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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kevin McGonigal, post: 2780875, member: 72790&quot;]I think that, among the many factors leading to the collapse of the Western Empire, that one&nbsp; may be found in examining environmental changes that made it increasingly difficult for a complex society to function. It does not take a great deal of environmental degradation to upset an economy that is perilously close to the edge to begin with to cause it to go into a death spiral. We simply do not know, because the Ancients paid little attention to this, but a gradual fall off in precipitation, the gradual drop off in the labor needed to keep marshes from becoming malarial, the failure of city sanitation, the silting up of harbors, the appearance of plagues from abroad for which the native population had little immunity. All or some of these factors may have so destabilized life in parts of the Empire that they overwhelmed the populace and made it impossible for it to absorb societal shocks it had hitherto been able to cope with. There is no one reason for the collapse of the Western Empire, but more likely a cascading conglomeration of happenings beyond their ken or ability to control.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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