real fall of rome?

[Vietcong]

im a bit confused as to what should be considered the real fall of rome..

u chould say 476. when the last emperor was kicked off the thrown by one of his own generals, who was a german...

but... since he was a general of rome, chouldnt his takeing the thrown make him a lagitamin emperor?? its not as a forgien king took over, or some barbarian warlord or chifeteen..
or y not just say 1453? thats when constantinople fell to the turks??

what about 486?? a roman general in gaul held onto what he chould after 476. he had his own lil kingdom and he was a roman citican and a acual roman. even thow he was stuck in gaul and didnt hold rome its self he still maintianed a army, and held gaul until he was defeted by the franks i think and his capital lost and his roman-gaul kingdom fell apart..

allso art thear simmiler storys of roman uperclass citizans or generals holding off barbarians for a few decaeds after 476?? like in britan wasnt thear 3 or 4 kingdoms ruled by roman citicans until the early 500s? same in spain and parts of north africa?

 

[Dell19]

Empires don't fall in a day.

Thats probably why there a number of different dates that can be argued. If I was to pick one it would be the first one.

 

[Zardnaar]

476 is the best date INHO as the ROMEn empire ceased to be ruled from Rome. Technicially the Byzantines fell in 1453 but by then they weren't Roman.

 

[luiz]

What Dell said, Empires don't fall in one day, but 476 is still the best pick IMHO. The Byzantines ruled from Constantinople, so by definition they can't be romans.

 

[sydhe]

I think 476 is as good a date as any. Some institutions lasted beyond that. The Roman Senate actually met until 580 AD.

 

[Plotinus]

What Dell said, Empires don't fall in one day, but 476 is still the best pick IMHO. The Byzantines ruled from Constantinople, so by definition they can't be romans.

But even the western empire had been ruled from Milan, not Rome, for some time prior to this. So by your definition the Roman empire fell long before Rome ever did.

 

[Tee Kay]

As Dell said, empires don't fall in a day, or a year. Here's some dates. The milestone known as the "Fall of Rome" can be anyone of these.

AD 292 - The year Diocletian split the empire between himself and Emperor Maximian.
AD 330 - Founding of Nova Roma (Constantinople) as the new capital of the Roman Empire. Rome starts to decline in earnest as an administrative centre.
AD 395 - Death of Theodosius I and start of permanent division of the Empire.
AD 410 - The "Fall of Rome" in the traditional sense, ie sacking of the city, by the Visigoths
AD 476 - Romulus Augustulus dethroned, last of Western Roman emperors
AD 1204 - Fall of Nova Roma to the Crusaders
AD 1453 - Fall of Nova Roma to the Ottomans.

 

[Verbose]

But even the western empire had been ruled from Milan, not Rome, for some time prior to this. So by your definition the Roman empire fell long before Rome ever did.

I thought Ravenna was the new administrative hot spot?

 

[Plotinus]

I think it moved about a bit - I think it was Milan first (fourth century) and Ravenna later (fifth century). This is why Ambrose of Milan was so important, as he had the ear of the emperor.

 

[Naskra]

I would vote for 1453, as Gibbon did.
The byzantines, I think would agree. They regarded themselves as Romans, not Byzantines

 

[Vietcong]

if u say rome fell in 476, y cant u say rome fell in 14bc? when the rebulic was killed and replaced with the empire?

allso, befor 476 if a roman general kicked the emp off, he whould have been considered the new emperor, and the empire gose on.. so why is 476 difrent from any other time befor it??

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Wow, it's more complicated than the history books mention.

1. The Empire splits in to a state with two Empires for a time. (I seem to remember times when four or more Emperor wannabes were all trying to take the throne around this time frame.)
2. then the capital moves East (under one leader again?)
3. then it becomes an Empire with two capitals for the East and West regions (under two Emperors?)
4. then the original capital (out of two) is sacked
5. followed by the end of Western half of the empire 60-some years later (the part ruled by the old capital)
6. then seven and a half centuries later, the new capital of the Empire still called Rome are conquered by the people who live the lands that used to be ruled by Rome
7. then finally the outsiders take the new capital two and a half centuries after that finally ending any vestiges of the Old Roman Empire...
PS. although, I read that the Ottoman Sultan styled his new lands after 1453 as Rome for awhile as well, but nobody counts that as a real continuation of the Empire anyway.

 

[Plotinus]

There's an argument for saying that the Roman empire lingered in the west until the thirteenth century, because only then did Edward I finally impose English rule over Wales. And Wales was the last part of the Roman empire in the west to trace its lineage back to that empire and to avoid having been conquered by barbarians since.

It's also important to remember that even when the empire crumbled, life did not necessarily change very much for most people. For example, life in Gaul in the sixth century was not so different from the fifth. Under Clovis, chariot races were held, Roman roads and buildings remained in use, and plenty of bad Latin poetry was written. In Italy, of course, Theodoric the Ostrogoth sought to create a new civilisation combining the best of the joint Roman and barbarian heritage. Most striking was the situation in Spain, where the Visigoths basically took over the existing physical, social, and legal infrastructure with barely a hiccup. This lasted until the Muslim invasions.

