What attracts you to Late Rome?

[Robert Vermaat]

The interesting question about the late empire is, when did this process start and why? How could a state abolish itself. And why did it not happen in the East?

The easiest way to explain that is by answering that age-old question:
"What have the Romans done for us?"
By the mid-4th century, that question would have been answered very differently than by the mid-5th century. If you depend on a state for protection, income, way of life and other such things, and that state does notprovide all of these necessities, while at the same time demanding a LOT from you in return, the loyalty towards that state diminishes.

The difference between East and West was, in my opinion, the inability of Rome to provide for its citizens, and this (in the long run) eroded the Romanitas of the citizens in the West.
By the mid-5th century, citizens were willing to betray Rome for a local warlord (while by the 420s such a betrayal was een for what it was). By the late 5th century, local identity was 1) family 2) city 3)... either Rome or Gaul or Germanic-overlord with a Roman title. I'm not sure when the differences between Gauls and Franks disappeared though, identities are not changed overnight, even when loyalties might.

Belisarius sure had a hard time reconquering Italy (or rather, keeping it), the Italians did not see him as a liberator.