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History of the Fall of the Roman Empire
On this date, September 4, 476 AD, Odoacer captured the city of Ravenna and deposed Emperor Romulus Augustus, marking the Fall of the Roman Empire. What do we mean by the Fall of the Roman Empire?
What do we mean by Roman Empire?
This part of the statement needs clarification first. When we say Roman Empire, we’re really only talking about the “Western Roman Empire.”
There was another Roman Empire?
Correct. Kind of.
Since the time of Emperor Diocletian in the late 3rd century, the Empire was so large that it was usually managed by two co-ruling emperors, one in the West, the other in the East. Following the time of Emperor Theodosius I, it was permanently divided into western and eastern spheres, the whole still referred to as the Roman Empire with two co-equal rulers rather than one.
You’ll remember from our discussion of the story of Easter and the 40 Martyrs of Sebaste how Emperor Constantine became the first Christian emperor of Rome in the early 4th century. Subsequently, in 324 AD, he moved the capital of the Empire to the east, to Byzantium, the “New Rome,” renamed Constantinople, and which we now know as Istanbul. This capital of the Eastern Roman Empire survived was the largest and most prosperous city in Europe for almost a millennium, until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks.
What do we mean by Fall?
This is the more difficult part of the question, “what do we mean by Fall?” Historians point to many “Falls” of the Roman Empire. By the late 400s, the Western Roman Empire no longer wielded sufficient financial, political, or military power to effectively control the domains of Europe that were described as Roman.
On this date in 476, an expedition by a military leader named Flavius Odoacer deposed the last Roman Emperor. Where Odoacer…
