structure of the government was significantly different between the East and the West. In the West, wealthy land-owning aristocrats contributed much less money than they should have to the government. Pointlessly, useless slave labor and dependency on small businesses and trade made up a bulk of the Western Empire. In the East, the economy depended on well-organized trade routes and little or no slave labor. The aristocracy in the East possessed a civil service composed of middle-class professionals and the government in the East received greater taxes than the government in the West. The Western Empire had a weak geographical location, which made the entire Empire vulnerable to attack. Barbarians had invaded and plundered the Roman Empire in the past due to the weak military, but during this period of civil war and strife, one group of Germans led Rome to its predictable demise. In the 300s AD, this group of Germans was living in the empire by the Danube River near the Black Sea. In the late 300s, these Germans decided to revolt against the Roman Empire because they knew that the Roman military and government was very weak and vulnerable. They traveled throughout the empire and destroyed several weak Roman armies. Their leader Alaric led them into Italy, where they captured Rome in the early 400s (Mazour, 133). As the fifth century progressed, more Germanic tribes overran Europe and other parts of the Roman Empire. By now, the Roman Empire was weakened and shattered beyond repair (Mazour, 135). It was in 476 AD that the final Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus was overthrown by the Germans. The borders of the West expanded from the fronts of the Rhine and Upper and Lower Danube Rivers while the East only had to guard the Lower Danube. If the Western Empire failed to hold any part of the Rhine or Danube fronts, there would be no second line of defense, allowing invaders from Gaul, Western Europe and Northern Europe a straight path thro...
