Rome didn't fall when you think it did
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- Rome fell much later than most English-speakers realize. We have tended to be taught world history from an English point of view, which means we have traditionally dated the Fall of Rome to AD 476, even though the Roman empire continued on for a thousand years after that.
Putting a date to the fall of Rome is tricky, because it depends on how you define "Rome." If you regard the Holy Roman Empire as a continuation of the western Roman empire, then you'd have to say that the Roman empire continued to as recently as 1806. But no one says that, because people have a certain idea in their head of what real "Rome" was.
I think the most correct date for the fall of Rome is 1453, with the Ottoman capture of Constantinople. The Byzantine empire of the Middle Ages, with its capital at Constantinople, represented an unbroken continuation of the Roman empire of Antiquity.
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My son learned in English primary that the Roman Empire fell in 410 AD. Because that's the year the Romans left Britain.
I most countries which were occupied by Romans at some point within their current borders, the fall of Rome will usually be when they left, this method of dating is usually used by archaeologists, so there can be some irregularities with exact years but some will have 'not before x, and not after y' benchmarks
I once came home from school and told my dad we were studying the 3rd Franco Prussian was (meaning wwii) and was very disappointed when I told him it was my joke not what we had been taught to call it
Simple as
@@hesky10 Same for me, in my example i learned from the same history teachers that there are 3 correct dates of beggining of ww2. 1937 the invasion of china, 1939 the invasion of poland (and what most regard as start of ww2) and invasion of yugoslavia 1941.
The Romans never occupied England. England didn't exist until long after the Romans left Britannia
I always get fascinated to see how a single city in Italian peninsula came to such prominence that whole civilizations and state entities claim legacy of it. Even though they have nothing to do with that physical city in particular.
In this case I think Rome is truly unique in our history, that the term "Roman" means so many things outside of that city context.
its 2022 and we are still discussing about it. And the fall of the empire changed the world forever
Yep, but we also have to wonder about "Roman" in its citizenship sense. Many people around the empire, that didn't come from the city of Rome, fought and claimed Roman citizenship and the emperors had to declare them Romans as to grant them the same rights, privilegies and status (obviously, in a non copy paste way) as the people born in the city of Rome. So you have there a transition between Roma as a city and Roma as an Empire.
Well, in my opinion the reason for this is that Rome has become the founding myth of European nations. If you're gonna tell a history of Britain, it always starts with the Roman occupation. The same thing goes for Spain and Portugal, and France and Italy: "First it was a bunch of tribes, then the Romans made it a working civilization", to simplify it.
And Europe is particularly important in the world in that it obviously has had a huge impact in it for the past 500 years. So Rome truly is a titanic presence in history, it's fascinating how a small group of people living on a small hill in Rome went on to shape human history until today, in 2023, in the 21st century.
I live in Brazil and so my native language is Portuguese, and the reason for it is Rome. It's that Romans spoke Latin and won the Punic wars 2,300 years ago, and this random act of history determines the language that I speak today, in this remote land that they didn't even know existed.
Supposedly when the Kingdom of Greece was consolidating authority over a bunch of little islands, former Ottoman possessions, in the early 20th century, there were Greek-speaking people there who still identified ethnically as Romaios.
And there was no lack of scholarship in the 19rh century that insisted the American Republic was at least the spiritual successor of the Roman Republic / Empire
Here's a history teacher that acknowledges his students will be distracted by their phones, and proactively offers vintage silent comedy scenes for them to distract without leaving class. Brilliant.
What Chaplin movie is this? I've seen the clips randomly through pop culture but would love to watch the whole. The Tramp character is massively underrated comedy gold these days. I fear the silent era of film will not live on through future history as a Shakespeare has in our current history
No sir. The correct response to "when did Rome fall?" Is "define Rome." 😏
If the Roman Catholic Vatican is still here so is Rome.
Quandiu stabit coliseus, stabit et Roma,
quando cadit coliseus, cadet et Roma,
quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus.
So whenever the statue standing in front of the colosseum fell, Rome fell lol. Probably 4th century AD during and earthquake.
Exactly, I don't think this video went in depth enough, because calling yourself "roman" is very different from actually being roman. Things like culture, beliefs, and political systems should be taken into account.
A city in central Italy which forged Italy as nation but called it "Rome" in terms legal.
Considering Rome in the West, its interesting to note that the Roman Senate continued until around the early 7th century, and continued to have authority under Odoacer and Theoderic in Rome
It’s actually very interesting that the western Roman Senate regained quite a bit of influence after the fall of Augustulus, while the Eastern Senate basically chugged along as an advisory body until the middle of the Middle Ages
Well, the Senate was not much since Caligula, really. The Army was what ruled the Roman Empire.
Would be true if not for the fact that the Senate became a powerless club for a small number of old rich Roman families since at least Domitian, which was even before 100 AD.
Though even then it arguably lost all of its power the moment they proclaimed Augustus Caesar.
I like how Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd fought against the Visigoths and Ottomans.
A note on the English-centric view of history note you opened with; I think we often miss an aspect to this, which is that for any given region and period in history there is an automatic bias simply to the sources available to any historian in that region.
In uni I was fascinated by a class taught on Central-Asian history as it broke me out of that English-speaking bias, but that subject was only available because of a single professor at my uni who had the inclination to teach it and he was only had to do so because in the last few decades translations to a whole bunch of sources and academic literature that had previously been sitting in universities, libraries and archives in Russia and China have increasingly been made available post-Cold war.
Central Asian history was not as well recorded so large parts of the puzzle have only been revealed through recent archaeological efforts (many of which were done by the Soviets) and written historical sources sit within the archives of their historical neighbours and those sources are biased by those civilisations and obscured to those who can't get a translation.
So really, it's important to remember that whatever you're reading about the past it's always coloured by the lens of time since then, the very location and time in which you're reading about it now and the sources you have access to.
Language is the biggest barrier to your ability to see past any of these things.
As a Russian who has learned history in the Soviet school by the Soviet books I can say the view was extremely Euro-centric. Moreover, it was Anglo-Franco-centric. These two countries dominated the books. Students learned very little about Scandinavia or Balkans and even less about China, Japan, India, Africa and both Americas
Bias is a dirty word synonymous with perspective. But why shouldn't we have a perspective, so long as we acknowledge it? Surely we should love home and know the history of our people.
Of course, this is a challenge when schooling is set up to teach many peoples with nothing in common but mass entertainment, but if schooling is a transmission of culture, it has to be a transmission of a single culture. I say this as someone opposed to ideologies of racial purity or racial supremacy. There has to be a coherent narrative.
The only truly multicultural history is Church history, so concerned as it is with missiology. The rest tend to be attempts at imperialist apologetics, and what is called multicultural simply has its own (usually not-so-hidden) biases with a pretense of neutrality.
I love how you're able to contextualize history and recognize that the world still kept moving on outside of the influence of the English
The west counted on China staying poor and uneducated...
Didn't know I needed a fall of the Roman empire video with Charlie Chaplin in the visual background 🤣 I kinda figured that was how it worked out for Rome.
Would you say though, that having a "Roman Empire" that did not occupy Rome by the 14th century, would that be like having "The United States of America" if, say some war or crisis broke out and all that remained of the U.S. was Alaska but they kept the U.S. system of government? And then historians centuries later call it "The Republic of Alaska"
Yes, I think your analogy is accurate. The Alaskans would call themselves American, but people centuries in the future would call them something else. An even better analogy might be California, since Greece and Asia Minor were highly populated in Roman times when the empire was based in Italy. Some of the empire's biggest cities were there, and a lot of the empire's economy and intellectual life were centered there. If the capital were moved to California, and the U.S. lost everything east of, say, Kansas City, I for one would think of it as still the U.S.
Interesting you should make that analogy, since the U.S. continuing on in Alaska is sort of implied in the novel Cloud Atlas.
@bastiat But the greatest legacy of the Byzantines and most of their empire was in Greece, so it's more subjective than anything.
@@premodernist_history Interestingly, perhaps due to my New England background, I'd consider the U.S.A to have fallen at that point.
Anyone heard about Taiwan ? :>
It'd be as if India proclaimed itself "the British Empire".
There is at least one more option - 1917. Because the last dynasty of Constatntinople continued (by mariage) in Russian Tzardom. That's why also Moscow is called "The third Rome".
Yes, a case could be made for this. It's fascinating how many possible dates there are.
