Prompt 5

There are definitly recurring patterns in the rise and fall of empires. The success of an empire can be best described as the flow of pedals on a bike... up to a peak then pushed back down to a lull until it slowly rises back up and so on. The Roman Empire (not the Holy Roman Empire mind you) is a great example of this. The Roman Empire started off small. But gradually it grew, mainly thanks to conquest (a.k.a war). However, the Roman Empire expanded so much that it stretched itself thin leaving itself vulnerable, so when another war broke out with the Gauls(?) (correct me if you wish Sarah) the Romans were helpless to stop them. There are other modern versions of Empires too like the USSR and the British Empire. What do all these empires have in common? War. War enables empires to expand but ALSO leads to their downfall. An empire can neither thrive nor fail without war. Many would think that war can only be devastating e.g. the Romans fell because of a war with the Gauls(?), the Cold War was a doosie for the USSR, and World War II caused Great Britian to just exhaust itself. But look at it from another perspective. This great nation we call our own, the United States of America, became what it is today because of a war, the Revolutionary War. So, in my opinion, an empire's rise and fall can be traced back to war.