8 ms·

One interesting idea is that we do not actually know when Rome fell in the West. We can pinpoint some events, but the fall was probably long and slow. The peopl

by matusp 1y ago

One interesting idea is that we do not actually know when Rome fell in the West. We can pinpoint some events, but the fall was probably long and slow. The people there still had Roman identity, institutions, etc, they were just not politically as unified as before. The Visigoths had Roman Emperors on their coins even in 580 for example.

icegreentea2 1y ago
I think it would be more correct to say that the concept of "the fall (or end) of the western roman empire" is insufficiently defined. If one imagined an alternative US Civil War, where the war ended in stalemate, the Union and CSA coexisting for decades, before an miraculously resurgent Mexican Empire swept through and engulfed the territories of both, before allowing the original 13 states to continue to exist as a subservient, but nominally independent state that still had nominal local democratic republicanism, and the inhabitants on those states will called themselves "Americans". When would you say "the United States of America fell" in that scenario? Arguments about the "when did the Roman Empire fall in the west" are actually arguments about what are the most important aspects to Rome to us, here today in the modern world (particularly in the western world).
- pqtyw 1y ago
  The Roman Empire in the east at the time did just fine, though. The Goths in a (very technical) way "unified" the empire after they took Italy since they got rid of the western emperor and declared that they are now vassals of the one in Constantinople. In a couple of generations Romans were on the verge of retaking the entire Mediterranean, without the issues with the climate and especially the plague they might have done just fine and we'd be talking about the "crisis of the 5th century" instead of the fall.
  - icegreentea2 1y ago
    Yeah. I wasn't so much arguing about the facts on the ground, but rather commenting on how the study of history tends to just be a mirror for our current, modern day concerns.
- nradov 1y ago
  I wonder what future historians will say about the fall of the Russian Empire which currently seems to be underway.
  - Nevermark 1y ago
    I suspect if China took over Taiwan and throttled down exports of rare earth elements, high end chips, and manufacturing in general, we would be triangulating back to the point that the US began hemorrhaging credibility as a nation capable of being serious about its own and its allies well being. As the onset of a US fall. Personally, I didn't understand the Biden principle of helping Ukraine "not lose", but not helping it win. How was that ever going to produce a desirable result? And now, the US reputation for stalwart support of friends, and friends willingness to support the US, are both fading faster. Well, I can't predict the future. At least I very much hope I can't.
    - FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago
      The reelection of Trump would be the point that the USA started losing its credibility. No need for an external enemy, America turned out to be more than willing and capable to kill itself.
whobre 1y ago
> The Visigoths had Roman Emperors on their coins even in 580 for example. The Franks had them even longer.
- pqtyw 1y ago
  Even the Muslims did for a while despite their ban on portraying humans.
riffraff 1y ago
the sultans of Ottoman empire still had the title of kayser-i rûm (Caesar of Rome) until the _sixteenth century_.
- _mlbt 1y ago
  This is also the origin of the Russian title of Czar or Tsar depending on the spelling you prefer.
  - pqtyw 1y ago
    Well the Roman emperor granted the title of Caesar to a Bulgarian in 705 which quickly turned into something that sounds like "tsar". A bit over 840 years before the first Muscovy Tsar of Russia. The Ottoman sultan just took it for himself because he conquered the territory and the people living there.
- Tuna-Fish 1y ago
  Even longer than that. Up to the middle of the 16th century, many Ottoman sultans considered it their most important title. After that, it quickly fell in importance and was supplanted by Islamic claim to legitimacy, but it was still used sporadically in the 18th century.
  - pqtyw 1y ago
    And Queen Victoria was the Empress of India. More or less equivalent situations.
    - _mlbt 1y ago
      Anyone who's played the Crusader Kings series of games knows how important these titles are to a dynasty on the rise.
- petralithic 1y ago
  Many Greeks used to call themselves Romioi well into the 20th century.
Insanity 1y ago
Yah I guess the delineation is fuzzier, not exactly a single “Rubicon” moment. But you can usually find multiple “starting points” for any event. For the republic, the crossing of the Rubicon is when it failed. But really even the first triumvirate was technically a “failure” of a republic (centralizing power in 3).
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  > For the republic, the crossing of the Rubicon is when it failed. I would agree with that, though I wouldn't say it was Caesar crossing that did it. It was Sulla crossing the Rubicon that broke that particular seal. And of course, the foundations were laid even before that.
thaumaturgy 1y ago
The idea of "a fall" is a universal bug in our thinking, I believe. Most of what we learn has been from dramatization. There is, maybe, slightly less now, offset by more technical text, but that's a really recent change in human history. And even then, how many people's ideas of history are entirely formed from television shows and movies, or even stories told to each other? We talk about what makes stories compelling. Compelling stories have a beginning, a climax, and an end. History thus also has a beginning, climax, and end. So we think of the Roman Empire as a thing in history that had a beginning, and a rise, and then a fall. Yet Rome still exists. I see this a lot in discussions about businesses. Somebody will do something dumb, and then immediately two camps form: those that throw darts at the exact date that the business will cease to exist, and those that mock the first camp's predictions of timely demise. So we get these really repetitive, entirely pointless debates after the fact about whether the business is "dead" or not, so everybody can try to figure out which camp was right. But, in the general case, it never works that way. For every WebVan, there are a hundred Reddits: persistently spectral businesses, online and still making money, occasionally bolstered by some CEO whose job it is to convince everyone that the business is still as full of verve as ever it was, and yet, when people think of it, they think of it nostalgically, if they do at all. Slashdot is still online and posting stories every day. Rome never fell; its story changed. It stopped being the main character of historical storytelling for a certain period, but of course that leaves us wondering what happened to that character, and when exactly did that character die?
- pqtyw 1y ago
  > idea of "a fall" is a universal bug in our thinking Occasionally it did happen that way though. e.g. the Soviet Union was seemingly fine (or not much worse that before) and suddenly it and its empire was in a couple of years. Their style of communism/socialism went down with them and is pretty much dead.
  - MangoToupe 1y ago
    > Their style of communism/socialism went down with them and is pretty much dead. Arguably the absolute worst aspects of it are preserved under the state that exists there today. There's certainly a solid through-line through Putin himself.
lazide 1y ago
One could argue that it still hasn’t fully fallen, since there is still the Vatican and the Catholic Church.
BirAdam 1y ago
If we define a country as distinct from a nation, we can certainly say that Rome ceased to be with taking of Constantinople by the Ottomans. For the Western Empire, this would be the overthrow of Romulus Augustulus by Odoacer. A nation would be an identity shared by a people, while a country would be a geographic territory in which a ruling body has a monopoly on the use of force. If we do away with definitions this all gets quite messy.
- matusp 1y ago
  But did WE ceased to exist. The countries back then were only loosely defined. Odoacer was additionally appointed by the Eastern Emperor to rule over Italy in his name, and he also had the support from Roman Senate. Was this really a country that ceased to exist, or was it just management overhaul?
FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago
The Carolingians considered themselves Romans too. So the idea lasted until at least the ninth century.