@@premodernist_history another option- 1461, the fall of the Empire of Trebizond, the successor state of the Byzantine Empire
This is absurdly overstretched. Not mentioning late Romanovs had nothing to do with original who in turn had nothing to do with Rurikids
@@Dudsgon Sorry, but like that you could finish Rome in 68 AD with Nero. Yes, claiming the continuity only by marriage can be a bit stretched, but didn't dynasties end by murders or civil wars? While the orthodox world had its mutual bindings, and after the fall of Constantinople the free Roman identity could continue elsewhere (see Trebizond), like after 476 it continued with Nepos and Syagrius in western provinces.
The most legit option is the breaking up of the Ottoman Roman Empire. The Republic of Turkey chose to not carry on the mantle of successor roman state.
330 - The capital city is moved to Nova Roma ("New Rome"), arguably beginning the "Byzantine" period
395 - Last time the Western and Eastern Empires were united
476 - Last Emperor in Italy is deposed by Odoacer
480 - Last province of the Western Empire (Dalmatia) is taken by the Ostrogoths
708 - Last rump state of the Western Empire (Altava) is taken by the Umayyads
800 - Charlemagne is crowned as the first Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in Rome, delegitimising Constantinople as the seat of the Empire
1054 - The Great Schism divides the Western Catholic Church based in Rome from the Eastern Orthodox Church in Constantinople
1204 - Constantinople is sacked, and the empire divided up between Latin states
1453 - Last Emperor in Constantinople dies fighting against the Ottoman Empire
1460 - Last province of the Eastern Empire (the Morea) is taken by the Ottoman Empire
1479 - Last rump State of the Eastern Empire (Despotate of Epirus) is taken by the Ottoman Empire
Real answer - Rome is an idea, and She shall thus live on forever. She has left Her legacy through Her language, religion, politics, culture, architecture, warfare... *ROMA CAPVT MVNDI*
That's very cute, except you arbitrarily decided to ignore the role of the actual city of Rome early in your timeline.
Yes Rome is an idea, but it is also a city, and both the idea and the city of Rome were safeguarded and continued in Catholicism, and nowhere else.
Calling Odovacer a warlord is insane
Sadly the last roman emperors would not have understood your last sentence as they had long ago switched to greek and treated latin as a barbaric, foreign tongue.
@@mg4361 Do you blame them? The Latins went tooth and nail to propagate, eliminate, and discredit them as heirs to Rome. Besides, Constantinople was made the new capital back when Rome was united. Byzantines are the cousins to the Romans, and therefore have a stronger claim to the throne.
@@therealpianofairy what does Byzantium being the capital has to do with anything? Does Milan or Ravenna claim to be the third and fourth Romes respectively, also because they were capitals of the Empire? That's absurd. Regardless of where its administration was, the city of Rome itself was always the center of the empire and of Europe itself, and as such it was her and her control alone that determined who could and who could not call themselves Roman. What your comment ignores when you talk about "claim to the throne" is that such throne was never vacant in the first place.
476 isn't even correct for the end of the WRE, since the last legitimate emperor was only killed in 480. At that point the empire was effectively reunited (so referring to it as the ERE is not correct after 480), and it lasted until 1453. Arguably there was still an extant Roman power in Trebizond until 1461, but IMO they were effectively secessionist after the Nicene Restoration and were no longer part of the Roman Empire by their own choice.
I also date May 29, 1453 as the end of the Medieval period and the beginning of the Renaissance, and about 630 as the end of Late Antiquity and the beginning of the Medieval period (marked by the beginning stages of the Arab Muslim invasions).
This is pretty much how I see it.
@@premodernist_history not moveable type and the expulsion of the Moors for the start of the Renaissance?
What un-Roman BS is "legitimate emperor": might makes right was what ruled Rome and kept it together. There's no such thing as "legitimate Roman Emperor" unless he rules from Rome and all or most of its historical colonies (provinces). You can abandon Mesopotamia or Dacia, or maybe even Britain, but if you don't control Italy, Spain and Gaul, North Africa even, then you're no "Roman Emperor" at all.
How I see it: 480 is the end of the west with Julius Nepos and the fall of Rome itself was 1453 or the last eastern Roman successor state Trebizond falling in 1461
A few bits of weirdness to add:
The revival of a Western Roman Emperor by the Pope was useful after the schism between the Latin Catholics and the Greek Orthodox, especially once the Crusades commenced (and the 4th Crusade sacked Constantinople).
When the Turks finally conquered Constantinople, the Ottoman Sultans took up the title of "Kaiser-i-Rum", Caesar of Rome. "Rumelia" continued to be a term for the Turkish possessions in Europe (typically the Balkans). Romania, one of the last areas of this region to speak a Latin-based language, continues to exist today.
Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians within the Ottoman Empire continued to call themselves "Romios", right up until the Greek War of Independence in the 19th Century.
The Holy Roman Empire didn't just end out of boredom, but because Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Central Europe and ordered its dissolution. Conveniently, Napoleon had recently crowned himself Emperor (in a weird ceremony with the Pope). His nephew, Napoleon III, revived the imperial title, but lost it to the Prussians, whose king was proclaimed "Kaiser" and Emperor of the Germans.
Notwithstanding the machinations of Napoleon, the Hapsburgs decided to keep on calling themselves "Emperor".
And over in Moscow, Prince Michael Romanov had married a niece of the last Christian Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire. He decided to call Moscow the "Third Rome", and that he was now "Czar" (Caesar) of Russia.
The German, Austrian, Turkish, and Russian "Caesars" all lost their thrones in World War One.
The Bishops of Rome continued to act with civil authority over the Papal States from the time of Justinian all the way up to the time of Mussolini, who claimed to be re-establishing the Roman Empire by conquering Libya, Albania, Greece, Egypt, Somalia, Ethiopia, and "allowing" the Pope to keep Vatican City as a sovereign mini-state.
When the National Socialists took over Germany in 1933, they retconned the German Empire of 1871-1918 as the "Second Reich", or second realm (Charlemagne's Empire being the "first reich"), and called themselves the "Third Reich".
So the Bolsheviks come in, kill their rivals, kill the Czar and his family, kill a lot of their own people too for good measure; and their strongest strong man, Josef Stalin (the Man of Steel), gathers to himself more power than anyone ever before or since, cuts deals with Hitler and Mussolini, then fights and defeats the Germans (turning Berlin to rubble), and occupies half of Europe.
After all the wars, the Americans throw a bunch of money at Western Europe, but on the condition that they co-operate. The Western Europeans invent the European Union, a supernational polity that gradually expands to include most of Europe.
A lot of this is fake anglophone wannabe history😉
@@Breakfast_of_ChampionsPlease enlighten us then
@@βιτψηασσνιγγαWell I'm not OP, but talking about the expedience of reviving the "western empire" because of the religious schism is kinda putting the cart before the horse because the schism deepened much later on.
Charlemagne was preoccupied with attaining the title of Roman emperor. The Pope just went along with it to cover his arse in the political landscape in Italy at the time.
But the Carolingians certainly weren't Romans (see their inheritance customs for one, and how that broke up the dynasty almost as quickly as it formed), and neither was the Holy Roman Empire. It was an empty crown insofar as representing continuity with Roman administration. What defined "Rome" was the centralised state and civic mechanisms it operated. The Byzantines maintained this through the dark ages, whereas the HRE was a fractured array of convoluted feudal alliances.
This is why despite traditional western historiography about the Byzantines being a corrupt cabal of orientalist despots in a constant state of decline, it was in reality a highly functioning state, that endured despite having the most perilous borders in the middle ages, with Constantinople being far grander than any city of Western Europe.
@@Breakfast_of_Champions Anglo-phone, maybe? Fake = no? Wannabe? Dispute Yorktown's points, and have a conclusion unlike him.
I agree with your synopsis, but did you leave out a conclusion?
The book, 1453 by Roger Crowley is a fantastic read!!! I love the way the author describes sounds! A great place to start for anyone interested in learning more about the year.
I believe the idea that the Western Empire fell in 476 was an idea that was first popularized during the reign of Justinian. Following the overthrow of Romulus Augustalias, Odoacer did not proclaim Italy to be independent, but in fact, sent the imperial regalia back to Constantinople and claimed to rule Italy in the Emperor's name. As did Theodoric the Great. The Senate continued to meet and actually in many respects had more real power than it had in the 100 years before and actually Rome in 500-520 AD was in better shape than it had been pretty much anytime in the 5th century. . It was not until Justinian launched his campaign to retake Rome that it became common to start to refer to Rome has having fallen... in part to justify Justinian's campaign. Now, in fairness, Odoacer and Theodoric did little other than pay lip service to the Eastern Emperor, but had Justinian not acted, it is possible that Italy would have become powerful and built on the rather large state that Theodoric left. And of course the Gothic war ended up destroying the remains of the Western Empire, with many if not most of the Senators fleeing to Constantinople and essentially leaving Italy a gutted shell. and weakening the Eastern Empire....
