Based on that first chart you’re also looking at the trade volue, and presumably GDP, of the empire dropping to 40% of it’s original value in the span of just 100 years between 200AD and 300AD and continuing to plummet almost as badly after that. That chart seems to show an economic rot starting centuries before Rome started seriously loosing wars.
I’ll note that the inflection point does largely line up with the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. Far from a complete theory, but also easy to imagine something important was lost in the transition—chief candidate among them a formerly strong tradition for not transfering power via military coups and political assassinations. Your question is more concerned with “what reversed the progress” rather than “what finally put Rome out of it’s missery”, so we’re probably looking much much earlier than the actual fall.
Based on that first chart you’re also looking at the trade volue, and presumably GDP, of the empire dropping to 40% of it’s original value in the span of just 100 years between 200AD and 300AD and continuing to plummet almost as badly after that. That chart seems to show an economic rot starting centuries before Rome started seriously loosing wars.
I’ll note that the inflection point does largely line up with the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. Far from a complete theory, but also easy to imagine something important was lost in the transition—chief candidate among them a formerly strong tradition for not transfering power via military coups and political assassinations. Your question is more concerned with “what reversed the progress” rather than “what finally put Rome out of it’s missery”, so we’re probably looking much much earlier than the actual fall.