The Plight of Rome in the Fifth Century AD

The Plight of Rome in the Fifth Century AD argues that the fall of the western Roman Empire was rooted in a significant drop in war booty, agricultural productivity, and mineral resources. Merrony proposes that a dependency on the three economic components was established with the Principate, when a precedent was set for an unsustainable threshold on military spending.

Drawing on literary and archaeological data, this volume establishes a correspondence between booty (in the form of slaves a...