Yes, this is exactly correct. When Odoacer returned the Western Roman imperial regalia, he even told Justinian that he didn’t need those anymore.
I’ve heard that Odoacer thought western Rome had become pathetic which was what prompted him to act and end the charade, but that he still held some regard for the east, although I don’t think I’ve seen proof of that sentiment. Moreover, I’ve never read anywhere as to why Odoacer claimed (only nominally, in reality) to rule for Justinian, and I’ve constantly asked myself why not just rule in his own right, but I assume it’s because he was trying to prevent Eastern Rome from acting against him. Perhaps someone here knows if my surmise is correct.
@@deputyvillageidiot Think about it from this perspective, An emperor has no superior and there for a successful attack on him does not threaten the Eastern Empire. Bit if Odoacer placed himself under the Eastern Emperor, he also placed himself under the Emperors protection, since an attack on him would also be an attack on the Emperor.
No the reason for 476 is becasue its the correct answer. Its no "English" its not "euro-centric" Both arguments are both stupid and wrong.
Roman empire start falling apart, it did so in very large chump. One part that fall of, the Byzantine empire (and that is the correct name regardless of what people that know nothing belives) claimed them self being the true Roman empire. For what reason? Did they have support of the pope? no. Was they the largest part of the split, no, was it the richest part, no.
So whats the reason, becasue they say so. Thats it. Its the same for Eastern Germany or North Korea, or China
When a large part of a country breaks of, or the country literally split in half. One part keeps the main system of governance. that would be the brain of the country. The new country need to create a new.
Just because the part that broke of last longer, don´t make it the original part. West Roman empire keeped the brain and all of the administration. Byzantine need to start over and build up all empire infrastructure from zero (while they of cause could keep the local governance).
Even at that, saying that the empire lasted to 1400 something is really a stretch. The empire keeped breaking a part, but only doing so from the edges. by the time Constantinople was taken, the empire was no larger than the countries around it.
You could just as well say that .. well the Western roman empire actually never fell, it was just moved to the Franks, that was later proven when the holy roman empire was proclaimed.
The argument that the Roman empire fell in the 1400s you have to first believe that core of the country is not important, but also that its the most important thing.
I´m not from English world. I´m from a place that likes things to be true and not made up. A place where trading with the Byzantine empire during a long time was the main trading partner. Where this was thought in school and explained accurately from the perspective of a country that was never part of neither the eastern or western rome.
And calling it Euro centric is just dump. Byzantine empire is just as much in europe as Western Roman empire. That is mostly europe but also a lot not in europe.
Its worth saying that the middle east was a very diffrent place back then and much more similar to current day Europe than current day middle east.
Basically Maiorianus's video on the Fall of Rome
You are wrong about it all,you yourself mention that they were only paying lip service,Rome had to recover its land from the barbarii.
I view the initial "fall" to be 395 when East and West split. It then limped along in a state of overall decline with some rulers trying to get the old band back together for centuries until the Ottomans completely undid the Roman system of government.
That's a good approach because it was when the main capital was moved from Italy to the Hellenistic world and when Galerius proposed to rename the state "Dacian Empire" (his honesty be praised).
There was once a dream of Rome you could only whisper it it was so fragile. Save it Maximus😊
Generally speaking the "fall of Rome" was faster and more dramatic the further west and north you look. It was the most abrupt in England. It was slower and more transitional the further east you look. It took a verrrrrry long time for the eastern empire to fall.
it didnt take a long time for it to fall,this implies it was inevitable,until 1204 the Empire was actually growing big time and recovering territories in Italy and Middle east.
Another way to look at the fall of Rome is the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922. After taking Constantinople the Sultans fashioned themselves as new emperors. Many of the Ottoman rulers after Mehmed II had ambitions to expand into Italy and take the entire Mediterranean. The argument being that since they started out as a tribe in an area under Eastern Imperial rule and grew in strength to challenge them then the Ottomans pulled off more of a coup then a conquering. Only after expanding more and more into Islamic areas did they shift more in that direction than a true multicultural empire which the early sultans envisioned.
No.
Yes.
@@remilenoir1271 chi ë non, pondercé.
I consider the fall of rome to be in 1922 with the dissolution of the ottoman empire and the destruction of the title "king of the romans" held by the ottoman sultan.
Fun selection of clips, and subbed. 🙂
Thanks!
In France, I learned that the Byzantine Empire got named that way to separate Western Europe and the East, as renaissance men wanted to claim descendance from the "real" roman empire as to renew civilization and leave the "dark ages", which was complicated to do when an actual roman empire still existed. The name started to be used in the 16th century, and only gained adoption in the 19th.
This is most probably untrue, as the term "dark ages" was invented during Iluminism by anti-clerical, anti-monarchy, etc iluminist in an attempt (which succed) to declare themselves as the light beares of humanity. The term "Byzantine Empire" started to be used after the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, before that people would call it the Greek Empire in order to distance it from Rome.
@@olenstriker that's literally what I said
@@olenstrikeroh noooo there’s supposedly a secret cabal of absolute rulers (instead of a monarchy and church an open cabal of absolute rulers)
Also its capital was Byzantium, not Rome.
@@LuisAldamiz Nova Roma (Constantinople) which was the united Roman Empire's capital,try again propagandist.
I've heard it argued that although the Roman Empire split and fell, as it were, the people didn't just cease to exist. And so Rome still lives on in all of its descendants. Genetically and in terms of cultural ideas, angular architecture, etc.
cultural center of roman empire schifted from Rome to Constantinopole long before Western Roman fell. And at its peak, with emperor justinian and others, even retake, retrieve most of Western territories. Also, in roman tradition, there were usually several rulers in the same time (roman empire was huge). But to be honest, i really like Byzantine Empire, Byzantine Empire is very underrated.
For a long time in Italy Romans and Lombards continued to exist as two different people, distinct in clothing, religion, language, law. At the end the Lombards being a small minority essentially assimilated to the Romans even though in the 13th century there was still a legal distinction between families that followed Roman and Lombard law
@@Everthus4 what a long winded way to imply Rome is not Roman
Mehmed II, conqueror of Constantinople in 1453, actually did consider himself to be the successor of the Roman Empire and believed himself to be continuing it. If you follow his logic, the Roman Empire lasted until Mehmed VI was expelled by Ataturk in 1922.
I am not saying I believe this to be true (1453 works for me), but I think it's still probably a better argument for an end date than the last bit of the Holy Roman Empire being stamped out in 1806.
Coincidentally, I'm finishing up a video right now that makes this point about the Ottomans.
@@premodernist_history Awesome, looking forward to it!
There is one strong argument for the Holy Roman Empire: When Charles was crowned in 800, he was (in some point of view) the only legal emperor, while the legality of eastern empress Irene was strongly debated. Thus the legitimity of rule would cede again to the west. And for more, the legal position of the Holy empire has been confirmed by the mariage of Otto III with Byzantine princess.
Exactly, at least as for silly claimants go. I'm positive it fell either with Diocletian or with the sacking of Rome by the Goths but whatever.
1922
Finally, after fighting on the side of Germany in World War I and suffering defeat, the empire was dismantled by treaty and came to an end in 1922, when the last Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed VI, was deposed and left the capital of Constantinople (now Istanbul) in a British warship.
I dont see how the 'Eastern Roman Empire' differs from any of the Western Successor States apart from that it continued the use of the name ... why then is one symbol not the same as the other and a certain country with a Senate and an Imperial Eagle might be the Roman Empire till this day ...
Joe Scott sent me.
Arguably it fell in 1461 with the fall of Trebizond
Yes, there are several other dates I could have mentioned besides the three I talked about in the video. The end of the Empire of Trebizond in 1461 is one of them. Also, the Russians and the Ottomans both claimed to be continuations of the Byzantine empire, so then we could add 1917 and 1922 as two other possible dates. I would put these three (1461, 1917, and 1922) in the same category as 1806, i.e. dates that could be argued to be technically correct but that are never used by modern historians for the fall of Rome.
I didn't think of it at the time, but in retrospect I maybe should have also talked about the Russians and the Ottomans in the video. But that would have made the video a lot longer, trying to explain why the Russians and Ottomans could be considered continuators of the Romans.
