Fall Of Empires

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The rise and fall of empires is an extremely relevant topic today, since the movements of past empires have formed the communities and governments of the modern world. Two such empires being the Khmer Empire, which governed from 802CE to the end of the 15th Century and the Roman Empire, which ruled from 27 BC to around 1453 CE. Through the evidence shown it will be proven that all empires rise and fall for a range of reasons, including strategic governing, gaining and losing territory, the climate and rulers making huge changes to their empires. The Khmer empire had many great achievements, this is made clear through their numerous temples, various remains and legends which they left behind. The Khmer empire was formed by the Khmer …show more content…
The Khmer empire fell in 1431, when attackers from the Ayutthaya province raided Kambuja Desa and many of the other small villages in the area, before eventually capturing Angkor. Jayaraman the eighth and his forces fought to the end as did many of the citizens, who fought bravely to save their homes. But many women and children were left behind to fend for themselves, which gives much of the physical evidence which has been found today. The Khmer empire is said to have fallen for many reasons such as; the transformation of Mahayana Buddhism to Theravada Buddhism, Angkor’s strategic positioning becoming inadequate due to surrounding domains becoming more dependent on maritime trade rather than through Angkor and its various provinces. Also, the Khmer empire’s downfall is also credited to mass over population in many of Angkor’s cities as well as a dramatic change in the climate leading to a drought which swept the empire. The specific reason for the fall of the Khmer is difficult to pinpoint as much of its history was never documented, none the less one unmistakable piece of evidence lies, in the soil sediment from the time (source A) where the sediment clearly shows three distinct droughts. the first at the start of the …show more content…
To understand exactly how the roman empire fell first it needs to be understood that in 395 AD the Roman Empire split in two and was given new titles, one was named the western Roman Empire and the other the eastern Roman Empire. The split of the empire made the instability of the empire exceedingly clear and even as the eastern Roman Empire continued for around another thousand years it had then become the Byzantine empire. Whereas the western Roman Empire fell for a variety of reasons not a hundred years later. A few of the reasons for the fall of the western Roman Empires fall being; the rise of the eastern Roman Empire, invasions from barbarian tribes, over expanding territory and intern military overspending, government corruption as well as the weakening of the Roman legions. The separation of the empires meant a supposedly easily governed empire, but as the two empires drifted apart the eastern Roman Empire speaking mainly Greek grew in wealth and power whereas the western Roman Empire, speaking mainly Latin fell into government crisis and debt and continued to be invaded by barbarians and without the expected help of the eastern Roman Empire the western empire slowly crumbled. Due to the numerous

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