Part 7/14:
Economic Decline
Economic explanations focus on the weakening of the empire's financial and agricultural systems:
Soil exhaustion from over-farming
Decline in urban populations and arable land
Increasing wealth disparity and declining civic engagement
Reliance on slave labor, which decreased over time
Inflation and currency debasement during later periods
These issues drained resources and dissuaded effective military and political response to external threats.