And then, incidentally, the Safavid shahs were descended from the emperors of Trebizond, so by virtue of descent maybe we could add them to the list (which would add 1722 or 1736 as candidates, depending on when we date the end of the Safavids). But they never claimed the title "Roman emperor", and IIRC they tended to call the Ottomans "Romans", so they probably shouldn't count.
@@premodernist_history I think the Russian and Ottoman claims are a bit more dubious since they're more the symbolic sucessors. But the Trebizondi one is pretty legitimate since it was a rump Roman state and even had an emperor. I'm not sure if they called themselves the emperors of the romans but they were a roman splinter, so you could probably legimtimately call them that. I dunno
@@monarchofthesea9395 I thought the emperors of Trebizond claimed to be the legitimate rulers of Constantinople, but I just looked it up and apparently Emperor John II renounced the claim to Constantinople in 1282. I wonder if they still called themselves Romans though. If so, then 1461 would still count, I think.
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Ottoman claim. They occupied the same territory that the Eastern Roman Empire did, with the same capital. They were recognized as the legitimate Roman emperors by the Patriarchs of Constantinople. Sure, they seized control through military conquest, but then so did a lot of previous Byzantine emperors. Many new Byzantine dynasties were started by a general seizing Constantinople (sometimes through a violent sack, e.g. the Komnenids) and taking the throne by force.
Maybe the chief argument against the Ottoman claim is that they were Muslim instead of Christian. But that's a matter of one's personal definition of Roman-ness. Is Christianity an intrinsic part of Roman identity? Medieval Byzantines would have said yes, but I can imagine other Romans in other periods not necessarily agreeing.
If the Ottomans had been Christian, I strongly suspect modern historians would see them as one more in a long line of Byzantine dynasties.
As for the Russian claim, I know less about it, but as far as I know that was more a notion of spiritual successor. One defines the Roman empire as the bastion of the Christian faith. With the fall of Constantinople, Moscow is now the bastion of the Faith, ergo Moscow is the third Rome. I could be getting that wrong though. I'll need to do more research.
I think it's fair to count Trebizond if they saw themselves as Roman, given that there's precedence for the Roman entity to move away from Rome, even if they're not the Roman Empire as a legal entity. They could still be argued to be Romans.
The point about the Ottomans is really interesting. I'm not super familiar with Ottoman law, since legally it'd be a very different jurastiction I think, and life would probably be very different under the Ottoman Empire than the Romans of Constantinople, regardless. So one could argue that it was a different legal entity. Then again the same can be said for the ROman dynasties.
The real question is, did they see themselves as Romans? I think the first Ottoman emperor to take Constantinople called himself Emperor, but I'm not sure what happened after?
@@monarchofthesea9395 I'm not sure how long the Ottoman sultans used the title Emperor of Rome. I suspect they kept it throughout the history of the dynasty, but I'm not certain.
I just wrote a really long comment, but it got so long I thought it'd be excessive for a comment section. I think I might need to make a video about this.
The Western Roman Empire fell as a state by roughly 467 AD. It remained a civilization in spite of the government toppling. Rome itself was sacked by the barbarians, namely the Goths..
I love that you’re using clips from The Mighty Hercules. Best kids’ show ever! Also, I love your channel!
Yes, it's an awesome show.
So technically, Czechia is one of the succesor states to Rome since they were ruled by Luxembourgs which were also Holy roman emperors. Intresting
I have been toying for some time with the idea of maintaining that Rome fell in 1806 for no greater cause than to be obnoxious, and this may finally give me the impetus to follow through on my imaginative threat
however, the sultan of the ottaman empire also called himself emporer of rome, so only when the ottoman collapsed did the true fall of it happen.
Kayser-i Rum was barely used or invoked as a title. The Ottomans did not meaningfully see themselves as “Romans.” They had their own culture that had nothing to do with Latin Roman history.
From a Romanist (study of romance languages and how they relate) perspective, the date that should interest the most as "Fall of the western Roman Empire" should be the date when Rome ceased definitely to hold Gallia, Hispania and Italia together. The dates that are interesting are 461 (Grant of Narbo to the Visigoths) and 472 (conquest of Taraconensis by the Visigoths) from these dates on the 3 major Proto-Western Romance speaking region were not held together as a single polity until Charlemagne which was time enough for them to diverge linguistically and culturally. Even if the absence of a single polity can be debated in its role of distenciation between Italo-Romance, Gallo-Romance/Occitano-Romance and Ibero-Romance, the end of a unified roman latin speaking rule above all three areas can be interesting to study in it's role of separation between Italian, French, Occitan/Catalan and Spanish/Portuguese.
Interesting answer, though a bit reductive. The province of Africa (modern day Tunisia) was every bit as important (if not more) compared to Gallia and Hispania. Only in hindsight do we consider Spain and France, but not Tunisia when discussing sucessor states to the Roman Empire.
@@xenon9030 I think you're missing the point i was making. Everything you are saying is true. You could say that the loss of Africa in 439 was the end of the Western Roman Empire too. My 461 and 472 are as arbitrary as 439, 476, 1454 or 1806. The point I was making is that if i was to study the history of the Romance Languages, 461 and 472 would be dates i would retain as important because it marks the end of political unity upon the regions of the major branches of the family. I would also retain other dates like 439, 410 (end of Roman Britain) or 275 (end of Roman Dacia) and other because they're important for other part of the language family be they alive today like Romanian or extinct like Afro-Romance and Britanno-Latin. 461 and 472 would not be definite truths but just guidelines that would help me locate stuff on a timeline etc. I was pretty much agreeing with the video but just add on to it by giving my perspective as a Romanist.
Why stop there? Why jot go with the abo foment of Dacia and Britannia?
Of course i would not stop there, these were just examples @@baneofbanes
@@baneofbanes - Too peripheral. But I advocate 410: sack of Rome by the Goths, when also almost all the Western Empire had been captured or ravaged by the Germanics anyhow.
Alternatively when Diocletian moved the capital to Asia.
I like 476...without Rome it's not the same thing. Just hanging on to a name. Very good lesson however.
Also people not speaking Latin and the lack of the Italian peninsula as a territory. People would disagree with me, but for those reasons, I don't really see the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire as being quite the same thing. Not saying it's not a successor, but the full continuity was broken, in my mind.
They have changed the capital few times centuries earlier, in 286-330 to Mediolanum and later switched between Ravenna and Rome many times in the 400s. Also the Eastern Roman Empire was able to hold Rome city until the 700s.
The Eastern Roman Empire regained Rome in 554 however, and held onto it until 751.
@@murkywaters5502By the time the west fell, Constantinople was the empire’s overall capital and was a much more large and important city than Rome. Also, even if they didn’t speak latin, all these people already had roman citizenship and roman names by the time it fell.
Well it was Rome itself (under Constantine) that moved the capital to Constantinople, which is IMO different than the Germans or the Russians calling themselves Roman
I'd say it was a process. It fell as a unstoppable force that could enforce its will across three continents in 476, it fell as a state and governing body that took up land in 1453, it fell as a political title used for prestige in 1806, but it never fell as a religious or cultural idea as it influences us to this day in those ways.
It's arguably even more complex because a lot of polities which came right after the western empire considered themselves a living part of Rome, so to speak, not just carrying on legacy but literally being rome in a metaphysically sense, and this metaphysical idea of the universal empire was crucial both to Rome proper, its direct descendants, Christianity, and to, pretty much, the whole European civilisation over the following centuries. We still actually have leftovers of this although obviously it's not nearly the same.
You could even argue that the idea of Umma and global control in Islam might've been partially inspired by that sort of cognitive framework where "the world" and "the empire" were basically one and the same.
"Byzantine" hatred is so weird to me as I worked on late byzantine periods for years. For historians or byzantologues who dedicated their lives to the study of the Byzantine Empire, this term is not an insult, but an easy way to distinguish between periods (ERE refering to pre Heraclius/Arab conquest period) and a way to underline the specificities of a civilization that can't be reduce to a Roman continuation. Also, when you work on post 1204 Empire this Roman fiction scramble more and more. We don't call the Carolingian Empire or the Holy Roman Empire the Roman Empire, and nobody thinks it is a lie or an insult, even if these empires didn't use these names themselves.
I don't think "Byzantine" is an insult. I do get what you mean about the differences between periods. But why a different term altogether, and why draw the period boundary between Roman and Byzantine where we do? There are reasons for those decisions, and I simply don't agree with those reasons. Does the Heraclian period really have more in common with the Palaiologan period than with the Constantinian?
