AD455 - the fall of the Roman west?

[Nathan Ross]

am I missing something essential ??

I think the murder of Petronius Maxinus very soon after Valentinian, and the sack by the Vandals only a few days later, were pretty pivotal.

There is more than a slight probability that the Rhine-frontier was still maintained up to then.

Hmm, interesting - but maintained by whom? Surely not by the emperors in Rome or Ravenna? I could well imagine that the western successor states would want to keep up the Rhine defences - and the material record of their occupation would be scarcely different to that of a late 'Roman' one, I would think.

But you're quite right - as I say, the empire 'fell' by stages, rather than at a single moment.

I realise that what I'm arguing for here is a sort of symbolic end (coupled with a very violent and dramatic set of successive incidents!) - the murders of Flavius Aetius (representative of the army) followed by Valentinian (representative of the imperial household) and then Petronius (representative of the great families of the senatorial aristocracy) - killed by the emperor, the soldiers and the Roman mob respectively - and followed by the 'death' of the city at the hands of the barbarians, seem to represent a quite conclusive demolition of the three props that had supported imperial power for centuries.