When did the Roman Empire fall (your thoughts)?

[Alanus]

Hello Epictetus,

Is it possible, perhaps "probable" a better word, that in the history of the Republic and Empire, the Romans "welcomed" various outsiders into the fold UNTIL they finally met "their match" (at least militarily) with the Vandals and especially the Goths. In other words, the foreigners were "losers" until the Goths arrived. This could account for the well-recorded ambivulance against them. The Goths were an "ancient" but ongoing threat. They reached the Western provinces in far larger numbers than they did in the East.

And as mentioned in more than one post on this thread -- the Goths killed 3 emperors. A record like that weighs heavily. What we see is an extremely distrustful "welcome," but a necessary one. :-?

This could account for their role as "cannon fodder" in the 390s. "There's no Goth like a Dead Goth." A cemetary in northern Italy contains the "almost surviving" foreigners after the battle of Figidus. The buried had Gothic names.