The fall of Rome

The phrase “Fall of Rome” suggests that some cataclysmic event ended the Roman Empire, which stretched from the British Isles to Egypt and Iraq. But in the end, there was no straining at the gates, no barbarian horde that dispatched the Roman Empire in one fell swoop.

Instead, the Roman Empire fell slowly as a result of challenges from within and without, changing over the course of hundreds of years until its form was unrecognizable. Because of the long process, different historians have placed an end date at many different points on a continuum. Perhaps the Fall of Rome is best understood as a compilation of various maladies that altered a large swath of human habitation over many hundreds of years.

In his masterwork, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, historian Edward Gibbon selected 476 CE, a date most often mentioned by historians. That date was when Odoacer, the Germanic king of the Torcilingi, deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last Roman emperor to rule the western

part of the Roman Empire. The eastern half became the Byzantine Empire, with its capital at Constantinople (modern Istanbul).

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. Imperial incompetence and chance could be added to the list. 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.

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