When did the Roman Empire fall?
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
Gibbon took September 4, 476 as a convenient marker for the final dissolution of the Western Roman Empire, when Romulus Augustus, the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was deposed by Odoacer, a Germanic chieftain. Some modern historians question the significance of the year 476 for its end. Julius Nepos, the Western emperor recognized by the Eastern Roman Empire, continued to rule in Dalmatia, until he was assassinated in 480. The Ostrogothic rulers of Italia considered themselves upholders of the direct line of Roman tradition, and the Eastern emperors considered themselves the sole rightful Roman rulers of a united empire. Roman cultural traditions continued throughout the territory of the Western Empire, and a recent school of interpretation argues that the great political changes can more accurately be described as a complex cultural transformation, rather than a fall.
Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline
Initially, Montesquieu only intended on writing a few pages on the topic. However the size of his topic overwhelmed him, so he chose to expand the scope of his writing from the beginnings of the Roman Republic to the decay of the late Roman Empire. He begins in the year 753 BC, the traditional date for the founding of Rome, and continues until the fall of Constantinople in AD 1453 to an invading army of the Ottoman Empire.
Fall of the Western Roman Empire
From at least the time of Henri Pirenne scholars have described a continuity of Roman culture and political legitimacy long after 476. Pirenne postponed the demise of classical civilization to the 8th century. He challenged the notion that Germanic barbarians had caused the Western Roman Empire to end, and he refused to equate the end of the Western Roman Empire with the end of the office of emperor in Italy. He pointed out the essential continuity of the economy of the Roman Mediterranean even after the barbarian invasions, and suggested that only the Muslim conquests represented a decisive break with antiquity. The more recent formulation of a historical period characterized as "Late Antiquity" emphasizes the transformations of ancient to medieval worlds within a cultural continuity. In recent decades archaeologically-based argument even extends the continuity in material culture and in patterns of settlement as late as the eleventh century. Observing the political reality of lost control, but also the cultural and archaeological continuities, the process has been described as a complex cultural transformation, rather than a fall.
Western Roman Empire
In 476, after the Battle of Ravenna, the Roman Army in the West suffered defeat at the hands of Odoacer and his Germanic "foederati". Odoacer forced the deposition of emperor Romulus Augustulus and became the first King of Italy. In 480, following the assassination of the previous Western emperor Julius Nepos, the Eastern emperor Zeno dissolved the Western court and proclaimed himself the sole emperor of the Roman Empire. The date of 476 was popularized by the 18th century British historian Edward Gibbon as a demarcating event for the end of the Western Empire and is sometimes used to mark the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Odoacer's Italy, and other barbarian kingdoms, would maintain a pretence of Roman continuity through the continued use of the old Roman administrative systems and nominal subservience to the Eastern Roman court.
Ancient history
Throughout the territory under the control of ancient Rome, residential architecture ranged from very modest houses to country villas. A number of Roman founded cities had monumental structures. Many contained fountains with fresh drinking-water supplied by hundreds of miles of aqueducts, theatres, gymnasiums, bath complexes sometime with libraries and shops, marketplaces, and occasionally functional sewers. A number of factors led to the eventual decline of the Roman Empire. The western half of the empire, including Hispania, Gaul, and Italy, eventually broke into independent kingdoms in the 5th century; the Eastern Roman Empire, governed from Constantinople, is referred to as the Byzantine Empire after AD 476, the traditional date for the "fall of Rome" and subsequent onset of the Middle Ages.
Late Roman army
The former Oxford University historian Adrian Goldsworthy has argued that the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire in the West should not be blamed on barbarization of the late Roman Army, but on its recurrent civil wars, which led to its ability to repel or defeat invasions from outside its frontiers to be seriously weakened. The East Roman or Byzantine empire on the other hand had fewer civil wars to contend with in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, or in the years from 383-432 A.D.
Christianity in late antiquity
Christianity in late antiquity traces Christianity during the Christian Roman Empire – the period from the rise of Christianity under Emperor Constantine (c. 313), until the fall of the Western Roman Empire (c. 476). The end-date of this period varies because the transition to the sub-Roman period occurred gradually and at different times in different areas. One may generally date late ancient Christianity as lasting to the late 6th century and the re-conquests under Justinian (reigned 527-565) of the Byzantine Empire, though a more traditional end-date is 476, the year in which Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustus, traditionally considered the last western emperor.
Pavia
It was at Pavia in 476 AD that the reign of Romulus Augustulus (r. 475-476), the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire ended and Roman rule ceased in Italy. Romulus Augustulus, while considered the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was actually a usurper of the imperial throne; his father Flavius Orestes having dethroned the previous emperor, Julius Nepos, and raised the young Romulus Augustulus to the imperial throne at Ravenna in 475. Though being the emperor, Romulus Augustulus was simply the mouthpiece for his father Orestes, who was the person who actually exercised power and governed Italy during Romulus Augustulus's short reign. Ten months after Romulus Augustulus's reign began, Orestes's soldiers under the command of one of his officers named Odoacer, rebelled and killed Orestes in the city of Pavia in 476. The rioting that took place as part of Odoacer's uprising against Orestes sparked fires that burnt much of Pavia to the point that Odoacer, as the new king of Italy, had to suspend the taxes for the city for five years so that it could finance its recovery. Without his father, Romulus Augustulus was powerless. Instead of killing Romulus Augustulus, Odoacer pensioned him off at 6,000 solidi a year before declaring the end of the Western Roman Empire and himself king of the new Kingdom of Italy.
Fall of Constantinople
The capture of the city (and two other Byzantine splinter territories soon thereafter) marked the end of the Byzantine Empire, a continuation of the Roman Empire, an imperial state dating to 27 BC, which had lasted for nearly 1,500 years. The conquest of Constantinople also dealt a massive blow to Christendom, as the Muslim Ottoman armies thereafter were left unchecked to advance into Europe without an adversary to their rear.
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire (; ) was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in Western and Central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. The largest territory of the empire after 962 was the Kingdom of Germany, though it also came to include the neighboring Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Burgundy, the Kingdom of Italy, and numerous other territories.
The Fall of the Roman Empire (film)
In the winter of 180 A.D., the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius fights to keep Germanic tribes from invading his northern territories on the Danube frontier (a war which in fact had been ongoing for over a decade, with no end in sight as of 180). His deputies are the Greek ex-slave Timonides, a closet Christian, and the stern and honest general Gaius Livius. Livius has close connections with the imperial family, being the lover of Aurelius' philosopher daughter Lucilla and a friend of her brother Commodus. Nevertheless, he is amazed to hear that Aurelius wants to make him his heir. Despite his military obligations the emperor has egalitarian ideals, dreaming of a day when Rome grants equal rights to men of all nations. He knows that he will not live to achieve this end, and trusts Livius to do so more than his charismatic but brutal son. The discovery that his father has effectively disinherited him hurts Commodus immensely, and damages the almost brotherly relationship he had enjoyed with Livius.
Western Roman Empire
The Tetrarchy collapsed after the unexpected death of Constantius in 306. His son, Constantine the Great, was declared Western Emperor by the British legions, but several other claimants arose and attempted to seize the Western Empire. In 308, Galerius held a meeting at Carnuntum, where he revived the Tetrarchy by dividing the Western Empire between Constantine and Licinius. However, Constantine was more interested in conquering the whole empire than he was in the stability of the Tetrarchy, and by 314 began to compete against Licinius. Constantine defeated Licinius in 324, at the Battle of Chrysopolis, where Licinius was taken prisoner, and later murdered. After Constantine unified the empire, he refounded the city of Byzantium in modern-day Turkey as "Nova Roma" ("New Rome"), later called Constantinople, and made it the capital of the Roman Empire. The Tetrarchy was ended, although the concept of physically splitting the Roman Empire between two emperors remained. Although several powerful emperors unified both parts of the empire, this generally reverted in an empire divided into East and West upon their deaths, such as happened after the deaths of Constantine and Theodosius I.
Crisis of the Roman Republic
The end of the Crisis can likewise either be dated from the assassination of Julius Caesar on 15 March 44 BC, after he and Sulla had done so much "to dismantle the government of the Republic," or alternately when Octavian was granted the title of "Augustus" by the Senate in 27 BC, marking the beginning of the Roman Empire. The end could also be dated "earlier", to the time of the constitutional reforms of Julius Caesar in 49 BC.
History of international law
After the fall of the Roman Empire and the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire into independent cities, principalities, kingdoms and nations, for the first time there was a real need for rules of conduct between a large international community. Without an empire or a dominant religious leadership to moderate and direct international dealings, most of Europe looked to Justinian's code of law from the Roman Empire, and the canon law of the Catholic Church for inspiration.
Pax Romana
The Pax Romana (Latin for "Roman Peace") was a long period of relative peace and stability experienced by the Roman Empire. It is traditionally dated as commencing from the accession of Caesar Augustus, founder of the Roman principate, in 27 BCE and concluding in 180 CE with the death of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the "good emperors". Since it was inaugurated by Augustus with the end of the Final War of the Roman Republic, it is sometimes called the Pax Augusta. During this period of approximately 206 years, the Roman empire achieved its greatest territorial extent and its population reached a maximum of up to 70 million people – a third of the world’s population. According to Cassius Dio, the dictatorial reign of Commodus, later followed by the Year of the Five Emperors and the crisis of the third century, marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust".
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
He disputes Gibbon's contention that Christianity and moral decay led to the decline. He also rejects the political infighting of the Empire as a reason, considering it was a systemic recurring factor throughout the Empire's history which, while it might have contributed to an inability to respond to the circumstances of the 5th century, it consequently cannot be blamed for them. Instead he places its origin squarely on outside military factors, starting with the Sassanids. Like Bury, he does not believe the fall was inevitable, but rather a series of events which came together to shatter the Empire. He differs from Bury, however, in placing the onset of those events far earlier in the Empire's timeline, with the Sassanid rise.
Universal history
The Early medieval history saw the continuation of trends set up in ancient history (and, for Europe, late Antiquity). The period is usually considered to open with those migrations of the German Tribes which led to the destruction of the Roman Empire in the West in 375, when the Huns fell upon the Gothic tribes north of the Black Sea and forced the Visigoths over the boundaries of the Roman Empire on the lower Danube. A later date, however, is sometimes assumed, viz., when Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last of the Roman Emperors of the West, in 476. Depopulation, deurbanization, and increased barbarian invasion were seen across the Old World. North Africa and the Middle East, once part of the Eastern Roman Empire, became Islamic. Later in European history, the establishment of the feudal system allowed a return to systemic agriculture. There was sustained urbanization in northern and western Europe.
History of the Roman Constitution
The History of the Roman Constitution is a study of Ancient Rome that traces the progression of Roman political development from the founding of the city of Rome in 753 BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. The constitution of the Roman Kingdom vested the sovereign power in the King of Rome. The king did have two rudimentary checks on his authority, which took the form of a board of elders (the Roman Senate) and a popular assembly (the Curiate Assembly). The arrangement was similar to the constitutional arrangements found in contemporary Greek city-states (such as Athens or Sparta). These Greek constitutional principles probably came to Rome through the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia in southern Italy. The Roman Kingdom was overthrown in 510 BC, according to legend, and in its place the Roman Republic was founded.
European Union
During the centuries following the fall of Rome in 476, several European States viewed themselves as "translatio imperii" of the defunct Roman Empire: the Frankish Empire (481–843) and the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) were thereby attempts to resurrect Rome in the West. This political philosophy of a supra-national rule over the continent, similar to the example of the ancient Roman Empire, resulted in the early Middle Ages in the concept of a "renovatio imperii" ("restoration of the empire), either in the forms of the "Reichsidee" ("imperial idea") or the religiously inspired "Imperium Christianum" ("christian empire"). Medieval Christendom and the political power of the Papacy are often cited as conducive to European integration and unity.
Western world
The Eastern Roman Empire, governed from Constantinople, is usually referred to as the Byzantine Empire after AD 476, the traditional date for the "fall of the Western Roman Empire" and beginning of the Early Middle Ages. The Eastern Roman Empire surviving the fall of the Western, protected Roman legal and cultural traditions, combining them with Greek and Christian elements, for another thousand years. The name Byzantine Empire was used after the Byzantine Empire ended, the inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire continued to call themselves Romans for long time as the term “Roman” was meant to signify all Christians.
History of Austria
The defeat meant the end of the old Holy Roman Empire. Napoleon's satellite states in southern and Western Germany seceded from the Empire in the summer of 1806, forming the Confederation of the Rhine, and a few days later Francis proclaimed the Empire dissolved, and renounced the old imperial crown on 6 August 1806.
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
Historians of Late Antiquity, a field pioneered by Peter Brown, have turned away from the idea that the Roman Empire fell at all – refocusing instead on Pirenne's thesis. They see a transformation occurring over centuries, with the roots of Medieval culture contained in Roman culture and focus on the continuities between the classical and Medieval worlds. Thus, it was a gradual process with no clear break. Brown argues in his book that:
History of Europe
In 395 Theodosius I, who had made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, would be the last emperor to preside over a united Roman Empire. The empire was split into two halves: the Western Roman Empire centred in Ravenna, and the Eastern Roman Empire (later to be referred to as the Byzantine Empire) centred in Constantinople. The Roman Empire was repeatedly attacked by Hunnic, Germanic, Slavic and other “barbarian” tribes (see: Migration Period), and in 476 finally the Western part fell to the Heruli chieftain Odoacer.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Gibbon offers an explanation for the fall of the Roman Empire, a task made difficult by a lack of comprehensive written sources, though he was not the only historian to attempt it.
The Historians' History of the World
Continuing "Part X" directly from the preceding volume, this volume begins with Augustus and goes up to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. It discusses the rise of Christianity, the many emperors who held power in Rome during the founding and the fall of the Roman Empire, the division of the Roman Empire and the many barbarian invasions (Huns, Goths, Vandals) leading up to Rome's fall.
Holy Roman Emperor
From an autocracy in Carolingian times (AD 800–924) the title by the 13th century evolved into an elected monarchy chosen by the prince-electors.
Various royal houses of Europe, at different times, became "de-facto" hereditary holders of the title, notably the Ottonians (962–1024) and the Salians (1027–1125). Following the late medieval crisis of government, the Habsburgs kept possession of the title without interruption from 1440–1740. 
The final emperors were from the House of Lorraine (Habsburg-Lorraine), from 1765–1806.
The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved after the defeat at Austerlitz by emperor Francis II, who continued to rule as Austrian emperor.
Ancient history
The Roman Empire underwent considerable social, cultural and organizational change starting with reign of Diocletian, who began the custom of splitting the Empire into Eastern and Western halves ruled by multiple emperors. Beginning with Constantine the Great the Empire was Christianized, and a new capital founded at Constantinople. Migrations of Germanic tribes disrupted Roman rule from the late 4th century onwards, culminating in the eventual collapse of the Empire in the West in 476, replaced by the so-called barbarian kingdoms. The resultant cultural fusion of Greco-Roman, Germanic and Christian traditions formed the cultural foundations of Europe.
