Finally, in , the Germanic leader Odoacer staged a revolt and deposed the Emperor Romulus Augustulus. From then on, no Roman emperor would ever again rule from a post in Italy, leading many to cite as the year the Western Empire suffered its deathblow. Even as Rome was under attack from outside forces, it was also crumbling from within thanks to a severe financial crisis. Constant wars and overspending had significantly lightened imperial coffers, and oppressive taxation and inflation had widened the gap between rich and poor.
In the hope of avoiding the taxman, many members of the wealthy classes had even fled to the countryside and set up independent fiefdoms. At the same time, the empire was rocked by a labor deficit. With its economy faltering and its commercial and agricultural production in decline, the Empire began to lose its grip on Europe.
The fate of Western Rome was partially sealed in the late third century, when the Emperor Diocletian divided the Empire into two halves—the Western Empire seated in the city of Milan, and the Eastern Empire in Byzantium, later known as Constantinople. The division made the empire more easily governable in the short term, but over time the two halves drifted apart. East and West failed to adequately work together to combat outside threats, and the two often squabbled over resources and military aid.
As the gulf widened, the largely Greek-speaking Eastern Empire grew in wealth while the Latin-speaking West descended into economic crisis. Related: Deformed 'alien' skulls offer clues about life during the Roman Empire's collapse. The West crumbled because of a creeping and steady loss of centralized control, sometimes due to incursions by non-Roman tribes and occasionally instigated by traitors from within the Roman establishment.
It's hard to mark the precise moment when Rome lost control over a given territory, because unlike the decolonization of imperial empires in the 20th century, it was rare to make or sign documents and declarations of independence.
There were however, landmark battles — between A. But still, the decline of Western Rome was a fairly gradual, nebulous process wherein colonies, one by one, were no longer realistically under the sway of an emperor in Rome. Instead, autonomous local leaders were increasingly in charge. But the city of Rome continued to exist.
Some see the rise of Christianity as putting an end to the Romans; those who disagree with that find the rise of Islam a more fitting bookend to the end of the empire—but that would put the Fall of Rome at Constantinople in ! Certainly, the people who lived through the takeover would probably be surprised by the importance we place on determining an exact event and time.
Just as the Fall of Rome was not caused by a single event, the way Rome fell was also complex. In fact, during the period of imperial decline, the empire actually expanded. That influx of conquered peoples and lands changed the structure of the Roman government.
Emperors moved the capital away from the city of Rome, too. The schism of east and west created not just an eastern capital first in Nicomedia and then Constantinople, but also a move in the west from Rome to Milan.
Rome started out as a small, hilly settlement by the Tiber River in the middle of the Italian boot, surrounded by more powerful neighbors. By the time Rome became an empire, the territory covered by the term "Rome" looked completely different. It reached its greatest extent in the second century CE. Some of the arguments about the Fall of Rome focus on the geographic diversity and the territorial expanse that Roman emperors and their legions had to control. This is easily the most argued question about the fall of Rome.
The Roman Empire lasted over a thousand years and represented a sophisticated and adaptive civilization. Some historians maintain that it was the split into an eastern and western empire governed by separate emperors caused Rome to fall. Most classicists believe that a combination of factors including Christianity, decadence, the metal lead in the water supply, monetary trouble, and military problems caused the Fall of Rome.
And still, others question the assumption behind the question and maintain that the Roman empire didn't fall so much as adapt to changing circumstances.
When the Roman Empire started, there was no such religion as Christianity. In the 1st century CE, Pontius Pilate, the governor of the province of Judaea, executed their founder, Jesus, for treason.
It took his followers a few centuries to gain enough clout to be able to win over imperial support. This began in the early 4th century with Emperor Constantine , who was actively involved in Christian policy-making.
When Constantine established a state-level religious tolerance in the Roman Empire, he took on the title of Pontiff. Although he was not necessarily a Christian himself he wasn't baptized until he was on his deathbed , he gave Christians privileges and oversaw major Christian religious disputes.
He may not have understood how the pagan cults, including those of the emperors, were at odds with the new monotheistic religion, but they were, and in time the old Roman religions lost out. Italy was controlled by Justinian, many of its cities were ruined and much of its infrastructure was severely damaged.
When later historians looked for the moment when the Western Empire fell, they found Marcellinus and his claim that Rome fell under Odoacer. In the memorable framing by the historian Brian Croke, the fall of Rome in is a manufactured historical turning point that has become an accepted historical fact.
For 1, years, we have picked the wrong time and blamed the wrong person for the fall of Rome. This mistake matters for two reasons. His words had real, deadly and long-lasting consequences.
Second, the manufactured fall of Rome reveals the unstable boundaries between historical epochs. But, if we recognize that Rome did not fall in , the lessons we take from Roman history become quite different. It instead shows how a false claim that a nation has perished can help cause the very problems its author invented.
We ignore this danger at our peril. Contact us at letters time. Odoacer forces Romulus Augustus to resign in AD. By Edward J. Edward J.
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