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The Romans never quite seemed to find a ruling system that worked for them. They adamantly hated monarchies, and that is proven by the fact that no Roman leader ever used “king” in their name. And, while their republic was truly impressive for the time period, they faced constant class inequality in land, money, and representation. Eventually, power started to shift away from debate and towards brute strength. Consuls started getting murdered out of fear or lust for power.
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Generals started taking the position, being both wealthy and influential with the poor citizens. And eventually, there was a switch: Whoever could kill the last guy and keep himself alive could be emperor. There were a few attempts to “return” to the old system, but they were swiftly squashed. Eventually, all this turmoil, the size of the empire, and countless attacks and raids form foreigners lead to the fall of the entire Western half of Rome.
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While technically there is no actual evidence that the Etruscans ruled over Rome, this story was very important to the Romans. They were a proud people, and the hatred for kings instilled by the Etruscans drove them to develop the one of the first forms of republican, representative government in the world.
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In 494 BCE, the plebeians threatened to leave Rome. To placate them, the role of Tribunes was created: Plebian men who could veto some Senate & consul decisions. The Plebian council was formed later, and they were able to pass their own laws by 287 BCE. But, but that point, the assembly itself was pointless, as the wealthier plebeians had started siding with the upper class. Once again, representation was basically nonexistent for the poor, a problem that plagued Rome's republic till it's end.
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Tiberius was a rich man, but worried about the plebian class, as they continually lost land and money to the wealthy. He was able to redistribute and restrict the land people could own. He was eventually killed by angry senators. This is important as, before, the Romans claimed to value solving political issues with their words. But when they didn't like this consul, they killed them. Here is where we can see the start of the fall of the republic's traditional structure and values.
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Gaius is important for being the first in a pattern of generals using their military power to become much more effective and powerful leaders. As consul, he eliminated the land requirement for joining the army, which lead to tons of poor people being able to. All they had to do was swear an oath of loyalty to him, NOT to the republic. And his constant success in battles meant he could simply fund his own wars, completely ignoring the governmental systems in place.
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This was essentially the end of the republic. Julius was great at pretending to care about roman values and traditions. He used the army men loyal to him and arguments that he was fighting against a corrupt Senate to protect the rights of the poor soldiers and people of Rome to take control & become emperor for life. After gaining more land and power in Egypt, he went on to fill the Roman govt. with people "loyal" to him, destroying any chance of things returning to "normal" when he was killed.
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Twenty six emperors took control and subsequently died within 50 years, highlighting just how chaotic the politics of the empire were. Because people knew that they could become ruler by just being strong enough, it was all too easy to just take over. But, because it was clear that they could then be killed too, they were much more focused on staying alive than improving or even maintaining Rome.
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While Diocletian was a relatively good emperor, his rule shows us just how futile it was to try and re-establish any form of merit based rule. Diocletian created the Tetrarchy by enlisting a co-emperor, and later, each of them took on a junior emperor. Each junior emperor was destined to rule and then choose their own junior emperors. But this system was swiftly destroyed by Constantine, who took over and, of course, did not appoint a co-emperor.
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Again, Constantine immediately crushed Diocletian's attempt at restoring a merit based system of choosing the ruler. But, one of the okay things he did was to establish Constantinople. The moving of the capitol was Rome's saving grace when the Western half fell. And, ironically, Constantine's endorsement of Christianity actually introduced some stability to the role of emperor, as it was later held in check by and tied to the church.
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The Huns were a catalyst, causing Rome to constantly be under siege by various "barbarians." Because the Huns pushed tons of tribes out of their lands, those other tribes needed to relocate, sometimes a bit too close to Rome. And even when the tribes cooperated instead of attacking, there could still be problems. A group of Goths that peacefully settled in the Balkans were extorted by the Romans, so they rightfully fought back. The Romans faced issues of this kind till the day the empire fell.
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There were plenty of reasons that Rome fell, not just one. There was the massive size (which Diocletian noticed, splitting Rome in half, which allowed the Eastern side to survive,) the constant invasion by "barbarians" (which left them with limited supplies after so many years,) and the political turmoil and corruption. No one thing alone can be blamed. But it does seem clear from their history that it was inevitable.
