Historian Edward Gibbons' five reasons for the decline and fall of Rome

[Sister Alvear]

The Fall of a Nation

Historian Edward Gibbons' five reasons for the decline and fall of Rome

The undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society.
Higher and higher taxes; the spending of public money for free bread and circuses for the populace.
The mad craze for pleasure; sports becoming every year more exciting, more brutal, more immoral.
The building of great armaments when the great enemy was within; the decay of individual responsibility.
The decay of religion, fading into a mere form, losing touch with life, losing power to guide the people.
-From The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon