Did the Roman Empire really collapse?

Scráib

I was looking at a few history articles about this, and from what I can understand there's no date where people can definitively say 'This is when the Romans fell'.

From what I've read (on Wikipedia I'll readily admit) the Roman Empire, such as it was, started to collapse and eventually changed so much that the Romans eventually were gone leaving a load of people sitting around thinking 'Hey, where did they go?'

I have a theory that since the Roman Empire eventually changed to 'The Holy Roman Empire' i.e. Christianity, then the last vestiges of the Roman Empire today could be seen to be Vatican City.

Am I mad? Is there other historical fact that might completely disprove my theory?

mikhail

I don't know that it's fair to say it became the Holy Roman Empire. Rome had lost most of its lands and been conquered long before then, and the HRE was essentially a German nation. There's no definitive date though - no one ever marched into Rome, declared the Empire at an end and smashed the system of government there. It just sort of fizzled out after it abandoned Britain, lost much of France, Spain and Germany and suffered various uprisings. At some point, you just have to call it Italy, or you could pretty much call modern Italy the Roman Empire.

baalthor

That's the Western Roman empire, the Eastern one in Constantinople lasted until 1453.

Dacian

What was called the Holy Roman Empire was in actual fact the 1st German Reich. It tried to give itself greater legitimacy by taking the HRE title. Indeed Charlemagne was crowned emperor in Rome by the Pope. At this time people still looked back on the Roman Empire as the high point of European civilisation.

The Roman Empire sort of fizzled out after 400BC. It lost so much land and power in the West that the Eastern protion became dominant and decided to just abandon the West (France/Spain/Italy) They kept a toehold in the south of Italy and Sicily. The Byzantines still referred to themselves as Romans up to 1000AD. Of course the city was called Constantinople at the time. (Have played too much Medieval Total War!!)

I think the claiming of the throne by Alaric of the Goths (or Huns) is a handy date to mark as the end of the Empire. Up till then 'barbarian' chief used proxy emperors.

A great read on this period is Millenenium by Tom Holland.
Talks about the formation of the HRE, the growth of the Church as a dominant power in Europe and the struggle between the church vs the emerging nation states,

Coriolanus

Lars Brownsworth does a great free podcast on the Byzantine Empire just for anyone interested.

Feadpool

The Roman Empire continued until at least 1453 with the fall of constantinople and the death of the last emperor, after that things get a little fuzzy. The Holy Roman Empire really had nothing to do with the true empire it just used the name for some free respectability. The Spiritual empire of the Church could (and indeed did) claim to be the rightful successor to the secular empire, the church wrote at great lengths in the 400's about how they had surpassed the previous empire by bringing Christianity and the Roman way of life to Ireland, which the Armies of Rome never reached.

Then you have the Tzars of Russia who claimed from the 15th century on to be the legitimate successors of the Eastern Empire, and the Roman Imperial Eagle can still be found within many Eastern European family crests and royal insignia, such as the Coat-of-arms of the Russian Federation (representing Rome and Constantinople)

Culturally the Roman Empire is alive and well, Most European languages incorporate large elements of Latin, as well as common terms and phrases that have long entered the lexicon, the bases of our medical, legal and education systems are basically Roman (Or Greek, but spread by Rome), the Popularity of Christianity in all its forms has Rome to thank (or blame depending on your views).

ValJester

Scráib wrote: »

I was looking at a few history articles about this, and from what I can understand there's no date where people can definitively say 'This is when the Romans fell'.

From what I've read (on Wikipedia I'll readily admit) the Roman Empire, such as it was, started to collapse and eventually changed so much that the Romans eventually were gone leaving a load of people sitting around thinking 'Hey, where did they go?'

I have a theory that since the Roman Empire eventually changed to 'The Holy Roman Empire' i.e. Christianity, then the last vestiges of the Roman Empire today could be seen to be Vatican City.

Am I mad? Is there other historical fact that might completely disprove my theory?

The "Rome" in Holy Roman refers to the Catholic Church I'm afraid, and has nothing to do with Rome. It can be argued that East Rome became Byzantium upon the split between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, during which a distinctive idea of Byzantine as opposed to Roman emerges.

Rabble Rabble

ValJester wrote: »

The "Rome" in Holy Roman refers to the Catholic Church I'm afraid, and has nothing to do with Rome. It can be argued that East Rome became Byzantium upon the split between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, during which a distinctive idea of Byzantine as opposed to Roman emerges.

I doubt it. Roman Catholic is a phrase which comes into vogue much later, during the English Reformation, in opposition to Anglican Catholic. The Church at that time was called the Church, or the Latin Church, or just Catholic While the HRE had little to do with Rome, they claimed they did. The holy bit references Christianity, the Roman bit called succession to the Roman empire.

recedite

The Turks occasionally make claim to being the successors of Rome, as they have many artifacts and sites from the Byzantium/Eastern Roman Empire, which is where the centre of Roman civilisation shifted to when the west became overrun with "barbarians" (or freedom fighters?).
Turkic peoples actually came later from the steppes, so even though they then as now occupied the capital, Constantinople, the Byzantines, as the last Romans, can be considered extinct around that time.