>>18151953
>That was Christianity that did that
Kys. Rome was already heavily collapsing during 3rd century. It was ridden with extreme corruption, disloyal army, rebellions, degeneracy, civil war, pax romana economy, extremely inpet emperors, Sassanid invasions, fall of principate, Barbarian invasions, overextension, bankruptcy, multiethnicity, spontaneously disorganized etc.
>Rome almost collapsed fully when Palmyra and Gallia revolted and could have been dismantled if not for Emperor Aurelian
>Sassasinds conquered almost entire eastern part of empire (where the wealthy provinces were) and could have taken it but they feared overextension and roman strife
>Civil wars of the Tetrarchy was most biggest and most brutal civil war in its history and would have surely collapsed and balkanized
The only reason why Rome survived for much longer was because of emperor Constantine the Great who unified empire and legalized Christianity and later made it state religion and moved capital away from decadent Rome. Christianity organized citizens into one religion with specific forced docritens, so that pleb and army would not go full retard for a while. Christianity unified romans and made citizens follow roman law again... for a while. Christian Rome couldn't do shit about overextension so it divided empire into two, which was a very great decision. Western Empire was a unproductive shithole so it fallen to germanic invasions. Heavily religious Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantium survived for very long 1000 years and could have unified empire again with Justinian if the great plague didn't happen.
Don't know how the fuck can you idolise and love Roman empire so much when you think Christianity was its downfall. At this time, Rome was a multicultural empire which tried to romanize all of it's citizen but failed in doing so with culture and value of Romans, but with Christianity they do.