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
Writing in the 5th century, the Roman historian Vegetius pleaded for reform of what must have been a greatly weakened army. The historian Arther Ferrill has suggested that the Roman Empire – particularly the military – declined largely as a result of an influx of Germanic mercenaries into the ranks of the legions. This "Germanization" and the resultant cultural dilution or "barbarization" led not only to a decline in the standard of drill and overall military preparedness within the Empire, but also to a decline of loyalty to the Roman government in favor of loyalty to commanders. Ferrill agrees with other Roman historians such as A.H.M. Jones:
In contrast with the declining empire theories, historians such as Arnold J. Toynbee and James Burke argue that the Roman Empire itself was a rotten system from its inception, and that the entire Imperial era was one of steady decay of institutions founded in Republican times. In their view, the Empire could never have lasted longer than it did without radical reforms that no Emperor could implement. The Romans had no budgetary system and thus wasted whatever resources they had available. The economy of the Empire was a Raubwirtschaft or plunder economy based on looting existing resources rather than producing anything new. The Empire relied on riches from conquered territories (this source of revenue ending, of course, with the end of Roman territorial expansion) or on a pattern of tax collection that drove small-scale farmers into destitution (and onto a dole that required even more exactions upon those who could not escape taxation), or into dependency upon a landed élite exempt from taxation. With the cessation of tribute from conquered territories, the full cost of their military machine had to be borne by the citizenry.
Roman Empire
In 212, during the reign of Caracalla, Roman citizenship was granted to all freeborn inhabitants of the empire. But despite this gesture of universality, the Severan dynasty was tumultuous—an emperor's reign was ended routinely by his murder or execution—and, following its collapse, the Roman Empire was engulfed by the Crisis of the Third Century, a period of invasions, civil strife, economic disorder, and plague. In defining historical epochs, this crisis is sometimes viewed as marking the transition from Classical Antiquity to Late Antiquity. Aurelian (reigned 270–275) brought the empire back from the brink and stabilized it. Diocletian completed the work of fully restoring the empire, but declined the role of "princeps" and became the first emperor to be addressed regularly as "domine", "master" or "lord". This marked the end of the Principate, and the beginning of the Dominate. Diocletian's reign also brought the empire's most concerted effort against the perceived threat of Christianity, the "Great Persecution". The state of absolute monarchy that began with Diocletian endured until the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire in 1453.
The Fall of the Roman Empire (film)
A bankruptcy notice in the "New York Times "on 6 August 1965, stated the cost of "The Fall of the Roman Empire" at $18,436,625. He announced his return with a planned epic about Isabella of Spain, but the film was never made.
State church of the Roman Empire
In the 5th century, the Western Empire rapidly decayed and by the end of the century was no more. Within a few decades, Germanic tribes, particularly the Goths and Vandals, conquered the western provinces. Rome was sacked in 410 and 455, and was to be sacked again in the following century in 546.
Roman imperial period (chronology)
The Roman imperial period is a term used for chronology in both historiography and archaeology of Europe. 
It corresponds to the expansion of political and cultural influence of the Roman Empire.
The period begins with the Augustan reform, and it is taken to end variously between the late 3rd and the late 4th century. 
Technically, Late Antiquity would also count as "late Roman imperial period", up to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476, but the 5th century is mostly counted as part of the Migration Period, as the influence of Rome had become too weak to act as a dominant cultural force.
Roman–Persian Wars
Neither empire was given any chance to recover, as within a few years they were struck by the onslaught of the Arabs (newly united by Islam), which, according to Howard-Johnston, "can only be likened to a human tsunami". According to George Liska, the "unnecessarily prolonged Byzantine–Persian conflict opened the way for Islam". The Sasanian Empire rapidly succumbed to these attacks and was completely destroyed. During the Byzantine–Arab wars, the exhausted Roman Empire's recently regained eastern and southern provinces of Syria, Armenia, Egypt and North Africa were also lost, reducing the Empire to a territorial rump consisting of Anatolia and a scatter of islands and footholds in the Balkans and Italy. These remaining lands were thoroughly impoverished by frequent attacks, marking the transition from classical urban civilization to a more rural, medieval form of society. However, unlike Persia, the Roman Empire ultimately survived the Arab assault, holding onto its residual territories and decisively repulsing two Arab sieges of its capital in 674–678 and 717–718. The Roman Empire also lost its territories in Crete and southern Italy to the Arabs in later conflicts, though these too were ultimately recovered.
Roman Empire
In 1204 the Sack of Constantinople found place by participants in the Fourth Crusade. The conquest of Constantinople in 1204 fragmented what remained of the Empire into successor states, the ultimate victor being that of Nicaea. After the recapture of Constantinople by Imperial forces, the Empire was little more than a Greek state confined to the Aegean coast. The Eastern Roman Empire finally collapsed when Mehmed the Conqueror conquered Constantinople on 29 May 1453.
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
Bury held that a number of crises arose simultaneously: economic decline, Germanic expansion, depopulation of Italy, dependency on Germanic "foederati" for the military, the disastrous (though Bury believed unknowing) treason of Stilicho, loss of martial vigor, Aetius' murder, the lack of any leader to replace Aetius—a series of misfortunes which, in combination, proved catastrophic:
Peter Heather, in his "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (2005), maintains the Roman imperial system with its sometimes violent imperial transitions and problematic communications notwithstanding, was in fairly good shape during the first, second, and part of the 3rd centuries AD. According to Heather, the first real indication of trouble was the emergence in Iran of the Sassanid Persian empire (226–651). As reviewed by one writer on Heather's writing,
Heather goes on to state—in the tradition of Gibbon and Bury—that it took the Roman Empire about half a century to cope with the Sassanid threat, which it did by stripping the western provincial towns and cities of their regional taxation income. The resulting expansion of military forces in the Middle East was finally successful in stabilizing the frontiers with the Sassanids, but the reduction of real income in the provinces of the Empire led to two trends which, Heather says, had a negative long-term impact. First, the incentive for local officials to spend their time and money in the development of local infrastructure disappeared. Public buildings from the 4th century onward tended to be much more modest and funded from central budgets, as the regional taxes had dried up. Second, Heather says "the landowning provincial literati now shifted their attention to where the money was ... away from provincial and local politics to the imperial bureaucracies." Having set the scene of an Empire stretched militarily by the Sassanid threat, Heather then suggests, using archaeological evidence, that the Germanic tribes on the Empire's northern border had altered in nature since the 1st century. Contact with the Empire had increased their material wealth, and that in turn had led to disparities of wealth sufficient to create a ruling class capable of maintaining control over far larger groupings than had previously been possible. Essentially they had become significantly more formidable foes.
Fall of Constantinople
Byzantium is a term used by modern historians to refer to the later Roman Empire. In its own time, the Empire ruled from Constantinople (or "New Rome" as some people call it, although this was a laudatory expression that was never an official title) was considered simply as "the Roman Empire." The fall of Constantinople led competing factions to lay claim to being the inheritors of the Imperial mantle. Russian claims to Byzantine heritage clashed with those of the Ottoman Empire's own claim. In Mehmed's view, he was the successor to the Roman Emperor, declaring himself "Kayser-i Rum", literally "Caesar of Rome", that is, of the Roman Empire, though he was remembered as "the Conqueror". He founded a political system that survived until 1922 with the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.
Germanic Wars
"Germanic Wars" is a name given to a series of wars between the Romans and various Germanic tribes between 113 BC and 596 AD. The nature of these wars varied through time between Roman conquest, Germanic uprisings and later Germanic invasions in the Roman Empire that started in the late 2nd century BC. The series of conflicts, which began in the 5th century under the Western Roman Emperor Honorius, led (along with internal strife) to the ultimate downfall of the Western Roman Empire.
