This Homeschool Lesson is about The Fall of the Western Empire Ancient Rome
The 
last of the good emperors, Marcus Aurelius, died in A.D. 180. His son was so disliked, he was murdered in his bed in A.D. 192. After that it didn’t take long for the empire to enter a time of crisis. The next 50 years became known as The Anarchy. There were over 20 emperors, most of whom were murdered. There were civil wars, plagues, and famine – while at the same time foreign armies attacked Rome’s borders.
In 212, the government granted citizenship to all free people within the empire. They did that to get a bigger tax base, since they were no longer expanding their borders to gain wealth from conquest. The lack of income from wars caused a decrease in the amount of real silver to make money with. So they used less silver in the coin minting process. By 270 a sliver coin had hardly any silver in it. (kind of like our coins today)
Merchants still wanted the same amount of silver as before, so they raised their prices to get more coins. Prices going up because money loses its value is called inflation. Inflation became so bad that a lot of people stopped using money all together. They traded goods and services instead. Farmers, traders and the average person found it so hard to make a living that many of them, became outlaws to get by and avoid the taxes.
By 284 Rome had some success in pushing invaders back but there were still a lot of problems; the borders were still being attacked and the economy was very unstable. Rome needed some good leaders to help her.