by matusp 1y ago

icegreentea2 1y ago

I think it would be more correct to say that the concept of "the fall (or end) of the western roman empire" is insufficiently defined. If one imagined an alternative US Civil War, where the war ended in stalemate, the Union and CSA coexisting for decades, before an miraculously resurgent Mexican Empire swept through and engulfed the territories of both, before allowing the original 13 states to continue to exist as a subservient, but nominally independent state that still had nominal local democratic republicanism, and the inhabitants on those states will called themselves "Americans". When would you say "the United States of America fell" in that scenario? Arguments about the "when did the Roman Empire fall in the west" are actually arguments about what are the most important aspects to Rome to us, here today in the modern world (particularly in the western world).

pqtyw 1y ago
The Roman Empire in the east at the time did just fine, though. The Goths in a (very technical) way "unified" the empire after they took Italy since they got rid of the western emperor and declared that they are now vassals of the one in Constantinople. In a couple of generations Romans were on the verge of retaking the entire Mediterranean, without the issues with the climate and especially the plague they might have done just fine and we'd be talking about the "crisis of the 5th century" instead of the fall.
- icegreentea2 1y ago
  Yeah. I wasn't so much arguing about the facts on the ground, but rather commenting on how the study of history tends to just be a mirror for our current, modern day concerns.
nradov 1y ago
I wonder what future historians will say about the fall of the Russian Empire which currently seems to be underway.
- Nevermark 1y ago
  I suspect if China took over Taiwan and throttled down exports of rare earth elements, high end chips, and manufacturing in general, we would be triangulating back to the point that the US began hemorrhaging credibility as a nation capable of being serious about its own and its allies well being. As the onset of a US fall. Personally, I didn't understand the Biden principle of helping Ukraine "not lose", but not helping it win. How was that ever going to produce a desirable result? And now, the US reputation for stalwart support of friends, and friends willingness to support the US, are both fading faster. Well, I can't predict the future. At least I very much hope I can't.
  - FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago
    The reelection of Trump would be the point that the USA started losing its credibility. No need for an external enemy, America turned out to be more than willing and capable to kill itself.

whobre 1y ago

> The Visigoths had Roman Emperors on their coins even in 580 for example. The Franks had them even longer.

pqtyw 1y ago
Even the Muslims did for a while despite their ban on portraying humans.

riffraff 1y ago

the sultans of Ottoman empire still had the title of kayser-i rûm (Caesar of Rome) until the _sixteenth century_.