"For the timeline of events in Britannia after its abandonment by Emperor Valentinian III, see Timeline of conflict in Anglo-Saxon Britain."
Basiliscus
The struggle between Basiliscus and Zeno impeded the Eastern Roman Empire's ability to intervene in the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which happened in early September 476. When the chieftain of the Heruli, Odoacer, deposed Western Emperor Romulus Augustus, sending the imperial regalia to Constantinople, Zeno had just regained his throne, and was in no position to take any action but appoint Odoacer "dux" of Italy, thereby ending the Western Roman Empire.
Rome
Christianity in the form of the Nicene Creed became the official religion of the empire in 380 via the Edict of Thessalonica issued in the name of three emperors – Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius I – with Theodosius clearly the driving force behind it. He was the last emperor of a unified empire: after his death in 395 his sons, Arcadius and Honorius divided the empire into a western and an eastern part. The seat of government in the Western Roman Empire was transferred to Ravenna after the siege of Milan in 402. During the 5th century, the emperors from the 430s mostly resided in the capital, Rome.
Rome, which had lost its central role in the administration of the empire, was sacked in 410 by the Visigoths led by Alaric I, but very little physical damage was done, most of which was repaired. What could not be so easily replaced were portable items such as art work in precious metals and items for domestic use (loot). The popes embellished the city with large basilicas, such as Santa Maria Maggiore (with the collaboration of the emperors). The population of the city had fallen from 800,000 to 450–500,000 by the time the city was sacked in 455 by Genseric, king of the Vandals. The weak emperors of the fifth century could not stop the decay, until the deposition of Romulus Augustus on 22 August 476 marked the end of the Western Roman Empire and, for many historians, the beginning of the Middle Ages. The decline of the city's population was caused by the loss of grain shipments from North Africa, from 440 on, and the unwillingness of the senatorial class to maintain donations to support a population that was too large for the resources available. Even so, strenuous efforts were made to maintain the monumental centre, the palatine, and the largest baths, which continued to function until the Gothic siege of 537. The large baths of Constantine on the Quirinale were even repaired in 443; and the extent of the damage exaggerated and dramatized (according to "Rome, An Urban History from Antiquity to the Present", Rabun Taylor, Katherine W. Rinne and Spiro Kostof, 2016 pp. 160–179). However, the city gave an appearance overall of shabbiness and decay because of the large abandoned areas due to population decline. Population declined to 500,000 by 452 and 100,000 by 500 AD (perhaps larger, though no certain figure can be known). After the Gothic siege of 537, population dropped to 30,000, but had risen to 90,000 by the papacy of Gregory the Great. ("Rome, Profile of a City": 321–1308, Richard Krautheimer, p. 165.). The population decline coincided with the general collapse of urban life in the West in the 5th and 6th centuries, with few exceptions. Subsidized state grain distributions to the poorer members of society continued right through the 6th century and probably prevented the population from falling further ("Rome, Urban History", pp. 184–185.) The figure of 450,000–500,000 is based on the amount of pork, 3,629,000 lbs. distributed to poorer Romans during five winter months at the rate of 5 Roman lbs per person per month, enough for 145,000 persons or 1/4 or 1/3 of the total population. (Novel 36, 2, Emperor Valeninian III). Grain distribution to 80,000 ticket holders at the same time suggests 400,000 (Augustus set the number at 200,000 or one-fifth of the population).
Final War of the Roman Republic
The Empire that Augustus established would last in Western Europe until the fall of Rome in the 5th century AD. The Eastern part of the Roman Empire would also survive as the Byzantine Empire until the fall of Constantinople in AD 1453.
Constantine XI Palaiologos
Following his death, he became a legendary figure in Greek folklore as the "Marble Emperor" who would awaken and recover the Empire and Constantinople from the Ottomans. His death marked the end of the Roman Empire. It had continued in the East as the Byzantine Empire for 977 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. The Empire had begun with the reign of Augustus in 27 BC, 1479 years prior.
Structural history of the Roman military
The former Oxford University historian Adrian Goldsworthy has argued that the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire in the West should not be blamed on barbarization of the late Roman Army, but on its recurrent civil wars, which led to its inability to repel or defeat invasions from outside its frontiers. The East Roman or Byzantine empire on the other hand had fewer civil wars to contend with in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, or in the years from 383-432 A.D.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
The six volumes cover the history, from 98 to 1590, of the Roman Empire, the history of early Christianity and then of the Roman State Church, and the history of Europe, and discusses the decline of the Roman Empire among other things.
History of Western civilization before AD 500
In 476 the western Roman Empire, which had ruled modern-day Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and England for centuries, collapsed due to a combination of economic decline, and drastically reduced military strength which allowed invasion by barbarian tribes originating in southern Scandinavia and modern-day northern Germany. Historical opinion is divided as to the reasons for the fall of Rome, but the societal collapse encompassed both the gradual disintegration of the political, economic, military, and other social institutions of Rome as well as the barbarian invasions of Western Europe.
Romulus Augustulus
Odoacer advanced on Ravenna, capturing the city and the young emperor after the short and decisive Battle of Ravenna. Romulus was compelled to abdicate the throne on 4 September 476. This act has been cited as the end of the Western Roman Empire, although Romulus' deposition did not cause any significant disruption at the time. Rome had already lost its hegemony over the provinces, Germanic peoples dominated the Roman army, and Germanic generals like Odoacer had long been the real powers behind the throne. Italy would suffer far greater devastation in the next century when Emperor Justinian I reconquered it in the Gothic War.
North Africa
North Africa remained a part of the Roman Empire, which produced many notable citizens such as Augustine of Hippo, until incompetent leadership from Roman commanders in the early fifth century allowed the Germanic peoples, the Vandals, to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, whereupon they overcame the fickle Roman defense. The loss of North Africa is considered a pinnacle point in the fall of the Western Roman Empire as Africa had previously been an important grain province that maintained Roman prosperity despite the barbarian incursions, and the wealth required to create new armies. The issue of regaining North Africa became paramount to the Western Empire, but was frustrated by Vandal victories. The focus of Roman energy had to be on the emerging threat of the Huns. In 468 AD, the Romans made one last serious attempt to invade North Africa but were repelled. This perhaps marks the point of terminal decline for the Western Roman Empire. The last Roman emperor was deposed in 476 by the Heruli general Odoacer. Trade routes between Europe and North Africa remained intact until the coming of Islam. Some Berbers were members of the Early African Church (but evolved their own Donatist doctrine), some were Berber Jews, and some adhered to traditional Berber religion. African pope Victor I served during the reign of Roman emperor Septimius Severus
History of the Byzantine Empire
This history of the Byzantine Empire covers the history of the Eastern Roman Empire from late antiquity until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 AD. Several events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the transitional period during which the Roman Empire's east and west divided. In 285, the emperor Diocletian (r. 284–305) partitioned the Roman Empire's administration into eastern and western halves. Between 324 and 330, Constantine I (r. 306–337) transferred the main capital from Rome to Byzantium, later known as "Constantinople" ("City of Constantine") and "Nova Roma" ("New Rome"). Under Theodosius I (r. 379–395), Christianity became the Empire's official state religion and others such as Roman polytheism were proscribed. And finally, under the reign of Heraclius (r. 610–641), the Empire's military and administration were restructured and adopted Greek for official use instead of Latin. Thus, although it continued the Roman state and maintained Roman state traditions, modern historians distinguish Byzantium from ancient Rome insofar as it was oriented towards Greek rather than Latin culture, and characterised by Orthodox Christianity rather than Roman polytheism.
