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It's a good point, the sack of Rome would have been a big moment. My point is that marking the end of the Roman Empire with the fall of Romulus Augustlus is an

It's a good point, the sack of Rome would have been a big moment. My point is that marking the end of the Roman Empire with the fall of Romulus Augustlus is an artificial crutch used by historians - from what I've read, most historians agree to this point. While Rome had been overrun by Germans by the end of the 5th century, de facto it had been ruled by Germans for a long while before then (even if none were called "king" or "emperor."). And even after the Germans controlled it, up through the reign of Justinian there was an off-again-on-again relationship in which the Eastern emperor played a role in who controlled Italy. Your "typical" Roman (whether that's a Roman on the street or a Roman in the Senate) would have seen a slow decay, but wouldn't have looked at any one particular event and said "Well, I guess that means the Roman Empire is done, let's move on to the Middle Ages!" This all speaks to how the question of "How did Rome fall?" is underspecified, because how you answer the question depends on what you mean by the question.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
I completely agree that marking the end of the Roman Empire with the fall of Romulus Augustulus in 476 is not very meaningful. But there was a definite collapse of Roman civilization in the West, with a highly urbanized society with a sophisticated economy and an elaborate tax system funding public goods (infrastructure, the legal system, security) and a fair level of literacy being replaced by a largely de-urbanized, almost completely illiterate, and in many places de-monetized society. The collapse didn't happen instantly or at the same time everywhere, but it did take place roughly during the 5th Century, and would have been noticed by people who lived at the time. They might not have known right away that things would be different forever, but there were definite events along the way - the sack of Rome in 410, the failure of Majorian's attempts to reconquer critical territories of the Western Empire, and others. I mostly feel that there's been a trend in historiography to over-emphasize continuity, with the theory of the "transformation of the Roman Empire." It looks much less like a "transformation" of the Empire from one state into another, and much more like a civilizational collapse. I agree that why this collapse occurred is difficult to answer, but I find the argument that it didn't occur unconvincing.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago

I completely agree that marking the end of the Roman Empire with the fall of Romulus Augustulus in 476 is not very meaningful. But there was a definite collapse of Roman civilization in the West, with a highly urbanized society with a sophisticated economy and an elaborate tax system funding public goods (infrastructure, the legal system, security) and a fair level of literacy being replaced by a largely de-urbanized, almost completely illiterate, and in many places de-monetized society. The collapse didn't happen instantly or at the same time everywhere, but it did take place roughly during the 5th Century, and would have been noticed by people who lived at the time. They might not have known right away that things would be different forever, but there were definite events along the way - the sack of Rome in 410, the failure of Majorian's attempts to reconquer critical territories of the Western Empire, and others. I mostly feel that there's been a trend in historiography to over-emphasize continuity, with the theory of the "transformation of the Roman Empire." It looks much less like a "transformation" of the Empire from one state into another, and much more like a civilizational collapse. I agree that why this collapse occurred is difficult to answer, but I find the argument that it didn't occur unconvincing.