After talking about external reasons, the corresponding ones are generally internal reasons. But I think there should be a question about "territory" between these two reasons. This question comes from foreign wars within the scope of external causes, but it directly affects some aspects within the empire. Rousseau once had a view that could explain this situation in Rome well. He said: "The greater the scope of the political system, the more administrative levels, and the heavier the burden of people's management; And many things make it impossible for leaders to see things in person and let subordinates govern the country. In order to maintain public authority, these officials will run out of energy and have no extra ability to care for the people. ..... at all levels, (also) let the people never see their leaders, and the people lack feelings. ..... In this way, people don't know each other, and only rely on a supreme officer to bring them together. Not only do they lack contact with each other, but their intelligence will also be buried and evil will breed. Therefore, a community with too large a system will be weakened under its own weight until it is shattered. ..... What people should first pursue is a sound and powerful system, not a vast territory. " [6] Now, let's compare the specific symptoms of the late Roman Empire, and we can really see the shortcomings in this respect. Finally, the division of the Roman Empire may be his dying struggle on this issue in a sense, at least we can see it this way. According to Rousseau's point of view, from the entrance of the territorial issue, directly insert the weakness of Rome's most proud capital-vast territory, which shows that the decline and fall of Rome is really "Rome was not built in a day" and it is inevitable, because in the process of its strength, it has given itself a dose of chronic extinction poison.
Of course, in any case, if a thing wants to change, the internal reasons are always the most important. As arnold toynbee said, "Almost every civilization has committed suicide." [7] No matter how external factors play a role, they are all conditions, while internal factors are the foundation and play a decisive role in the development of things. Then let's start with the political aspects of the empire and analyze its fatal internal causes.
I remember Mr. Zhu Yong, a famous essayist, said that great figures in history are gamblers, who only talk about luck, but not wisdom, because one can never control history. But I still believe that the strength of Rome is inseparable from many great and outstanding politicians and strategists in its history. But at first glance, we will feel sad that most of the greatness is concentrated in the early empire and ended in Augustus. There are only a few in the first half of the late Anthony dynasty (and it is not prominent at all compared with the previous figures). The ruling class after that was in chaos. Especially after the death of Commodus, the position of the head of an open empire was put to the point of public sale! "From the later history, (it) was the chief culprit leading to the decline of Rome. ..... The palace coup in Rome (since then) has been together. " [8] Coupled with the personal autocracy in Rome at that time, it was "the most obvious inconvenience is the lack of continuous inheritance". "One of the consequences of this lack of coherence is the impermanence of the Royal Government. The government's plans and policies depend on the personality of the monarch or his agent, so it is impossible to have long-term fixed goals and concerted actions. [9] If the two are superimposed, the country will be overwhelmed and deeply in turmoil. But the saddest thing about the empire is that those "wave after wave" usurpers are all completely addicted to the struggle for power. They have the power and influence, and they are afraid of debauchery, so the moral standards at the top of the empire "turn sharply and finally fall into complete destruction." [10] The palace coup and the ideological corruption of the ruling class pushed each other, squeezed and pushed each other, and finally pushed the Roman Empire to the political cliff step by step.
At the same time, in this process, we can also find that there is a certain relationship between external reasons and internal political reasons. Yu once said: "From the outside, all greatness is an irresistible force, while from the inside, it is a very intelligent order. Order has a strong ability to absorb and integrate the disorder around it, but disorder also has a lot of digestion and subversion ability to order. Who wins and who loses depends mainly on what kind of wisdom can be contained in the centralized order. " [1 1] Here, it can be said that the political degradation of Rome will inevitably lead to the wisdom of Rome's internal order becoming thinner and weaker, and the direct consequence of this fact is that Rome has changed from an arrogant conqueror to a victim, and the declining empire has to be bullied by barbarians, which is a "terrible and sad" from any angle [18] On the other hand, External invasion not only did not inspire the rulers to make great efforts, but stimulated the secretion of internal corruption hormones, making the political situation more desolate.
At this time, another internal reason, economy, also declined rapidly with the decline of politics. Many historians have seen this. Otto Kiefer thinks that "(the decline and fall of civilization) economic factors are very important," (because advanced) civilization is entirely based on slave labor ... However, when Tibby stayed in the Rhine River to stop the war of territorial expansion ... the labor force was very short ... and (economy) became a natural economy as a whole. With the disappearance of the slave trade, the splendid city built of marble also disappeared. [13] Li Bili Ralph also said that "economically, the most serious economic problems in Rome are caused by slavery and labor shortage" [14]. According to the view that economy is the political foundation, this is tantamount to destroying the Roman Empire from the foundation. By the way, comparing Rome with ancient China, some scholars have come to the conclusion that the economy defeated the empire. They pointed out that "this dynasty rarely conquered the outside world ... this is by no means because of what people call' pacifism', but because the country's public finance and economic mobilization ability are weak and it is impossible to expand its territory." [15] Just as Napoleon's political life ended with the termination of foreign expansion, the life of the Roman Empire suddenly stopped at the edge of the territory. In this relationship, we can see that the role played by the economy is undoubtedly the most primitive and important.