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
There is no consensus on a date for the start of the Decline. Gibbon started his account in 98. The year 376 is taken as pivotal by many modern historians. In that year there was an unmanageable influx of Goths and other Barbarians into the Balkan provinces, and the situation of the Western Empire generally worsened thereafter, with recoveries being incomplete and temporary. Significant events include the Battle of Adrianople in 378, the death of Theodosius I in 395 (the last time the Roman Empire was politically unified), the crossing of the Rhine in 406 by Germanic tribes, the execution of Stilicho in 408, the sack of Rome in 410, the death of Constantius III in 421, the death of Aetius in 454, and the second sack of Rome in 455, with the death of Majorian in 461 marking the end of the last opportunity for recovery.
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Ward-Perkins' published work has focused primarily on the urban and economic history of the Mediterranean and western Europe during Late Antiquity. His 2005 book, "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization", included statements addressing what he saw as an over-correction in the approaches of modern historiography to late Roman history. Using primarily archaeological evidence, Ward-Perkins takes issue with what he says is the "fashionable" idea that the western Roman Empire did not actually fall but instead experienced a mostly-benign transformation into the Christian kingdoms of medieval Europe. In his contrasting view, "the coming of the Germanic peoples was very unpleasant for the Roman population, and the long-term effects of the dissolution of the empire were dramatic."
Fall of the Western Roman Empire
Gibbon gave a classic formulation of reasons why the Fall happened. He began an ongoing controversy by attributing a significant role to Christianity in the Western Roman Empire's fall, which is no longer accepted by modern Roman historians. However, he did give great weight to other causes of internal decline as well and to the attacks from outside the Empire. 
Alexander Demandt enumerated 210 different theories on why Rome fell, and new ideas have emerged since. Historians still try to analyze the reasons for loss of political control over a vast territory (and, as a subsidiary theme, the reasons for the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire). Comparison has also been made with China after the end of the Han dynasty, which re-established unity under the Sui dynasty while the Mediterranean world remained politically disunited.
History of the Roman Empire
The transition from a single united empire to the later divided Western and Eastern empires was a gradual transformation. In July 285, Diocletian defeated rival Emperor Carinus and briefly became sole emperor of the Roman Empire. Diocletian's reign stabilized the empire and marked the end of the Crisis of the Third Century. Diocletian appointed a co-emperor in 286 and delegated further with two junior-emperors.
Laßnitzhöhe
The area around Laßnitzhöhe was once part of the Western Roman Empire, after its collapse in 476 AD the Roman provincial population largely withdrew.
Rise of Rome
The rise of Rome covers the period in which the Roman Republic and Empire came to dominate Europe, North Africa and the Near East. The rise of the Roman Republic began with the conclusion of the Roman expansion in Italy and ended with the formation of the Roman Empire in 27 BC. The rise of the Roman Empire continued that of the Republic and peaked during the reign of Trajan, the last Roman emperor to add significant territory to the Empire. It is the subject of a great deal of analysis by historians, military strategists, political scientists, and increasingly also some economists.
Electorate of Bavaria
The Elector declared himself to be king on 1 January 1806, officially changing the Electorate of Bavaria to being the Kingdom of Bavaria. On 15 March 1806 he ceded the Duchy of Berg to Napoleon. Shortly thereafter, the Confederation of the Rhine was formed and Maximilian, with the other princes who joined that body, announced his secession from the Holy Roman Empire. The King still served as an Elector until Bavaria left the Holy Roman Empire (1 August 1806). A few days later, the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved on 6 August 1806 after surviving for a thousand years.
History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire
The History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire is a study of the ancient Roman Empire that traces the progression of Roman political development from the abolition of the Roman Principate around the year 200 until the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE. When Diocletian became Roman Emperor in 284 CE, he inherited a constitution that was no longer functioning, and so he enacted the most significant constitutional reforms in over three-hundred years. His reforms, much like those three-hundred years before, were intended to correct the errors in the previous constitution. Diocletian's specific reforms were less radical than was the reality that he exposed the state of government for what it had been for centuries: monarchy. With Diocletian’s reforms the Principate was abolished, and a new system, the Dominate (Latin: "lord" or "master"), was established.
Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire
The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire occurred "de facto" on 6 August 1806, when Emperor Francis II abdicated his title and released all imperial states and officials from their oaths and obligations to the empire. Although the abdication was considered legal, the dissolution of the imperial bonds was not and several states refused to recognise the end of the empire at the time.
History of the Roman Empire
In spite of his failures, Diocletian's reforms fundamentally changed the structure of Roman imperial government and helped stabilize the empire economically and militarily, enabling the empire to remain essentially intact for another hundred years despite being near the brink of collapse in Diocletian's youth. Weakened by illness, Diocletian left the imperial office on 1 May 305, and became the first Roman emperor to voluntarily abdicate the position (John VI retired to a monastery in the 14th century). He lived out his retirement in his palace on the Dalmatian coast, tending to his vegetable gardens. His palace eventually became the core of the modern-day city of Split.
Early Christian churches in Milan
Ever since the fall of the Severan dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire between 193 and 235, rivals for the imperial throne had bid for support by either favoring or persecuting Christians. During the following period known as the crisis of the Third Century (AD 235–284) the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of invasion, civil war, plague, and economic depression. The Crisis began with the assassination of Emperor Alexander Severus at the hands of his own troops, initiating a fifty-year period in which 20–25 claimants to the title of Emperor, mostly prominent Roman army generals, assumed imperial power over all or part of the Empire.
Roman Constitution
The Roman senate was the most permanent of all of Rome's political institutions. It was probably founded before the first king of Rome ascended the throne. It survived the fall of the Roman Kingdom in the late 5th century BC, the fall of the Roman Republic in 27 BC, and the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD. It was, in contrast to many modern institutions named 'Senate', not a legislative body, but rather, an advisory one.
List of Roman emperors
In the late 3rd century, after the Crisis of the Third Century, Diocletian formalised and embellished the recent manner of imperial rule, establishing the so-called Dominate period of the Roman Empire. This was characterised by the explicit increase of authority in the person of the Emperor, and the use of the style ("Our Lord"). The rise of powerful Barbarian tribes along the borders of the empire and the challenge they posed to defense of far-flung borders and unstable imperial succession led Diocletian to divide the administration geographically of the Empire in 286 with a co-Augustus. In 330, Constantine the Great established a second capital in Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople. For most of the period from 286 to 480, there was more than one recognised senior emperor, with the division usually based in geographic terms. This division was consistently in place after the death of Theodosius I in 395, which historians have dated as the division between the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. However, formally the Empire remained a single polity, with separate co-emperors in the separate courts. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, and so the end of a separate list of emperors below, is dated either from the date of 476 when Romulus Augustulus was deposed by Odoacer who became King of Italy, or the date of 480, on the death of Julius Nepos, when Eastern Emperor Zeno ended recognition of a separate Western court. In the period that followed, the Empire is usually treated by historians as the Byzantine Empire governed by the Byzantine Emperors, although this designation is not used universally, and continues to be a subject of specialist debate today.
Roman Empire
In the view of the Greek historian Dio Cassius, a contemporary observer, the accession of the emperor Commodus in 180 AD marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron"—a famous comment which has led some historians, notably Edward Gibbon, to take Commodus' reign as the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire.
