#I'm going to make this unrebloggable btw because my idea of hell is accidentally becoming a tumblr historian

[bedlamsbard]

Ok I am genuinely and independently curious about your opinions on the fall of Rome, but I do understand it not being the time, so answer this how you best see fit to not cause fuckshit

see, the thing is that I am immune to discourse about the fall of Rome because 99% of online comparisons to ~the fall of the Roman Empire just have a very culturally osmosed idea of Edward Gibbon's decline and fall and no idea what actually happened in the late 5th/early 6th centuries, and the thing I do professionally is The End of the Western Roman Empire. that is not an exaggeration. that's what my doctoral dissertation is on. (actually, technically it's about failures of Roman identity in specific regions of the (former) Western Roman Empire, but basically the End of the Western Roman Empire.) I have spent the bulk of the past ten years thinking extensively about the End of the Western Roman Empire. It is a safe bet that I know every major argument of scholarly discourse on the End of the Western Roman Empire. I have also read the original sources in the original languages. this is just to say that like. I have a lot of opinions about the end of the Western Roman Empire, and they digress pretty significantly even from common scholarly view, let alone popular opinion. (but I can back them up! I'm not sourcing stuff here, but I can.)

the traditional end date for the end of the Western Roman Empire is 476 CE, the year the emperor Romulus Augustulus was removed from the throne by a so-called barbarian usurper named Odoacer. after that, there were no other Western Roman Emperors and Italy was ruled by barbarian kings until the foundation of the Exarchate as a result of the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian's invasion. Odoacer was, by the way, a Roman military officer and a citizen. Romulus Augustulus was fourteen years old and had been on the throne the year previously but his father and uncle, both of whom Odoacer killed. oh, by the way, the preceding emperor? yeah, Romulus Augustulus's dad didn't actually kill him. his name was Julius Nepos, and he did get chased out of Italy. he went to his native Dalmatia (modern Croatia) and wrote angry but pleading letters to his relative by marriage, the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Emperor Zeno, who was a little busy at the time because he had just been chased out of Constantinople by a usurper named Basiliscus. By the time Zeno succeeded in retaking Constantinople and knocking Basiliscus off, Odoacer was safely seated in Ravenna (the city of Rome had ceased to be the imperial capital some time earlier) and had 14-year-old Romulus Augustulus and the Roman Senate (still in the city of Rome) writing letters to Zeno on his behalf. Romulus and the Senate both said, essentially, hey, why don't YOU (Zeno) be the first emperor to control both halves of the empire for the first time in centuries and Odoacer can just be king in Italy, basically a governor, but it's YOUR empire.

(by the way, Romulus Augustulus was fine. he was quietly retired to a villa in Campania with his mother, we actually have letters to him from years later.)

the Italian legation seems to have arrived in Constantinople at the same time as the Julius Nepos's Dalmatian legation, which said, "hey, cousin, congrats on getting the throne back, funny story! I have the same problem. could you maybe help me out here?"

the problem is that Zeno, having just finished fighting a major civil war that almost succeeded, did not have any resources to help Nepos, and also everyone in the Eastern Roman Empire hated him (Zeno) a lot. so much. what he ends up doing is writing a strongly-worded letter to Odoacer thanking him for the offer but reminding him that he HAS a Western Roman Emperor already! right now! don't forget!

so true, bestie, Odoacer says to Zeno, and then proceeds to ignore Nepos for the next four years -- except. he continues to put Nepos on his coins. he continues to put Zeno on his coins. as far as the Roman senate and the population of Italy is concerned, they are still part of the Roman res publica. they are very clear on this fact. so are our Eastern Roman writers, interestingly, though the situation with the West is kind of tense, but Zeno is busy with like. six other civil wars. (because everyone hates him). so he can't actually do anything about the Odoacer and Nepos situation. Nepos dies in 480 (assassinated by his own nobles) and even though Odoacer springs up all "I WILL AVENGE YOUR DEATH, MY BELOVED EMPEROR" and conquers Dalmatia, this actually just makes the situation with the East worse because now there's not even the illusion of a Western Roman Emperor, but Zeno is busy having his five hundredth civil war so he can't do anything about it. (it's actually not his fault, there were numerous factors going on in the East, only some of which were that everyone hated Zeno for being essentially an outsider. his mother-in-law and his wife also hated him.)