So to the people living at the time of the fall of the western empire, it might have been hard to notice that the empire was falling at all. It's one of history's paradoxes that one of the mightiest and most influential empires withered away over the space of a generation without anyone taking all that much notice. You don't find laments about the passing of the age in fifth- or sixth-century writers - at least nothing like you find in third-century writers, when a combination of factors made life in the Roman empire extremely unpleasant for many people and there was a general feeling of malaise, that the empire would not last. Cyprian of Carthage, for example, wrote in one letter that the world itself was in its old age - the sun was not as hot, the mines did not produce as much gold, and so on. Ironically, of course, the third-century pessimists were wrong in their evaluation, whereas when the empire really did crumble, people were more bothered about other things.

Rome also "inspired" many other civilisations, then and now. Remember the Seljuk sultanate of Rum, which existed in Anatolia from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries. Plus Charlemagne's coronation as the new emperor of the west in AD 800, which ties in with what I said above about the degree of continuity between the Roman past and the barbarian future during this period.

Also, when Moscow gained de facto independence from the Mongols, it began to style itself as the Third Rome. This was, of course, in large part a religious thing:

The Apostolic Church stands no longer in Rome or Constantinople, but in the blessed city of Moscow. She alone shines in the whole world brighter than the sun... All Christian empires are fallen and in their stead stands alone the Empire of our ruler in accordance with the Prophetical books. Two Romes have fallen, but the third stands and a fourth there will not be.

Of course it's a commonplace that the title Tzar was a corruption of Caesar - as was the German Kaiser. Both nations used the Roman eagle as an emblem. And today, we often hear of the United States being compared to Rome. That's another country that likes eagles, and it even has a senate. Here, of course, it's more a matter of a combination of historical parallels and conscious aping. By contrast, Russia and the Holy Roman Empire saw themselves, in some significant sense, as genuine continuations of Rome rather than later recreations of it.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

That's interesting about how much of a non-event the actual ending of the Western Roman Empire was taken, at least in the written history. (You have the most comprehensive info in this forum from that period so I will presume this to be the case. I have only started seeking out translated texts from this period.)

That almost points to a lack of relevance that the Empire itself had already reached in the scheme of things by then, but I can conversely imagine the idea that the changes caused by the ending of the Empire were so significant that the actual ending of the empire itself was trivial in comparison.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Seeing it from another POW, looking at the history of the art, you will see that there is not an abrupt edge at the time of the so called fall of Rome. Style changes so gradually from classical art to medieval art that it is very diificult to define when "Roman art" ends. Most late Roman art from the 4th or 5th century looks more like medieval art than like Roman art from the 1st or 2nd century or even christian Bizantine art: Big heads, caricatural facial expressions and poses, disproportionate objects and bodies, lack of 3D sense, etc.

 

[jonatas]

Most striking was the situation in Spain, where the Visigoths basically took over the existing physical, social, and legal infrastructure with barely a hiccup. This lasted until the Muslim invasions.

Errrm I have to take issue with this. Under Visigothic administration, Iberia declined in almost every productive way that could be measured ie. mining of mineral resources (which Iberia was very rich in), roads, size of cities/towns, agriculture etc and became a real backwater. Visigoths also tended to govern themselves under German law, while allowing the Latin/Native Iberians to generally continue under Roman law. However there was ethnic tension and some question of second class status for those under Roman law. And they still practiced goatherding From my perspective, Visigothic administration was decrepit and unable to continue previous "Roman" levels. Perhaps they encouraged Christianity. But as soon as a smallish Arab/Berber army landed across the Pillars of Hercules at the invitation of a rival Visigothic noble in Ceuta IIRC, the entire peninsula basically collapsed. Not very impressive.

 

[Plotinus]

Fair enough. I don't know very much about the Visigoths really!

 

[Vietcong]

i still dont see y a general takeing power from the emp in 476 is any difrent from any other time before hand...

it 476, what parts of the empire whear still intacted?
can any give a map of eurpe right at the fall of rome, say 480?

 

[pawpaw]

i still dont see y a general takeing power from the emp in 476 is any difrent from any other time before hand...

it 476, what parts of the empire whear still intacted?
can any give a map of eurpe right at the fall of rome, say 480?

Odoacer deposed Romulus but refused the crown or to be a figurehead behind the sences. He sent the Imperial Regalia to Constantinople to emperor Zeno and was confirmed Dux under Eastern rule ( loosely )

In 476 the "empire " was mostly Italy itself.

 

[Vietcong]

so what was the engeral crowed? did he kinda throw out the roman crown and creat a new on for a new kingdom? and then when did the goths*i think it was them* take italy?? and what parts of the old empire held out aginst conquest and whear ruled by roman citizans, or desendands of roman citicanzs? *like parts of briton, and gaul?*