Henri Pirenne
Traditionally, historians had dated the Middle Ages from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, a theory Edward Gibbon famously put forward in the 18th century, and which is inexorably linked to the supposition of a Roman "decline" from a previous classic ideal. Pirenne postponed the demise of classical civilization to the 8th century. He challenged the notion that Germanic barbarians had caused the Western Roman Empire to end and he challenged the notion that the end of the Western Roman Empire should be equated with the end of the office of emperor in Europe, which occurred in 476. He pointed out the essential continuity of the economy of the Roman Mediterranean even after the barbarian invasions, and that the Roman way of doing things did not fundamentally change in the time immediately after the "fall" of Rome. Barbarian Goths came to Rome not to destroy it, but to take part in its benefits; they tried to preserve the Roman way of life. The more recent formulation of a historical period characterized as "Late Antiquity" emphasizes the transformations of ancient to medieval worlds within a cultural continuity, and European archaeology of the first millennium, purposefully undertaken in the later 20th century, even extends the continuity in material culture and patterns of settlement below the political overlay as reaching as late as the eleventh century.
Fall of the Western Roman Empire
Since 1776, when Edward Gibbon published the first volume of his "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", Decline and Fall has been the theme around which much of the history of the Roman Empire has been structured. "From the eighteenth century onward," historian Glen Bowersock wrote, "we have been obsessed with the fall: it has been valued as an archetype for every perceived decline, and, hence, as a symbol for our own fears." The Fall is not the only unifying concept for these events; the period described as Late Antiquity emphasizes the cultural continuities throughout and beyond the political collapse.
Culture of ancient Rome
The Roman Empire, at its height (c. 117 CE), was the most extensive political and social structure in western civilization. By 285 CE the empire had grown too vast to be ruled from the central government at Rome and so was divided by Emperor Diocletian into a Western and an Eastern Empire. The Roman Empire began when Augustus Caesar became the first emperor of Rome (31 BCE) and ended, in the west, when the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by the Germanic King Odoacer (476 CE). In the east, it continued as the Byzantine Empire until the death of Constantine XI and the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 CE. The influence of the Roman Empire on western civilization was profound in its lasting contributions to virtually every aspect of western culture.
History of the Constitution of the Roman Republic
The history of the Constitution of the Roman Republic is a study of the ancient Roman Republic that traces the progression of Roman political development from the founding of the Roman Republic in 509 BC until the founding of the Roman Empire in 27 BC. The constitutional history of the Roman Republic can be divided into five phases. The first phase began with the revolution which overthrew the Roman Kingdom in 509 BC, and the final phase ended with the revolution which overthrew the Roman Republic, and thus created the Roman Empire, in 27 BC. Throughout the history of the republic, the constitutional evolution was driven by the struggle between the aristocracy and the ordinary citizens.
Ancient Rome
In historiography, ancient Rome is Roman civilization from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, encompassing the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic and Roman Empire until the fall of the western empire.
The civilization began as an Italic settlement in the Italian peninsula, dating from the 8th century BC, that grew into the city of Rome and which subsequently gave its name to the empire over which it ruled and to the widespread civilisation the empire developed. The Roman empire expanded to become one of the largest empires in the ancient world, though still ruled from the city, with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants (roughly 20% of the world's population) and covering 5.0 million square kilometres at its height in AD 117.
Ancient Rome
In the late 4th and 5th centuries the Western Empire entered a critical stage which terminated with the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Under the last emperors of the Constantinian dynasty and the Valentinian dynasty, Rome lost decisive battles against the Sasanian Empire and Germanic barbarians: in 363, emperor Julian the Apostate was killed in the Battle of Samarra, against the Persians and the Battle of Adrianople cost the life of emperor Valens (364–378); the victorious Goths were never expelled from the Empire nor assimilated. The next emperor, Theodosius I (379–395), gave even more force to the Christian faith, and after his death, the Empire was divided into the Eastern Roman Empire, ruled by Arcadius and the Western Roman Empire, commanded by Honorius, both of which were Theodosius' sons.
Byzantine–Seljuq wars
The wars' distant origins lay in the formation of the Byzantine Empire from the collapsing Roman Empire in the 4th century. Prior to the formation of the Byzantine realm in the 3rd century AD, the Roman Empire faced a severe military and political crisis; political assassinations and dangerous campaigning led to 32 Emperors seizing and losing power within 50 years of Roman history. Matters were made worse with an economic and demographic problem. The population of the Roman Empire began to fall in the 4th century due to a lack of conquest leading to a lack of slaves, a vital and significant group of people in the Empire. Reforms by Emperors like Constantine I and Theodosius I prolonged the Roman Empire but nonetheless the Empire split into Eastern and Western Halves in 395 AD. The Western Half (Western Roman Empire) was plagued by barbarian invasions, collapsing in 476 AD whilst the Eastern Half survived and began to undergo Hellenization transforming into what historians label today as the Byzantine Empire. Unlike the Western Half of the Roman Empire, the Eastern Half experienced fewer barbarian invasions although encounters with the Huns and Persians kept the Byzantines busy enough from making any serious recovery attempts in the West.
Roman Empire
The first two centuries of the Empire were a period of unprecedented stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana ("Roman Peace"). It reached its greatest territorial expanse during the reign of Trajan (98–117 AD). A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus. In the 3rd century, the Empire underwent a crisis that threatened its existence, but was reunified under Aurelian. In an effort to stabilize the Empire, Diocletian set up two different imperial courts in the Greek East and Latin West. Christians rose to power in the 4th century following the Edict of Milan in 313 and the Edict of Thessalonica in 380. Shortly after, the Migration Period involving large invasions by Germanic peoples and the Huns of Attila led to the decline of the Western Roman Empire. With the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476 AD by Odoacer, who proclaimed himself King of Italy, the Western Roman Empire finally collapsed and it was formally abolished by emperor Zeno in 480 AD. The Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire, continued until 1453 with the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire.
Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire
Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire is a 2006 BBC One docudrama series, with each episode looking at a different key turning points in the history of the Roman Empire. This docudrama focuses on the Latin-speaking western half of the Roman Empire.
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
In June 474, Julius Nepos became Western Emperor but in the next year the "magister militum" Orestes revolted and made his son Romulus Augustus emperor. Romulus, however, was not recognized by the Eastern Emperor Zeno and so was technically an usurper, Nepos still being the legal Western Emperor. Nevertheless, Romulus Augustus is often known as the last Western Roman Emperor. In 476, after being refused lands in Italy, Orestes' Germanic mercenaries under the leadership of the chieftain Odoacer captured and executed Orestes and took Ravenna, the Western Roman capital at the time, deposing Romulus Augustus. The whole of Italy was quickly conquered, and Odoacer was granted the title of patrician by Zeno, effectively recognizing his rule in the name of the Eastern Empire. Odoacer returned the Imperial insignia to Constantinople and ruled as King in Italy. Following Nepos' death Theodoric the Great, King of the Ostrogoths, conquered Italy with Zeno's approval.
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
In "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (1776–88), Edward Gibbon famously placed the blame on a loss of civic virtue among the Roman citizens. They gradually entrusted the role of defending the Empire to barbarian mercenaries who eventually turned on them. Gibbon held that Christianity contributed to this shift by making the populace less interested in the worldly "here-and-now" because it was willing to wait for the rewards of heaven.
Fall of the Western Roman Empire
Relevant dates include 117 CE, when the Empire was at its greatest territorial extent, and the accession of Diocletian in 284. Irreversible major territorial loss, however, began in 376 with a large-scale irruption of Goths and others. In 395, after winning two destructive civil wars, Theodosius I died, leaving a collapsing field army and the Empire, still plagued by Goths, divided between the warring ministers of his two incapable sons. Further barbarian groups crossed the Rhine and other frontiers, and like the Goths were not exterminated, expelled or subjected. The armed forces of the Western Empire became few and ineffective, and despite brief recoveries under able leaders, central rule was never effectively consolidated. By 476 when Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus, the Western Roman Emperor wielded negligible military, political, or financial power and had no effective control over the scattered Western domains that could still be described as Roman. Barbarian kingdoms had established their own power in much of the area of the Western Empire. While its legitimacy lasted for centuries longer and its cultural influence remains today, the Western Empire never had the strength to rise again. The Eastern Empire survived, and though lessened in strength remained for centuries an effective power of the Eastern Mediterranean.
