AD455 - the fall of the Roman west?

[Simplex]

Maioran comes to mind, and several actions by other armies

Yes, I did wonder about Majorian. It's a shame we don't know more about his victories, and the army he used to win them - the remains of the western field army, or largely barbarian foederati? For all his abilities, he does seem to have been largely under the power of Ricimer though, and his victories were brief and soon overturned. His campaigns - and those of Marcellinus and others - were more directed at recovering small amounts of lost territory. We could imagine that he - or Ricimer - with the help of eastern forces perhaps, might have turned the tide at some point and recovered Africa, or even Gaul, but they did not.

Especially after the death of Stilicho, the West can be seen as a diminished Empire. By that definition, 408 would be as good as 455?

Perhaps so. But I do think it was the loss of Africa in 439 that really created the preconditions for the extinction of imperial power in the west. Africa was a vital source of food and manpower, a redoubt of Roman culture, and a fallback position for an embattled Italy if necessary. Once it was gone, the remnants of imperial power in Italy had nowhere to turn but eastward - a relationship that would soon resemble clientship.

Back in 408, the west still had a field army (I've come to suspect that Honorius and co believed that Constantine III was a greater threat than Alaric, and so chose not to risk weakening their army by a direct attack on the Goths, perhaps in fact to try and co-opt Alaric once again and turn him against their other enemies - a foolish strategy, if so, but the thinking behind it is understandable, perhaps...)

But after 439, the armies available to the western emperors seem to have been scattered and rather small in scale; they lacked a real chance of retaking Africa, or even challenging the Goths in Gaul and Spain. The best they could do was to hold their own territories for a while.

Certainly the western empire was in trouble in 408, but I think they still had the potential to recover. The combination of events in 455 made that impossible, perhaps - and the Vandalic sack of the city, much longer and more thorough than Alaric's work, seems to represent a more definitive tipping point than any relatively minor readjustments of residual power in later decades.

Hi,
O.K.
....let me sum it up.
-408 Arcadius dies. Stilicho accused of treason and executed. His bodyguards slain.
Alarich/The Visigoths  enter/s Italy.
 
-410 Fall/Sacking of Rome by the Visigoths under Alarich
 
-439 Losing northern Africa to the Vandals under King Geiserich.
 
-455 Aetius murdered, as a result Valentinian III murdered, too.
- 474 Burgundian Prince and west-roman Patricius Gundobad declines offer for the western throne and goes home instead.
Peace treaty between Geiserich and east-roman Emperor Zeno. Acknowledging the Vandal reign over "Africa" -- maintaining the fiction of still having roman-supremacy over "Africa"
 
-476 Romulus Augustulus dethroned. Throne henceforth vacant.
-480 Murder of Julius Nepos -- the Nepos(= nephew) of the eastern-roman Emperor
Did I get everything right, am I missing something essential ??
I hope I summed that up correctly.
Now far as I am concerned I'd introduce two further dates (two more nails to the coffin, if you will ) that are debatable here:
- 460 A joint effort of eastern and western force to recover "Africa" again.
Failed completely. The joint forces nearly annihilated as the fleet is burned at Cartagena.
 
-468 The "Vandal War" : A "fail" of that 3-stage operation after the fleet lost out again
against the Vandals.
 
In short:
Viewing those dates as essential, but equally so, I'd still maintain 476 as THE date of western Rome's end, the dethronisation of Romulus Augustulus being an overwhelming "signal" for the "end",
beyond the military facts.
I think that an earlier dating of the "end" overlooks some military facts :
There is more than a slight probability that the Rhine-frontier was still maintained up to then.
 (Numerous "late" finds at some places still under garrison.
These were now mostly  manned with germanics of a more" northward" provenience.
e.g. Neuburg/Donau, Worms,Sasbach-Jechtingen, Alzey)
"Allamanic" finds in those areas or better on the right bank of the Rhine in general are being dated now well after the middle of the 5th century.
(BTW: I would also consider this as being one of the causes for the swift victories of the Franks over the Alamanni )
The western roman empire, however, had been losing  its ability to maintain a certain amount of "stateliness" und military striking power step by step.
The attempt to install "Ivlivs Nepos" as the western roman Emperor by the Eastern Emperor Leo , seen in this context, rather looks like reviving a dead man.
As for the other dates:
408 and 410: e.g. the Rhine-frontier is still maintained after that.
439: A further weakening but no fatal blow as the ensuing dates clearly show.
455: The battles against the huns still show a slight supremacy of roman imperial forces
over their enemies and allies alike. The Visigoths surely seem to have decided "to go in their own" by now. The following dates still show a certain striking power having been left, although more or less dwindling.
460: Depriving the western empire of most its capability to strike on their own for good.
468: A "repeat performance" further weakening both parts of the empire.
474: Likely that Gundobad judged the peace treaty after repeated conflicts with the Vandals still
detrimental to the western Roman Empire. But since there was a treaty now between the Vandals
and the eastern roman empire  (Leo I.) that was kept till 491 AD.,  you would hardly call this an "end date".
476: It's obvious now that there is NO western roman emperor in his own right.
480: If it was not for Eastern Rome, this would rather NOT have taken place.
BTW: Quite similar to the later efforts of Justinian I. which were successful  then, but at a price.
 
Greez
 
Simplex