@@premodernist_history This is a very interesting question. As you said yourself, we have to periodise so that we can work more easily ("cut history into slices" as Jacques Le Goff used to say). This division is imperfect and reductive, and is often questioned, particularly with regard to dates. Nevertheless, it allows a period to be quickly embraced. It does not deny the differences between the Justinian and Heraclian periods (any more than the Early Middle Ages deny the differences between Merovingian and Carolingian societies). In French, the proto-Byzantine or Paleo-Byzantine period (whatever its end date) or ERE with its truly multiethnic and universal empire is distinguished from the Meso-Byzantine period where a still powerful empire has to reorganise itself on its Greek element (despite presenting itself as a Universal and Roman Empire) and whose institutions, culture etc. are rapidly transforming. Just as the late Byzantine period is characterised by profound political and societal changes and the gradual end of this Roman fiction in favour of the promotion of the Greek culture.
The term Byzantine was indeed born in a polemical context (Western authors after the fall of Constantinople) but I don't think it still is today. The term has the added advantage of recognising the specificity and originality of the Byzantine civilisation, which is not a simple Roman Empire 2.0 or even 1.0, but a much richer society that owes just as much to Hellenistic culture and the Eastern Empires. Reducing the Empire to its Roman dimension would probably please Psellos and co. but it would prevent us from understanding Byzantine society in all its complexity.
After all, I am perhaps not the best judge. I am probably blinded by my period (14th-15th centuries) and a slave to my down to earth sources. In my minutiers, no Greek merchant or notary claims to be Roman and it has been a long time since this Roman fiction went beyond a few literate circles.
Thank you for this video by the way, loved it.
Joe Scott sent me. All Hail Scott
Rome never fell. It just evolved.
Subscribed based on Joe Scott’s recommendation.
In 410. Should have been 408 but the Goths tried to negotiate for two years. All the rest is epilogue and pathetic claimants.
Arguably even earlier: when Diocletian moved the capital to the Helespont, it wasn't exactly a "fall" but it was a "not really Rome anymore... but rather some sort of new Hellenistic thing".
476, if you define roman empire as an empire that had Rome as its center (administrative, military,… basically all the decision making)
Rome stopped being the center of the Empire long before 476.
If you ask me, if you ain't conducting business in Latin, you ain't the roman empire
Most importantly, if you leave Rome the city to the hierophants and you don't control the Mediterranean basin... then it has no semblance to the Roman Empire at all.
no one asked you thanfully little infant,also your whole pathetic worldview would be destroyed by the fact that many Roman Emperor of the latin west wrote and spoke in greek,like Julius Caesar and Marcus Aurelius among others,the philosopher Cicero.
I think one of the issues when determining when Rome fell is people are talking about different things. Are we talking about the city? The empire? The culture? There are hundreds of years between each of these.
Rome was a city, which eventually assimilated all Italians as Roman citizens and thus forged Italy as nation first of all. All the rest were colonies until Caracalla's Edict, which generalized citizenship to all the empire (previously provincials were colonial subjects with almost no rights) and set the stage for the coup of the Balcanic generals, i.e. the Tetrarchy, which moved the capital to the Hellenistic World, totally altering the state and leaving Rome as a mere provincial city, so to say (it was then when Italy was divided into provinces as well). Galerius had the honesty of asking the state to be renamed into "Dacian Empire" but his colleagues preferred to keep the pretense. Hence the discussion.
Thank you so much for the awesome video! ✨✨
No, the correct answer is 476. The way you know it's 476 is that the Byzantines were *Greeks*, not Romans. For a brief while their leaders maintained Latin as an official aristocratic language, much like the Normans kept using French after they conquered England in 1066. But we wouldn't call London the capital of France, would we? But just like with England, the Byzantine Emperors stopped using Latin (after Justinian, IIRC), and for the next thousand years, it was a Greek city with a Greek culture and a Greek language.
So, you could argue that the fall of Rome was after Justinian's rule was shrugged off in 568 AD, but that begs the question: If Rome wasn't Rome before Belisarius conquered it, then what the Hell was it? The answer, of course, is a Germanic kingdom, which takes us right back to 476 AD. There is no better answer, and lots of worse ones.
The notion of a "fall" requires one to view Rome as a modern nation state. The Roman Empire was at base a culture on one hand and an administrative concept on the other. The administrative concept was an emperor that appointed governors who ruled territories. Over time, the governors were replaced by kings, and then the kings didn't need the emperor's authority to hold imperium. But that only happens for good when Justinian ruined the Mediterranean. Until Justinian, the German kings were still looking to Constantinople for recognition. Odoacer and Theodoric both in fact made no attempt to take the title of emperor but instead looked to the emperor in Constantinople for indicia of imperium to rule just as a governor would have in the past.
Except the Kings explicitly weren’t governors, they were de facto independent rulers. Roman administration did collapse in the west.
@@baneofbanes I think I made that quite clear. But to the average person this meant very little in the near term
@@andrelegeant88 and that really doesn’t change the fact that the Roman Empire did fall in the west.
Rome fell? When? Wich trails you walk on? In what building do you live? A Villa? An insulae? Don’t you see yourself as invincible when you look at yourself at the mirror? Doesn’t your alphabet come from the eagles? Aren’t you roman?
But I was told that a disgraced Roman general single handedly killed Commodus in the coliseum and they all lived happily ever after????
Big question, in 476 rome falls, and political power centralised there dissolves definitely. But, how long did it take since that date for the last romanised societies of western europe to stop living as, or similarly to, citizens of the roman empire to the more traditional depiction of middle ages in Europe? When did they stop using roman coin, romanised architecture etc😊
Big question. Some changes were already happening since 407, when the barbarians were ravaging Gaul. Soon landowners (of which we know more than the lower classes) were either making deals with the Germanic warlords or going to Italy where they had usually some lands. Generally in Gaul and Hispania, and even more in Italy surely, they remained Latin and (except in the Frankish realm) they were ruled as Romans, legally distinct from Goths and such (at least for some time, later the Goths became "Romans", etc.) The Germanic warlords needed the priests and other educated Romans to manage their new domains anyhow, they made deals by which the Germanics got some lands but the Roman landowners kept most of them, etc. In Vasconia and Cantabria the peasants won the bagauda wars and established their own legality, neither Roman nor Germanic, which has partly survived to this very day. In North Africa the Berbers remained an autonomous semi-tribal force, which sided with the Vandals or the Arabs, generally against the Romans, in exchange for respec. Britain has been much discussed but is also the worst understood one, genetics strongly suggest that the Germanics enslaved or displaced the natives, as they used to be Welsh-like even in Northumberland.
The Byzantines always called themselves Romans, the Persians who were at war with them for centuries always called them Romans, and the whole world knew them as and called them the Romans. The concept of making a distinction with a “Byzantine” empire happened by historians long after eastern Rome fell. It makes sense from a western standpoint when you’re legitimizing a Holy Roman Empire under Roman papal authority as the “real Rome.” In its later years, the eastern empire reverted to being very much a Greek oriental empire, and Western Europeans didn’t have much respect for it-and the popes are part of that sentiment as well. Meanwhile, the “Byzantines” thought the Holy Roman Empire was grotesque, fake, and clearly a papal power move. They considered it to be neither holy nor Roman. The Byzantine distinction is therefore not simply British, but perhaps Germanic or Western European or even papist, because the feuding of the eastern and western churches is part of this, too-as well as an identity crisis of who was the “real” successor to Ancient Rome. We in America certainly inherit this “Byzantine” viewpoint from the British, but they probably also inherited this, too. It’s very complex why eastern Rome was renamed ex post facto and it’s not some sort of British world view.
By the way, a russian king also tried to do something like what Charlemagne did, he gave to himself the title of Tzar (Caesar in russian language) because he had married a Byzantine princess.
Charlemagne was NOT the first HRE! The truth is Pope Leo was deeply unpopular and Charlemagne forcefully restored him to the Papacy. Charles didn't care about the Emperorship, it was just another title like King of Lombards. What he wanted was to cement the fact Franks could be Kings and appointed by God, allowing them to legitimately dispose the Merovingians and rule as King themselves. Peppin was arguably far more instrumental and the HRE didn't exist until Otto I. They hype up Charlemagne because the Germans NEEDED a legitimate German because they had no Legitimacy. Germans say Charles was the first HRE, while REAL historians acknowledge it was Otto I. Charles was just the claim to power.
Ignorant comment. First of all, Pope Leo wasn't as unpopular as you might think, only presumably among the Italian aristocracy.
Second of all, the title bestowed upon Charles and Otto were literally the same title.