Clash of Eagles
The Roman Empire never fell. In 1218, the roman emperor dispatch the 33rd roman legion to conquer the recently discovered North American continent. General Gaius Marcellinus and his troops have woefully underestimated the fighting prowess of the Native American inhabitants.
Timeline of Ancient Romania
The date used as the end of the ancient era is entirely arbitrary. Not all historians agree on the ending dates of ancient history, which frequently falls somewhere in the 5th, 6th, or 7th century. Western scholars usually date the end of ancient history with the fall of Rome in AD 476, the death of the emperor Justinian I in AD 565, or the coming of Islam in AD 632 as the end of ancient European history.
Western Roman Empire
In addition to remaining as a concept for an administrative unit in the remaining Empire, the ideal of the Roman Empire as a mighty Christian Empire with a single ruler further continued to appeal to many powerful rulers in western Europe. With the papal coronation of Charlemagne as "Emperor of the Romans" in 800 AD, his realm was explicitly proclaimed as a restoration of the Roman Empire in Western Europe under the concept of "translatio imperii". Though the Carolingian Empire collapsed in 888 and Berengar, the last "Emperor" claiming succession from Charlemagne, died in 924, the concept of a papacy- and Germanic-based Roman Empire in the West would resurface in the form of the Holy Roman Empire in 962. The Holy Roman Emperors would uphold the notion that they had inherited the supreme power and prestige of the Roman Emperors of old until the downfall of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.
Structural history of the Roman military
Simultaneously, barbarian troops in Rome's pay came to be "in a condition of almost perpetual turbulence and revolt" from 409 onwards. In 476 these troops finally unseated the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire. The Eastern Roman forces continued to defend the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire until its fall in 1453.
Roman Empire
Several states claimed to be the Roman Empire's successors after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire, an attempt to resurrect the Empire in the West, was established in 800 when Pope Leo III crowned Frankish King Charlemagne as Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, though the empire and the imperial office did not become formalized for some decades. After the fall of Constantinople, the Russian Tsardom, as inheritor of the Byzantine Empire's Orthodox Christian tradition, counted itself the Third Rome (Constantinople having been the second). These concepts are known as Translatio imperii.
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
William H. McNeill, a world historian, noted in chapter three of his book "Plagues and Peoples" (1976) that the Roman Empire suffered the severe and protracted Antonine Plague starting around 165 AD. For about twenty years, waves of one or more diseases, possibly the first epidemics of smallpox and measles, swept through the Empire, ultimately killing about half the population. Similar epidemics, such as the Plague of Cyprian, also occurred in the 3rd century. McNeill argues that the severe fall in population left the state apparatus and army too large for the population to support, leading to further economic and social decline that eventually killed the Western Empire. The Eastern half survived due to its larger population, which even after the plagues was sufficient for an effective state apparatus.
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
Finally, the transformation school challenges the whole notion of the 'fall' of the Empire, asking to distinguish between the fall into disuse of a particular political dispensation, anyway unworkable towards its end, and the fate of the Roman civilisation which under-girded the Empire. According to this school, drawing its basic premise from the Pirenne thesis, the Roman world underwent a gradual (though often violent) series of transformations, morphing into the medieval world. The historians belonging to this school often prefer to speak of Late Antiquity instead of the Fall of the Roman Empire.
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
By the late 5th century the barbarian conqueror Odoacer had no use for the formality of an Empire upon deposing Romulus Augustus and chose neither to assume the title of Emperor himself nor to select a puppet, although legally he kept the lands as a commander of the Eastern Empire and maintained the Roman institutions such as the consulship. The formal end of the Roman Empire on the West in AD 476 thus corresponds with the time in which the Empire and the title Emperor no longer had value.
Outline of the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire (or Byzantium) – the Constantinople-centred Roman Empire of the Middle Ages. It is also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire, primarily in the context of Late Antiquity, while the Roman Empire was still administered with separate eastern and western political centres. In its own time, there was no such thing as "the Byzantine Empire," there was just the ongoing Roman Empire; "Byzantine Empire" is a scholarly term of convenience to differentiate the empire from its earlier existence during classical antiquity before the western half collapsed "(see decline of the Roman Empire)". Its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire (, "Basileia Rhōmaiōn"; ) or Romania (). After the Western Roman Empire fragmented and collapsed in the 5th century, the eastern half continued to thrive, existing for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During much of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe.
History of the East–West Schism
The Western Roman Empire soon ceased to exist. In the early fifth century, its whole territory was overrun by Germanic tribes, and the year 476 saw the end even of the pretence of a Western Roman Emperor, when Odoacer forced Romulus Augustus to abdicate. By the end of the 5th century, the Western Roman Empire had been overrun by the Germanic tribes, while the Eastern Roman Empire (known also as the Byzantine Empire) continued to thrive. Thus, the political unity of the Roman Empire was the first to fall.
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
The causes and mechanisms of the Fall of the Western Roman Empire are a historical theme that was introduced by historian Edward Gibbon in his 1776 book "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". He started an ongoing historiographical discussion about what caused the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, and the reduced power of the remaining Eastern Empire, in the 4th–5th centuries. Gibbon was not the first to speculate on why the Empire collapsed, but he was the first to give a well-researched and well-referenced account. Many theories of causality have been explored. In 1984, Alexander Demandt enumerated 210 different theories on why Rome fell, and new theories emerged thereafter. Gibbon himself explored ideas of internal decline (the disintegration of political, economic, military, and other social institutions, civil wars) and of attacks from outside the Empire. "From the eighteenth century onward," historian Glen Bowersock wrote, "we have been obsessed with the fall: it has been valued as an archetype for every perceived decline, and, hence, as a symbol for our own fears."
European balance of power
The Roman Empire peaked during the Pax Romana, stagnated during the crisis of the third century AD and ultimately split between the Latin West and the Greek East. Both parts of the Empire abandoned pagan polytheism in order to tolerate monotheistic Christianity and finally make it the state religion. The West collapsed around 476, and several centuries of Germanic migrations and "barbarian" conquests followed. Greece continued to be ruled by the Byzantine (eastern roman) Empire while the Iberian peninsula fell under Arab control. Among the barbarian kingdoms, that of Charlemagne managed to unite most of France, Germany (then including today's Switzerland and Austria), the Low Countries and Italy under one rule: he was subsequently crowned Holy Roman Emperor the day of Christmas in 800 by Pope Leo III.
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
In "The Complete Roman Army" (2003) Adrian Goldsworthy, a British military historian, sees the causes of the collapse of the Roman Empire not in any 'decadence' in the make-up of the Roman legions, but in a combination of endless civil wars between factions of the Roman Army fighting for control of the Empire. This inevitably weakened the army and the society upon which it depended, making it less able to defend itself against the growing numbers of Rome's enemies. The army still remained a superior fighting instrument to its opponents, both civilized and barbarian; this is shown in the victories over Germanic tribes at the Battle of Strasbourg (357) and in its ability to hold the line against the Sassanid Persians throughout the 4th century. But, says Goldsworthy, "Weakening central authority, social and economic problems and, most of all, the continuing grind of civil wars eroded the political capacity to maintain the army at this level." Goldsworthy set out in greater detail his theory that recurring civil wars during the late fourth and early fifth centuries contributed to the fall of the West Roman Empire (395-476), in his book "The Fall of the West: The Slow Death of the Roman Superpower" (2009).
