-----The fall of the Roman Empire marked the end of one of the largest and longest-lived empires of the ancient world. The official date of the fall of the Roman Empire is often considered to be the date when the barbarian general Odoacer overthrew the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 AD (Nardo-2004 97). The end of this Empire was the result of multiple internal and external causes. The first plague that contributed to this decline and fall was the Antonine Plague, which began around 160 during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (Sabbatans). The Antonine Plague was followed by the Plague of Cyprian, which lasted twice as long as the previous plague, decimating the population, killing between twenty and thirty percent of the entire Empire (Smith). This ended the prosperity of the previous period and began the downward spiral of the Empire. Therefore, the demographic decline of the Roman Empire due to a series of plagues that hit Rome from the 2nd to the 5th century was the main cause of the fall of the Roman Empire. The labor shortage began around the time of this first plague (Sabbatans). Population decline led to a lack of labor in the agricultural sector, starving the Empire's population and encouraging population decline. This also led to an ever-shrinking tax base, crippling the Empire and leaving it without funds. Population decline also reduced the size of the Roman army, as well as the Empire's supply of available recruits, at a time of growing pressure on Rome's borders.---- Invasion from Outside...While the decline of the population in the last centuries of the Empire was the main internal cause of its fall, barbarian forces coming from outside... from the center of the map... from the borders of Rome. Ancient Rome of course was not the only ancient civilization to fall into chaos. Modern historians have multiple theories regarding the multiple instances in which a seemingly stable civilization collapsed, as the Roman Empire did in 476 AD – some even speculate about what these changes in antiquity mean for modern society. MI Rostovtzeff regards what he calls the “barbarization of the ancient world” as a certain kind of warning to the modern world itself (Rogers 258). He describes it as the process preceding the fall of a society dedicated to a single class and not the needs of the “masses” (Rogers 258). He further warns that this model also includes violent and unsuccessful uprisings that attempted to level society at the masses, but succeeded only in “accelerating the process of barbarization” (Rogers 258).