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The fall of the Western Roman Empire, also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome, was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vast territory was divided among several successor polities.
Romulus Augustus was deposed as Western Roman Emperor in 476 while still young. However, Julius Nepos continued to claim the title of Western Emperor after his deposition. The decline of the Roman Empire is one of the traditional markers of the end of Classical Antiquity and the beginning of the European Middle Ages.
[2] [1] Montesquieu states that the Sack of Rome and downfall of the Western Roman Empire irreparably destabilized the region. He also concludes that the rise of Christianity and the desire of the citizenry for the opulence of Rome's most prosperous period directly precipitated the fall of the Greek Empire (Eastern Empire).
This led to the debasement of currency and a breakdown in both trade networks and economic productivity, with the Plague of Cyprian contributing to the disorder. Roman armies became more reliant over time on the growing influence of the barbarian mercenaries known as foederati. Roman commanders in the field, although nominally loyal to the ...
The Migration Period, involving large invasions by Germanic peoples and by the Huns of Attila, led to the decline of the Western Roman Empire. With the fall of Ravenna to the Germanic Herulians and the deposition of Romulus Augustus in 476 by Odoacer, the Western Empire finally collapsed.
The rise of the barbarian kingdoms in the territory previously governed by the Western Roman Empire was a gradual, complex, and largely unintentional process. [11] Their origin can ultimately be traced to the migrations of large numbers of barbarian (i.e. non-Roman) peoples into the territory of the Roman Empire.
In the view of the Greek historian Cassius Dio, a contemporary observer, the accession of the emperor Commodus in AD 180 marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron" [9] —a famous comment which has led some historians, notably Edward Gibbon, to take Commodus' reign as the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire.
The six volumes cover, from 98 to 1590, the peak of the Roman Empire, the history of early Christianity and its emergence as the Roman state religion, the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the rise of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane and the fall of Byzantium, as well as discussions on the ruins of Ancient Rome.