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire (, ; Koine and Medieval Greek: Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, tr. ) was the post-Roman Republic period of the ancient Roman civilization. It had a government headed by emperors and large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and West Asia. From the constitutional reforms of Augustus to the crisis of the third century, the Empire was a principate ruled from the city of Rome (27 BC - 285 AD). The Roman Empire was then divided between a Western Roman Empire, based in Milan and later Ravenna, and an Eastern Roman Empire, based in Nicomedia and later Constantinople, and it was ruled by multiple emperors (with the exception of the sole rule of Constantine between 324 and 337, and Theodosius between 392 and 395). The Western Empire collapsed when Ravenna fell to the Germanic Herulians of Odoacer in 476 AD. The end of the Western Roman Empire is traditionally used to mark the end of ancient Rome. The Eastern Empire, known in the post-Roman West as the Byzantine Empire, collapsed when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks of Mehmed II in 1453.
Mauro-Roman Kingdom
Eventually, the diplomatic ties between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Mauro-Roman Kingdom would break down. King Garmul of the Moors and Romans would invade the Eastern Roman Praetorian Prefecture of Africa in an attempt at capturing Roman territories. His defeat in 578 AD led almost immediately to the end of the Mauro-Roman Kingdom, which was fragmented and partially reincorporated into the Roman Empire.
Roman emperor
The line of Roman emperors in the Eastern Roman Empire continued unbroken at Constantinople until the capture of Constantinople in 1204 by the Fourth Crusade. In the wake of this action, four lines of Emperors emerged, each claiming to be the legal successor: the Empire of Thessalonica, evolving from the Despotate of Epirus, which was reduced to impotence when its founder Theodore Komnenos Doukas was defeated, captured and blinded by the Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Asen III; the Latin Empire, which came to an end when the Empire of Nicaea recovered Constantinople in 1261; the Empire of Trebizond, whose importance declined over the 13th century, and whose claims were simply ignored; and the Empire of Nicaea, whose claims based on kinship with the previous emperors, control of the Patriarch of Constantinople, and possession of Constantinople through military prowess, prevailed. The successors of the emperors of Nicaea continued until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 under Constantine XI Palaiologos.
Agriculture in the Middle Ages
Three events set the stage – and would influence agriculture for centuries – in Europe. First was the fall of the western Roman Empire which began to lose territory to "barbarian" invaders about 400 CE. The last western Roman emperor abdicated in 476 CE. Thereafter, the lands and people of the former western Roman Empire would be divided among different ethnic groups, whose rule was often ephemeral and constantly in flux. Unifying factors of Europe were the gradual adoption of the Christian religion by most Europeans and in western Europe the use of Latin as a common language of international communication, scholarship, and science. Greek had a similar status in the Eastern Roman Empire.
Holy Roman Empire
The empire was dissolved on 6 August 1806, when the last Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (from 1804, Emperor Francis I of Austria) abdicated, following a military defeat by the French under Napoleon at Austerlitz (see Treaty of Pressburg). Napoleon reorganized much of the Empire into the Confederation of the Rhine, a French satellite. Francis' House of Habsburg-Lorraine survived the demise of the empire, continuing to reign as Emperors of Austria and Kings of Hungary until the Habsburg empire's final dissolution in 1918 in the aftermath of World War I.
History of the Mediterranean region
The empire began to crumble, however, in the fifth century and Rome collapsed after 476 CE.
History of Europe
The Romans expanded from Arabia to Britannia. In 44 BC as it approached its height, its dictator Julius Caesar was murdered by senators in an attempt to restore the Republic. In the ensuing turmoil, Octavian (ruled as Augustus; and as "divi filius", or Son of God, as Julius had adopted him as an heir) usurped the reins of power and fought the Roman Senate. While proclaiming the rebirth of the Republic, he had ushered in the transfer of the Roman state from a republic to an empire, the Roman Empire, which lasted for more than four centuries until the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Mediterranean Sea
The Western Roman Empire collapsed around AD 476. Temporarily the east was again dominant as Roman power lived on in the Byzantine Empire formed in the 4th century from the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Another power arose in the 7th century, and with it the religion of Islam, which soon swept across from the east; at its greatest extent, the Arab Empire controlled 75% of the Mediterranean region and left a lasting footprint on its eastern and southern shores.
476
Because the fall of the Western Roman Empire occurred in 476, many historians consider it the last year of ancient history and the first year of the Middle Ages in Europe.
The Fall of the Roman Empire (film)
The film's name refers not to the final fall of the Roman empire, which did in fact survive for centuries after the period depicted in the film, but rather to the onset of corruption and decadence which led to Rome's final demise. It deals extensively with the problem of imperial succession, and examines both the relationship between father and son on the background of imperial politics as well as the nature and limits of loyalty and friendship.
5th century
It saw the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, which came to an end in 476 AD. The Western Roman Empire was ruled by a succession of weak emperors, and true power began to fall increasingly into the hands of powerful generals. Internal instability and the pressing military problem of foreign invaders resulted in the ransacking of Rome by a Visigoth army in 410. Some recovery took place during the following decades, but the Western Empire received another serious blow when a second barbarian group, the Vandals, occupied Carthage, capital of the extremely important province of Africa. Attempts to retake the province were interrupted by the invasion of the Huns under Attila. After Attila's defeat, both Eastern and Western empires joined forces for a final assault on Vandal North Africa, but this campaign was a spectacular failure.
Campaign history of the Roman military
It is in this climate that, despite his earlier setback, Alaric returned again in 410 AD and managed to sack Rome. The Roman capital had by this time moved to the Italian city of Ravenna, but some historians view 410 AD as an alternative date for the true fall of the Roman Empire. Without possession of Rome or many of its former provinces, and increasingly Germanic in nature, the Roman Empire after 410 AD had little in common with the earlier Empire. By 410 AD, Britain had been mostly denuded of Roman troops, and by 425 AD was no longer part of the Empire, and much of western Europe was beset "by all kinds of calamities and disasters", coming under barbarian kingdoms ruled by Vandals, Suebians, Visigoths and Burgundians.
Fall of the Western Roman Empire
The Fall of the Western Roman Empire (also called Fall of the Roman Empire or Fall of Rome) was the process of decline in the Western Roman Empire in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vast territory was divided into several successor polities. The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed it to exercise effective control over its Western provinces; modern historians mention factors including the effectiveness and numbers of the army, the health and numbers of the Roman population, the strength of the economy, the competence of the Emperors, the internal struggles for power, the religious changes of this period, and the efficiency of the civil administration. Increasing pressure from barbarians outside Roman culture also contributed greatly to the collapse. The reasons for the collapse are major subjects of the historiography of the ancient world and they inform much modern discourse on state failure.
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
We often assume that the collapse of the Roman Empire was a catastrophe for everyone involved. Tainter points out that it can be seen as a very rational preference of individuals at the time, many of whom were better off (all but the elite, presumably.) Archeological evidence from human bones indicates that average nutrition improved after the collapse in many parts of the former Roman Empire. Average individuals may have benefited because they no longer had to invest in the burdensome complexity of empire.
History of the world
In Europe, the Roman Empire, centered in present-day Italy, began in the 7th century BCE. In the 3rd century BCE the Roman Republic began expanding its territory through conquest and alliances. By the time of Augustus (63 BCE – 14 CE), the first Roman Emperor, Rome had already established dominion over most of the Mediterranean. The empire would continue to grow, controlling much of the land from England to Mesopotamia, reaching its greatest extent under the emperor Trajan (died 117 CE). In the 3rd century CE, the empire split into western and eastern regions, with (usually) separate emperors. The Western empire would fall, in 476 CE, to German influence under Odoacer. The eastern empire, now known as the Byzantine Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, would continue for another thousand years, until Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1453.