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AD455 - the fall of the Roman west?
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The exact date of the fall of the western Roman empire is one of those hoary old questions that comes up pretty regularly (most recently on this board here). The most common answer seems to be AD476, with the deposing of Romulus Augustus, or 480 and the murder of Julius Nepos.

In one sense it's a completely unnecessary question: the empire 'fell' by gradual stages, not suddenly on a single date, and many aspects of Roman culture and even politics continued in Italy long after the takeover by the barbarian kings.

But since the question is unlikely to go away, and thinking about it might help to frame various other questions connected to the era, I'd like to propose, for the sake of argument, a different and slightly earlier date for the 'fall of Rome'... [Image: wink.png]

In AD455 Valentinian III, last emperor of the direct Theodosian line, was murdered by a pair of Hunnic mercenaries. The previous year, Valentinian had personally executed Flavius Aetius, the last truly effective Roman military commander in the west. A few months after Valentinian's death his successor Petronius Maximus was killed by a rioting mob. Days later, a Vandal fleet rowed up the Tiber, captured the city and commenced a comprehensive two-week sack. They not only stripped Rome of much of its portable wealth, but took many prominent members of the aristocracy and imperial family captive and removed them to Carthage. Supposedly further destruction of the city was only averted by the pleas of Pope Leo.

The indirect cause of these events was the capture of North Africa by the Vandals in 439 - after that, Rome's slow demise was almost certain. But it took another sixteen years for the final blow to fall.

After AD455, then, the western empire ceased to be a viable political entity. It was no more than an appendage of the eastern empire, manipulated by ambitious generals: a kind of zombie polity that staggered on for another twenty years, with only the occasional appearance of independent life. The final extinction of the imperial line in 476 was no more than an afterthought.

So if we wanted to set a particular date when 'Rome fell', AD455 would seem a lot more certain than the traditional later dating.

Does anybody else agree? [Image: smile.png]
Nathan Ross
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AD455 - the fall of the Roman west? - by Nathan Ross - 05-08-2017, 06:49 PM

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