ch did not aid in the collapse of Rome. The second major change was a new pattern of government and new ways of economic life. The 5th century saw more radical change, which was met with barbarian invasions on Rome’s borders. Rome, as a result of these Barbarian invasions, finally collapsed in or around 476 ACE. Rome’s influence was still greatly felt by the peoples of Europe after its collapse. Rome was the first structured government ever to be put into place in what is present day Great Britain, France and Spain. Rome was the first organized form of high civilization for most all peoples of Western Europe. Rome is also responsible for the rise of Christianity, under the Emperors Diocletian and Constantine, and more so under Symmachus. Rome saw a decline in trade as the Western Empire neared its end and as a result of this decline in trade, the peasant peoples of the Empire became more dependent on what they could produce on their own; thus the rise of a rural based farming economy. Rome’s long drawn out collapse made people learn how to survive on what they, themselves, could produce, which, in turn, was what Western European peoples reverted to after the actual collapse of the Western Empire. The barbaric peoples of Europe invaded the Roman Empire and were the key physical factor in the collapse of the Empire. The largest problem that Rome had in surviving these barbarian attacks was that there were so many different barbaric peoples on the outskirts of the empire and these ‘barbarians’ were not regionalized in one part of the Empire but rather, they were spread all over the empire, Britain, Gaul, present day Germany, and Eurasia. Consequently, the Roman Legions were bound to be broken by the invaders. There were too many of them and too little army to go around the Empire. Throughout the invasions of the Barbarians, many new kinds of settlements arose in Roman lands. In Britain, for ins...
