Excessive Military Spending

By: Jillian Devine

       In order to defend the Empire from the barbarian attacks, the government spent a tremendous amount of money on the military. Because of all the money usage, the Roman government had limited resources to maintain the city. The government had trouble providing the people with public housing and the quality of Rome's public roads began to worsen. Since the Romans spent so much money on the military, the great city of Rome, along with the rest of the Empire, began to slowly decay. Soon after, the once mighty soldiers began to become lazy and neglected their job. Due to their laziness, their armor began to feel heavy, so they didn't wear it in battle. Because of this, the Romans started to loose, mainly because of archers. The surviving soldier's did not want to defend the Empire and quit. Thus making the government hire more expensive foreign soldiers to fight for them. Because the recruited soldiers were from different countries, they were unreliable and could not be trusted as well as Roman born soldiers. They would not die for a country that wasn't theirs. Also, the government had to raise taxes on the people, which hurt the economy because the recruits were so expensive. The Roman government had to spend a lot of money to help the soldiers defend the Empire, even though the Roman Empire was dying because of the money loss.
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