@@servus_incognitus Ignorant? lol. You simply don't understand if you argue anything mentioned above. Fact: Leo fled and was installed by Charles. You're one of these "Rome Simps" that thinks the Franks had nothing interesting to them and just "wanted to be Roman"? The Franks were a proud people and this was PURELY to give the Carolingians the right to rule. They had failed in the past and Peppen was the first to break from the Mayor of the Palace. The ONLY thing Charles was after was legitimacy to be King, something they sitll lacked. Peppin was the genious to succeed where others failed by using God as the means of doing this. Charles developed this and layered it with the Papal appointment of emperorship. Read up on Henry the Fowler who was the REAL archetect of the HRE. The title was Emperor of the Romans, but for Charlemagne (who was King of the Franks even on his OFFICAL SEAL, never updated it!) this was just another title in his laundry list of achievements. For Otto I, this was the REAL HRE, which was the foremost German Ruler - the first among equals and divinely appointed... nothing related except they draw legitimacy from Charles, albiet flimsy, it's what they bought into and it worked to varying degrees f or hundreds of years. I encourage you to deep dive into German history. Not only is it facinating, it'll show they saw themselves as a new replacement and the future of a world empire... not some barbarians "desparate" to be Roman.
HRE was neither Roman, nor Holy, or even an Empire.
Kinda like what Genghis Khan was for so many empires like the Timurids who claimed descent from him
Total nonsense. You can argue that the Holy Roman *Empire* didn't exist until Otto I, but Charlemagne was indisputably the first Holy Roman *Emperor* - you're just being silly.
I personally have no doubts that the beginning of the end was undoubtedly the Crisis of the Third Century, from which the Empire never fully recovered. If I were to choose a date within the Third Century, it would be the year it was thinkable that the city of Rome not be the capital in the West---Diocletian's reforms moved the capital in 286 to Mediolanum (modern Milan.) Once Roman meant something other than being a citizen of the eternal city in a lived sense---not a ceremonial sense---something critical to Romanness was lost, and something critical to the prosperity of the Western Roman Empire was as well.
Yes, the core of it is the process of the Third Century: first Caracalla (second emperor not patrilineally descended from Italians) gave citizenship to all free provincials, then Maximian became the first "uncouth" Balcanic general to take the laurel crown for himself, then Diocletian and his also Balcanic colleagues took over and radically "reformed" the state, moving its epicenter to Greece, so much that Galerius wanted to rename it "Dacian Empire".
However, as the Empire remained bicephalous, with one Augustus reigning from Italy (Milan, Ravenna), there is some ambiguity to this late period but when the last Roman Emperor was deposed, then the ambiguity collapsed, the masks fell and, even if the Byzantines tried hard (under Justinian notably) to restore the Empire or something similar to it, they could not. Eventually, with the crowning of Charlemagne as Western Emperor and with Byzantium worse than halved by the Muslim expansion, the situation became more clear: there were two empires again, the Greek one and the Germanic one (which doubled as Latin) but the latter soon split and only the Saxons "restored" it nominally but was a phantom, powerful but not really anything resembling the old Roman Empire.
Charlemagne was not a roman emperor or really even an emperor at all to be honest. He just called himself that.
You could also say that the Russian zar was the natural inheritor of the imperial title from the dissolved Roman Empire and Moscow was the “third Rome” so the empire actually fell in 1917
Rome fell in 1991, don’t @ me
why?
Mehmet IV was the last claimant to the title Emperor of the Romans who reigned in any capability.
Which Charlie Chaplin film(s) do you use footage from in this video?
It never fell. It's still going on within us.
My question is, where is the name of "Byzantine" come from? and why Byzantine?
It stems from Byzantium which was the name of the greek settlement on which was founded Constantinople
After digging into Roman history, it's interesting that, firstly, it was a continuous state from 753 BC to 1412 AD.
Secondly, the concepts of "empire" and "western/eastern" in relation to Rome are really modern nomenclature retrospectively applied to this state.
There was no fall of the western roman empire, there was a long decline of the Western provinces spanning hundreds of years and ultimately ending in losing them to various germanic people (which, again, clueless nomenclature calls "tribes" despite them being covilized nations with governance, literature, minting, etc.)
In fact, the East by the time of the third (yes, third) fall of Rome really just didn't care for the West much.
Since at least Constantine all the action was in the East and the West was in a perpetual state switching between stagnation and decline with few short-lived reversals at the hands of some talanted generals.
Thirdly, in the general mind Roman Republic and Roman Empire are completely meshed together to the point of many people not even being aware that most of the "greatness" came from the Republican period that spanned 700-500 years, after which there was, really, a slow overall decline of the SPQR.
Cheers. Source: Hello and welcome to the "History of Rome."
Byzantium. Eastern Rome fell far later than Western Rome.
My heart stopped when you mentioned Charlemagne. 😅
About 10 years ago, i had a coworker in her mid-20s with a bachelor's degree in history from a top university. One day in the course of conversation, she happened to say, "Which came first -- the Roman Empire, or the Renaissance?"
I couldn't hide my astonishment. "She looked flustered, and said, "i can never keep those things straight."
I asked, "You majored in history, right?" (I couldn't help asking.)
She got defensive and testy, and said, "Well, yes, but that was a long time ago. I mean, I don't remember EVERYTHING."
LOL
1922 Sultan called himself kayser-i rum
Rome never really fell. Not completely. It still exists today, but in a different form.
You mean the city, right?
The Ottomans styled themselves as Emperors of Rome, so 1919 could be another date!
1922 actually.
Except that Russia bills itself as the successor state to the Eastern Roman Empire, so in THAT sense, the empire never fell...
Successor state is different from the actual empire. No? Russia is not USSR. The world order changed after USSR collapsed.
Russian empire ended in 1917. Could we only think about its restauration under Tzar Vladimir I ? It's not so clear.
When Vlad speaks Latin...
A lot of countries have self-proclaimed links to Rome. That doesn't make it true.
Great videos mate, subscribed.
Meh. 476 is the best date because the Western Empire, based as it was in ROME, was the symbolic fall of the Universal Empire. The Byzantine/Eastern remnant did not have the universality of the empire that fell in 476, even though it had long since lost its vitality. There was never any CONCEPT of Universal Empire under the Byzantines - or if they professed it, it was just a pipedream.
That is why 476 matters, and, is actually correct.
That is true. Throughout all of the Middle Ages, the greek empire never had any pretension or even the capacity to reclaim lost Roman territory. More to it, they even recognized the Holy Roman Emperor as a legitimate ruler, even though they rejected the "Roman" part.
Personal biases does not count, it’s just a simply state there’s no “requirements” for it to be dominating.
Then there is the point of view that the Muslims who finally captured Constantinople from the Orthodox considered themselves to be Romans. Such as the famous poet Rumi, whose name means "Roman".
So in some ways it can be said that it was the Great War (1914-'18) that finally ended the Roman Empire's legacy administrations.
The First World War was a war of succession. We killed 30 million people over monarchies and their inbred families. 🤡💀
The problem is that they didn’t consider themselves to be Roman, Rumelia was a geographical term. Many places in the US have Native American names. That doesn’t mean the people living there see themselves as North American Indians.
What about Napoleons Empire he claimed to be the Emperor of Rome
Did he? He certainly had a good claim before getting all messed up in Spain and Russia. AFAIK his title was Emperor of the French, close but not quite the same.
He was Crowned Emperor of Rome as well
@@glennabate1708 - He was crowned Emperor at Rome but Emperor of the French (which may have included Romans after he also annexed Rome but still not "Emperor of the Romans").
Similar to what youvebeengreeked said. I would argue :
476 : The empire based in Rome falls (although this could easily be argued to have fallen with the relocation to Ravenna or Mediolanum)
1453 : The last proper claimant of Rome's empire falls (could be argued with the east-west split)
1780 : The Russian tsarina discredits the HRE's claim and insinuates they are the true claimants to the proper Roman empire. Vows to reestablish the empire, fails.
1806 : The (Holy) Roman Empire is dissolved. Last claimant holding on gives up.
Today : Rumi/Rumlar (meaning Roman) still live in Turkey, some still speaking Greek even. The idea of Rome lives on in a sort of "You die twice, first when your body dies and second when someone utters your name for the final time" albeit here with the Roman identity.
Before Turks go ÜRGLÜRGLR we are the true Romans at last RUM SULTANATE NO 1!! 🐺🐺🐺🐺 Keep in mind, these are Greeks, speaking Greek, in Turkey. If you can live with that, we can have world peace
What i find the weirdest about you english speakers is that you translate 'Alexander Magno' to 'Alexander the great'... But you call Charles Magno by the french version 'Charlemagne', lol. It's so weird. As a brazilian that learned english as time went by, i had a mind blow when i realized this 'Charlemagne' guy that is so talked about by british to be THE Carlos Magno that i grew up learning about in school.