_mlbt 1y ago
This is also the origin of the Russian title of Czar or Tsar depending on the spelling you prefer.
- pqtyw 1y ago
  Well the Roman emperor granted the title of Caesar to a Bulgarian in 705 which quickly turned into something that sounds like "tsar". A bit over 840 years before the first Muscovy Tsar of Russia. The Ottoman sultan just took it for himself because he conquered the territory and the people living there.
Tuna-Fish 1y ago
Even longer than that. Up to the middle of the 16th century, many Ottoman sultans considered it their most important title. After that, it quickly fell in importance and was supplanted by Islamic claim to legitimacy, but it was still used sporadically in the 18th century.
- pqtyw 1y ago
  And Queen Victoria was the Empress of India. More or less equivalent situations.
  - _mlbt 1y ago
    Anyone who's played the Crusader Kings series of games knows how important these titles are to a dynasty on the rise.
petralithic 1y ago
Many Greeks used to call themselves Romioi well into the 20th century.

Insanity 1y ago

Yah I guess the delineation is fuzzier, not exactly a single “Rubicon” moment. But you can usually find multiple “starting points” for any event. For the republic, the crossing of the Rubicon is when it failed. But really even the first triumvirate was technically a “failure” of a republic (centralizing power in 3).

bigstrat2003 1y ago
> For the republic, the crossing of the Rubicon is when it failed. I would agree with that, though I wouldn't say it was Caesar crossing that did it. It was Sulla crossing the Rubicon that broke that particular seal. And of course, the foundations were laid even before that.

thaumaturgy 1y ago

The idea of "a fall" is a universal bug in our thinking, I believe. Most of what we learn has been from dramatization. There is, maybe, slightly less now, offset by more technical text, but that's a really recent change in human history. And even then, how many people's ideas of history are entirely formed from television shows and movies, or even stories told to each other? We talk about what makes stories compelling. Compelling stories have a beginning, a climax, and an end. History thus also has a beginning, climax, and end. So we think of the Roman Empire as a thing in history that had a beginning, and a rise, and then a fall. Yet Rome still exists. I see this a lot in discussions about businesses. Somebody will do something dumb, and then immediately two camps form: those that throw darts at the exact date that the business will cease to exist, and those that mock the first camp's predictions of timely demise. So we get these really repetitive, entirely pointless debates after the fact about whether the business is "dead" or not, so everybody can try to figure out which camp was right. But, in the general case, it never works that way. For every WebVan, there are a hundred Reddits: persistently spectral businesses, online and still making money, occasionally bolstered by some CEO whose job it is to convince everyone that the business is still as full of verve as ever it was, and yet, when people think of it, they think of it nostalgically, if they do at all. Slashdot is still online and posting stories every day. Rome never fell; its story changed. It stopped being the main character of historical storytelling for a certain period, but of course that leaves us wondering what happened to that character, and when exactly did that character die?

pqtyw 1y ago
> idea of "a fall" is a universal bug in our thinking Occasionally it did happen that way though. e.g. the Soviet Union was seemingly fine (or not much worse that before) and suddenly it and its empire was in a couple of years. Their style of communism/socialism went down with them and is pretty much dead.
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  > Their style of communism/socialism went down with them and is pretty much dead. Arguably the absolute worst aspects of it are preserved under the state that exists there today. There's certainly a solid through-line through Putin himself.

lazide 1y ago

One could argue that it still hasn’t fully fallen, since there is still the Vatican and the Catholic Church.

BirAdam 1y ago

If we define a country as distinct from a nation, we can certainly say that Rome ceased to be with taking of Constantinople by the Ottomans. For the Western Empire, this would be the overthrow of Romulus Augustulus by Odoacer. A nation would be an identity shared by a people, while a country would be a geographic territory in which a ruling body has a monopoly on the use of force. If we do away with definitions this all gets quite messy.

matusp 1y ago
But did WE ceased to exist. The countries back then were only loosely defined. Odoacer was additionally appointed by the Eastern Emperor to rule over Italy in his name, and he also had the support from Roman Senate. Was this really a country that ceased to exist, or was it just management overhaul?

FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago

The Carolingians considered themselves Romans too. So the idea lasted until at least the ninth century.