was the effective ruler of the entire Roman world. While in the East he was stopped from becoming too powerful by the imperial court there, he made his position in the West more solid by having his daughter marry Honorius. And Honorius would need Stilicho’s help. Alaric had begun his war.

At first he tried to get a better deal from the East, where the first deal had been struck, and to make it a better deal, he ravaged the Balkans and Greece. A deal was made, but then torn up. Alaric, not stupid, knew that his chance of getting a good deal in the East was gone, took his army and invaded Italy in 402. All he wanted was long term legal recognition for his people. And he had two ways to do it. First he wanted to become a magister militum, which is a high rank in the Roman military, and second he wanted a food subsidy in the area that they had settled. Stilicho wouldn't accept this because it would have ended his political career over a barbarian force that was prepared to put a knife to Rome's throat. The two forces battled twice, neither of which give the advantage to either of them. Having no supplies, Alaric returned to what is now Bulgaria during the winter. He had gotten nowhere fast. But that was to change soon.

Then in 406, Stilicho wanted to make a deal with the Devil. He sent a messenger to Alaric saying he wanted their help. He saw a way to kill three birds with one stone. First he wanted peace by granting the Goths what they wanted, which would make him get his second objective, which was to secure the frontier with their army. The problem was that the land they were on was in Dacia and Macedonia, which belonged to the Eastern Empire. And if he were to succeed in taking that land from them, it would grant him much needed recruiting grounds for soldiers. So when everything was set, Alaric and Stilicho were just about ready to march on the Eastern Empire, the second wave hit.

Second Shockwave
During the time that Alaric was waiting for Stilicho to arrive, which was a year, Stilicho had to face two barbarian invasions, one Gothic which got down to Florence before he was defeated, and a group of barbarians (Vandals, Alans, and Suevi) that had crossed the Rhine, and ran-sacked their way into Spain. The last crisis was when the commander of the army in Briton, was proclaimed Emperor by his troops. This man was Constantine III and when he crossed into Gaul to try to stop the barbarian group, he gained massive popularity, and gained the armies of Spain and Gaul along with Briton. And while Stilicho still had the army of Italy, he wasn't enough to defeat Constantine and the barbarians, so the venture with Alaric was out of the question. But Alaric still wanted to be paid for upkeep of his army. This turned out to be what the Romans didn't want, but Stilicho knew that they needed to pay him; they couldn't face three enemies at once. And when the Emperor of the East died, Stilicho went to see the transition of power, and while he was gone, Stilicho's clock started its last round. First in the plot to kill him was a mutiny in a city where many of Stilicho's allies were located, including the Emperor, and he was prepared to march his 12,000 strong army to the city if the Emperor was murdered. But he was not, and so Stilicho did not. Stilicho was murdered later that year. With his death, and last ally in Rome, Alaric invaded.

Alaric invaded Italy, and in 408 he took much of northern Italy, then he marched on Rome. The first try he succeeded in getting 2 tons of gold and 13 of silver, but it wasn't loot, the people of Rome did so in order to lift the siege for three days, and he gained a military alliance, a first step. Then he marched north. But while that was happening, 6,000 of the elite Roman army were dispatched for Rome to bolster the defenses. Alaric caught sight of the reinforcements and slaughtered them all. He then returned to Rome, and again besieged it. Now Honorius recognized Constantine as emperor. Then Alaric sent Honorius a deal: an annual payment of gold and wheat and the right to settle in Rhaetia and Noricum, along with a generalship in the Roman army. When Honorius agreed to the payments, but not the land and generalship, Alaric was furious, but then sent him a revised deal: No payments, no generalship, but only to settle in Noricum, “which was always being invaded and had little tax worth” as Alaric put it. Honorius refused to listen. When the envoys arrived and told Alaric the deal was off, he marched on Rome a third time, and again besieged it. In 409, Attalus, was declared Emperor by the senators that were left in Rome. So in 409 AD there were three Emperors: Constantine, Honorius, and Attalus. Then in the last attempt to negotiate peace, Alaric marched North, but was ambushed by Sarus, a Gothic Roman General, but had acted on his Gothic side (they were from the same tribe). So when Honorius might have been willing for a peace, another Roman torpedoed it. So they returned to Rome for the last time, and after two years from the first siege, Alaric let the axe fall on the city. The day was August 24th, 410, and on that day Alaric knew he had failed. (He considered the sack of Rome as an utter failure in his career). But Alaric was an Arian Christian, and he made all Christian items off limits, which is much better than the Romans did with Corinth and Carthage. After the third day of pillaging, the Goths left Rome, then Italy. Then a new general, Flavius Constantinus, would defeat Constantine, regain the armies of Spain, Gaul and Briton, and defeat the Goths who were under the new leadership (Alaric died later in 410) of Alaric's brother, who was toppled and a new leader made peace with the Romans. The Romans granted them land in Aquitaine, fulfilling Alaric’s dream. Then Constantinus used the new recruits from the Gothic army to reinvigorate the Roman army to defeat the barbarian group that was in Spain. In just 10 years he had put back the Western Empire as it was once before.



Third Shockwave

But there was a new threat; the Vandals had invaded, crossed into Spain, and moved into North Africa, then proceeded to take Carthage, which was the 3rd largest city in the Western Empire. Now the Romans didn't have enough grain. Then the Romans, both East and West, had amassed a fleet of 1,100 ships plus troops to take back North Africa. Then the Huns came, and when they were finally defeated, the Romans didn't have the firepower to take it back, and lost North Africa as a province. With such weakness, the balance of power had shifted to whom had control of the army, not the Emperor, and barbarian kings had much of that power, and in 476, King Odovacar simply decided that the title "Emperor" wasn't going to be needed in his Italy anymore, and sent the imperial robes to the Eastern Roman Empire, and put the last emperor, Romulus Augustalus (a mere boy) into retirement. So, the Western Roman Empire fell with no grant battle, but with the steady chomps of horse hooves and wagon wheels.





There it is. Enjoy! (Yes, I know. tl;dr)