It's because much medieval English history was done from Norman French sources
In Spanish both are called "magno" but one is two words and the other just one (Carlomagno).
Great video, when the western half fell in. 476 the Eastern half didn’t just immediately cease to exist and call themselves “Byzantines” all of the sudden, they were Roman’s and lasted in for another 977 years until May 29th 1453. The term Byzantine was not even created until 104 years after Constantinople fell.
But did the west really fall in 476? Odoacer was very keen to preserve buildings in Rome. A better date for the fall is probably around 536 when the Byzantines invaded Italy.
@@dertery8724 is it though ? The whole point of the invasion was to bring the Italian peninsula and it’s surrounding areas back under the control of the Romans. The goths vs the Roman’s did cause destruction and death yes but the control of the west was under what the Roman’s considered to be barbarian
@@ScentsOfSouthJersey Legally speaking, you’re absolutely right: the Western Roman Empire ceased to exist when in 476AD Odoacer took the role of King of Italy rather than Emperor.
However the Senate continued to meet after this change, buildings continued to be repaired in major cities, and the city of Rome itself maintained a population of as many as 100,000 - fairly unchanged from the population that remained after the sack of 410. In all practical terms Italy remained governed as the Empire had been under the rule of a King: a fairly similar situation in terms of territory to that of Rome at the time of the First Punic War, and a system of governance (King with Senators beneath him) very similar to the time before Romulus Augustus was deposed.
However, after the Gothic Wars stable leadership of Italy ceased to exist - with frequent Lombard incursions into the area over the succeeding centuries; buildings, save some defensive walls, were no longer maintained; and Rome itself was desolated - its population dropping to 20,000 and the senate entirely disbanding within a few decades.
How ironic it is that the Goths were better rulers of Rome than the Romans themselves!
@@dertery8724 at least “Rome” survived another 977 years in the east until May 29th 1453…Constantine XI’s heroic last stand…needs a movie made about that siege. Rise of empires the ottomans was fantastic but a movie would amazing too
@@ScentsOfSouthJersey Yes definitely. The technology and skill the east developed to defend itself from invasion for so long is truly extraordinary and very much deserving of many films.
Taking the HRE line a bit further we could say the French Empire which initially subsumed part of it, or the German successor states - leading to today’s modern Germany - are legitimate successors and therefore vestiges of the reincarnated empire. This could put 1871 or even never as the time of the Roman collapse!
I think 1453 overall and Gothic Wars for the west are provably the best fall dates though.
So true! I am frustrated by how bad "English-speaking" history is. (I tried not to end that sentence with "is" but couldn't seem to manage).
Please make more history video's I LOVE THEM
By another line of argument there was no Byzantine reconquest after the defense of Rome in 539, nor a reestablishment of its self-determination. If we go back to the institution of Byzantine Italy in 582, it could be thought that the real downfall would have been its erasure. Then we can mark the year of its erasure as an intermediate year, such as the year in which the last chariot race at the Colosseum.
This is a matter of perspective like all things are.
I wouldn't even say that Western Rome fell in 476. It either died decades before or survived until Belisarius devastated Italy and the Lombards migrated in, destroying the old system in Italy. Also I'd say the Roman Empire fell in 1920 :P
There was no such thing as the "Eastern Roman Empire" or the "Western Roman Empire", nor the empire got split in 395 AD. The Empire of the Romans merely had two regions at that moment, and the empire lost its western one to the Germans.
Except for where I live, where it was lost to the bagaudae, heh!
The Roman Empire was the colonial empire of Rome (first) and Italy (after the social war), Diocletian finished it.
Nothing of note happened in 476, Odoacer was a part of Roman military, not a Germanic warlord (actually it's probably accurate to call him a mix of both), Romulus Augustulus was a teenage puppet illegitimate emperor, and nobody cared what happened to him.
Deposing the emperor and declaring yourself king of Italy sounds pretty noteworthy to me.
As I stated earlier, the person he «deposed» was not the emperor, and furthermore Odoacer was incorporated into Roman politics internally. Locals\contemporaries viewed this as a regular revolt\civil war\squabble.
@@tzeentchvonsheo9868 except Romulus was the emperor, like it or not. Odoacer’s actions ended the empire in the west.
@@baneofbanes Julius Nepos was the emperor, residing in Dalmatia until 480. Odoacer's actions didn't accomplish anything and didn't seem as noteworthy to contemporaries as people present. People living in the 5th, 6th, 7th and son on centuries believed they are living in the Roman Empire. Most of the barbarian kings did think of themselves as subordinate to the Emperor residing in Constantinople in one way or the other. In the year 800, their allegiance changed from one Roman Emperor to the other with the help of Leo III. Western «enlightement» freemason historians, such as Edward Gibbon, have created a narrative of Rome fallin and you fell for that narrative.
It's not Rome without having the city of Rome ruling it. So 476 is the correct answer.
The city of Rome had stopped being relevant long before 476
Then Rome fell in 390s because the western emperors ruled from Ravenna
I would love a Video on Charlemagne's daughters! It is a very niche topic but i find it interesting that they were never allowed to marry
Culturally Rome never fell. Still roman law is international law. Still war plays god on earth, while love bleeds at the cross. Still the West demands the rest of the world as it's empire. Finest system slavery preserved for eternity. By the way: If one reads the Latin word ROMA reverse, it's AMOR - Latin for LOVE. One can recognize the enemies of humankind by their name.
I don't agree, I think the idea of a Byzantine empire makes a lot of sense and we should continue to use it. I think things like empires, cultures, civilisations should be identified by their inherent qualities not just continuity, or self-identification. The Byzantine empire was different in so many important ways from the ancient Roman empire: lack of the founding city within it, Greek-speaking, Christian, a rump kingdom after the Arab invasions rather than a flourishing imperial project. The case for accepting the Carolingian or Holy Roman Empires as continuations of the genuine Roman empire are even weaker.
There are plenty of examples of new empires being formed out of previous ones, in many different circumstances. The Songhai, Timurid, Mughal and many Chinese empires are all examples of this.
As for "when Rome fell", I wouldn't equate 'Rome' with 'the Roman empire'. If you *do* equate the two the case for excluding the Byzantine empire is even easier. Otherwise the answer is "410, and again in 455".
I don't think it was British or Western European scholarship that started the use of 'Byzantine' for the later Eastern Roman Empire, I have a feeling it was Italians. Incidentally we would not be using the word if "Constantinopolitan" was not so damn long.
All nations evolve over time. The France of today is not the same state as it was in the early Middle Ages.
Doesn’t make it any less France. The Byzantine empire was the Roman Empire. The people considered themselves Roman’s, they used Roman laws and the government was directly descended from the Roman Empire of Augustus. That is very different from the examples like the Chinese and Persian empires you gave.
@@baneofbanes I don't think this answers any of the points I made.
@@baneofbanes I actually don't have a problem with calling the late Eastern Roman Empire 'Roman'. As you say that is what they called themselves, and there is continuity from the earlier ancient Roman empire. What I have a problem with is not being allowed to also call it 'Byzantine'. I think that term is perfectly reasonable, and it identifies an empire distinct from the ancient Roman one, as well as different from the Frankish, Holy Roman, Ottoman and Latin empires.
The ways in which the 'Byzantine' empire is distinct from the earlier ancient Roman one are as follows.
1. It was based in Constantinople, not Rome.
2. It spoke Greek, not Latin.
3. It was Christian, not Roman pagan/emperor-worshipping.
After the Arab conquests it was also not much of an empire, but a glorified kingdom on the defensive. After the Seljuk and Latin ones even more so. The last time it really had a connection with the Western Roman Empire was Justinian's attempted reconquests, which got bogged down dealing with the Goths. So yes there was continuity, but also drift and morphing into something new.
Identity and continuity are indeed important to people, but they are largely illusory, especially identity. People project a sense of identity, or non-identity, onto peoples, territories, leaders etc. when they are not there in essence. For me the point in holding up the 'Byzantine' nature of the later Eastern Roman Empire is to treat it as a distinct thing in terms of its cultural and geopolitical qualities. Thus is without prejudice towards it, since any idea that considering it non-Roman is derogating it is to assume the ancient Roman empire was good, which itself is absolutely a projected subjective attitude. I personally don't like the original Roman empire so for me to distinguish the later Eastern one as 'Byzantine' is no kind of diss at all. Instead it is to identify it in terms of its own inherent qualities - a Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian post-imperial kingdom on the back foot and based in Constantinople - and in terms of its neighbours and geopolitical relations which were distinct from the ancient Roman ones, such as Muslim Arabs and Turks, Bulgarians, western Europeans as non-Romans.
@@baneofbanes I'm afraid that's just not true. :) Or not that we're not allowed to, but that we shouldn't. There are whole UA-cam videos making this argument, and individuals making it in the comments of other videos too. They say that it began as early modern Italians and others trying to look down on the empire, separate it from its ancestral Roman roots etc. It's seen as a way for western Europeans to make themselves feel more Roman than the Byzantines. I don't know about that, I just think it's useful to have a distinct term for the later Eastern Roman Empire because it has different circumstances and qualities.
@@baneofbanes No I'm just answering your points. :) You're misreading the tone and purpose of what I'm saying. Nobody's being victimised. I'm just standing up for the rightness of identifying that empire as Byzantine.
It’s true that the inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire called themselves Romans, but the Western Europeans of the time called them Greeks. And we call them Greeks before and after the Byzantine Empire, so why should they change name in this era, since the ethnic group is the same one?
Roman institutions continued past 476. Odoacer was considered subordinated to the Eastern Roman Emperor despite having deposed Romulus Augustulus Caesar on August 24, 476 A.D. this subordination was the same in ceremony. legality and in application as that of Romulus Augustulus. Odoacer, however, was of Germanic blood. However, a number of North African Roman Emperors such as Caracalla and Septimus Severes, a Thracian Roman Emperor Maxentius Thrax, and other non-Italians had severed as Emperors through much of its history. Theodosius rebuilt much of Roman institutions and buildings and usurped Odoacer but was subordinate to the Eastern Roman Emperor. Justinian falsely charged Theodoric with non-subjugation to him and invaded Italy to establish his own power, even as late as the early seventh century the Eastern Emperor directly ruled the city of Rome and its enclaves, several other small areas in Italy and officially ruled the Germanic Lombard commander of the rest of Italy (but weakly). A portion of the political entity of the Roman empire remained after 1453 until 1479. The Holy Roman Empire of 800 was revived in a new but different incarnation under Otto I in 952. This was later correctly described by Descartes as neither Holy, Roman, or an empire) but rather a loose confederation of over 1000 polities). I therefore do not count the Holy Roman Empire that was dissolved after the defeat of Austria by Napoleon who forced the Holy Roman Emperor to step down and denounce his own divine right to rule given him by a Papal legate, so that Napolean whose rule was legitimized when a Pope handed him a crown which he then placed on his head in 1804 would be the only Holy emperor in Europe.
You make some excellent points. I'm less ready to dismiss the medieval Holy Roman Empire than most others are, but I realize that's a minority position.
By the time of Napoleon, HRE = Germany. No?
@@sriharshacv7760 Yes, pretty much. A bigger Germany that included Austria.
1. It wasn't Descartes who said that, and even if it was, I don't know what authority he would have to determine what's "holy" and what is not; concurrently, I don't know what authority you think you have on this matter.
2. The so called HRE of Otto I was exactly the same title as bestowed upon Charlemagne in 800, that is, of "Emperor of the Romans". Why does it matter? It matters because such title was bestowed upon them by the sole and legitimate ruler of Rome herself, the Pope, who had the full authority to designate who he saw fit as roman emperor. That is something the greek "roman" empire could never hope to possess after Justinian, nor any other claimant to the legacy of Rome.
Descartes did say the Empire was neither Holy, Roman,or an Empire. The loose Confederation of 1,000 polities is my issue. 7 electors (later briefly changed to 8) elected the empire. Upon Papal approval, the Pope sent legalese to coronation the new emperors, who then ruled for life. However,rule is loose. They could not impose taxation. If the new Emperor was also a king, Duke, or other nobleman he could continue to tax his own polity. Without the legal right impose uniform taxation over the empire and with powerful noblemen retaining their own armies emperors often faced resistance to conflicting interested parties that could not be overcome. The Pope was sometimes ignored in terms of political matters. As such, the Pope could not effectively administer Co trol,nor could the Emperor. The only moments of adherance to their wills was when such adherence lined up to the policies the most powerful noblemen in the empire agreed with anyway.
The nephew of the last eastern emperor bequeathed the title of roman emperor to Ferdinand and Isabella, which would mean the roman empire never fell.
In your narrative the line of succession would be the HRE anyhow, because Philip II was king, not
"emperor". King of many kingdoms, duchies, counties and colonies but not at all "emperor", his German uncle was instead. In any case the Habsburgs fell everywhere and the HRE was disbanded.
It is clear that it is obscure...
I missed the part where the 'Rome' of "When was the fall of Rome" somehow became 'Constantinople'. The most obvious reason for the 476 date, not even mentioned, also what was not mentioned was the 1204 date.
Except in 476 Rome was not the capital.
I guess another way to pose the question is, "at what point did the city of Rome itself stop exerting it's influence on the world around it and start being influenced by other powers?"
The problem is that the city of Rome declined in importance even while the Empire was still going strong.
Good point!
Byzantium is a slur, actually.
1453. is the answer.
Unfortunately no one took the Turks seriously 😉
There is a case to be made that the Roman Empire didn’t fall in 1453. Mehmed called himself Caesar of Rome.
Sure: as for post-Latin claimants go he definitely has the best claim to be the last emperor, much like Pu Yi in China.
@@LuisAldamiz Yeah no, the Spanish can't conquer central America and and claim to be continuing the Aztec Empire.
@@thanos7753 - What?! They didn't. They couldn't care less about the American realms. However the Ottomans did claim to be the rightful Roman Emperors by right of conquest, largely because that was the Roman tradition: might makes right, especially in terms of claiming the imperial crown. Emperor (imperator = victor, conqueror) = military dictator, nothing else.
Lore of Rome didn't fall when you think it did momentum 100
476 makes the most sense. Western Rome was Rome. Western Rome was ruled from Rome. When the city of Rome itself fell, the empire was no more. The Byzantine claim is a creative after-the-fact recounting of the legacy of Rome. Really, they are the bastard child of Rome. Similarly, the HRE is an after-the-fact recreation of Roman Empire. Just because some Pope decided to crown Charles as the Emperor of Rome, that doesn't make him the emperor of the original empire. Popes were not the emperors of Rome; they could only provide religious and cultural legitimization of the actual emperors of Rome. The actual legal claim to empire belongs to the original Emperor, who was deposed in 476. They are three separate Romes. As such, they are not equivalent to each other in any sense. They merely share the name of the original to legitimize their own power.
what charlie chaplin film was the background footage from?
I don't have the files handy but IIRC it was The Adventurer, from 1917.
@@premodernist_history thank you for telling me the name of the film!
@@rockbullet3699 No problem!
i'd say that the question 'when did rome fall' is more a question of shift from classical to medieval life styles
for this reason, i'd say 476 comes the closest since the eastern roman empire was quite the different beast, despite calling themselves romans
That's a legitimate point of view. Another date that is often used is 610 or thereabouts, to mark the transition from "Eastern Roman" to "Byzantine" (a distinction that people at the time did not make, of course).
There was no shift from classical to medieval "life style".
People didn't go to bed in their villa one night to wake up in a castle the next day.
@@remilenoir1271 i never said that it was an overnight shift from classical to medieval
@@pauliusiv6169 You're right.
What I meant to say is that there was no shift in the sense of a sudden change, where you could pinpoint and say "here the empire ceased".
A case can be made for Diocletian's rule: he almost single-hadedly kickstarted the Middle Ages (with some help from his successor Constantine).
476 is a date that WE have decided that the west part "fell". 1453 is not up for debate though. Also, when the city of Rome "fell" it wasn't even the capital of the Roman Empire at that time. It had been changed to Constantinople(or the New Rome) since the early 300's. I despise the term "Byzantine" because it was invented long after it's fall. For me there are only two categories: Pagan Roman Empire and Christian Roman empire. And I am a fan of the first. Christianity was one of the main reasons that the empire fell in 1453(even though it fell in 1204 really...by our "fellow" Cristian Crudaders). Greetings from Greece!
What about 1204 AD? Roman Empire fell as a result of the Fourth Crusade. A new Roman Empire ruled by a different dynasty appeared 70 years later. Different rulers 70 years later? If the US was suddenly renamed the Roman Empire by a congressional act and signed into law by the president would that count top?