eventually, however, Zeno manages to kill all of his problem noblemen and attempted usurpers except one guy and goes, huh, you know what. I would like you to get out of the Eastern Roman Empire but you're actually very competent so I can't beat you militarily. also would you please stop marching on Constantinople, that would be great.

that one guy is Theoderic the Great, King of the Ostrogoths. he was also a Roman citizen (Flavius Theodericus), a patrician, Zeno's son-in-arms (we're not actually sure what this entails), and a former consul, THE most prestigious office in both sides of the empire, with a host of Roman civil and military honors. he'd been raised in the court at Constantinople as a political hostage, which meant he knew the imperial system inside and out, and upon being released immediately went back to the Ostrogoths, raised an army, and started conquering things, both for and against the Eastern Romans. he had been on Zeno's side, he had been fighting Zeno, he had been on Zeno's side again, he had been fighting Zeno again, he was NOT responsible for the death of the other Gothic Theoderic, Theoderic Strabo (who once called him out for being too Roman), who died accidentally, but he was probably responsible for the death of Strabo's heir, which resulted in all of Strabo's Goths joining Theoderic's Goths. he marched on the walls of Constantinople. peak frienemy.

it's unclear if sending Theoderic and the Ostrogoths to Italy was Zeno's idea or Theoderic's, since sources differ, but one way or another Theoderic gathered up all of the Ostrogoths (men, women, and children) and set out on an overland trek to Italy, picking up various other barbarian peoples along the way, and arrived in Italy in 489, where he immediately set about making Odoacer's life a nightmare by conquering everything in Italy except Ravenna, where Odoacer holes up with his family. in 493 the bishop of Ravenna negotiates a truce between Theoderic and Odoacer, the two of them agreeing to rule Italy between them, and then Theoderic personally kills Odoacer and also has the rest of his family killed, leaving him as king of Italy -- rex Italiae.

or...what? we do know for sure that Theoderic used the title rex Italiae. he also used the titles princeps, imperator, and dominus. we even have one stone inscription, set up by a Roman senator (who ought to know) calling him augustus (emperor). what we don't know -- and scholarly ideas differ here -- is what Theoderic's actual legal relationship vis a vis the Eastern Roman Empire was because to all intents and purposes, for the next thirty years, Theoderic acted like, was treated like, and performed as the Western Roman Emperor, without ever explicitly claiming that title. but everything about his reign was centered around performing Romanness perfectly and about restoring territory to the WRE that had been lost decades earlier. which he did. he brought portions of Gaul and Spain and the Balkans under Italian rule again. he bragged about seating Gallic senators in the Roman senate for the first time in decades. every letter to he sent to the East was "okay, you're emperor, but I'm as good as you and don't you forget it, we're still the other republic (utraeque res publicae)." he went on what was essentially a triumph in Rome itself. he did the whole bread and circuses shindig. (literally, he reinstituted the annona, the grain dole, and held gladiatorial games even though he personally didn't like them.) most of the popes liked him and were happy to work with him (because they hated the patriarch in Constantinople and the various Eastern Roman Emperors). (I say most of because he definitely interfered with a couple of papal elections and may have had one pope killed.)

now, he wasn't a perfect Roman, because he was still a barbarian (non-Roman) king. there were legal distinctions between Romans and Ostrogoths in Italy. Theoderic made marriage alliances with most of his surrounding barbarian neighbors (who also all ruled former Roman territory); he wasn't a Nicene (Catholic) Christian, he was an Arian (Homoian) Christian. but he acted as a Roman emperor and seems to have been perceived as one by the bulk of the inhabitants of Italy. (yes, of course he had political enemies, yes I know about Boethius and Symmachus). also sometimes he did fight the Eastern Roman Empire but considering how many civil wars Rome had had that's basically one of the most Roman things he could do.

he dies in 525, without an adult male heir, and his grandson Athalaric becomes king under the regency of his mother, Theoderic's daughter Amalasuintha, who was essentially too Roman for most of the Ostrogothic nobility but made the Roman senate really happy. she was apparently pretty close to being a political genius, she was just unfortunately a woman. an unmarried woman. (Athalaric's father had died at some indeterminate point before Theoderic's death, we don't know when.) when Athalaric died before gaining his majority, Amalasuintha briefly reigned as sole ruler, then realized that that wasn't going to work with the Ostrogoths, and named her cousin Theodahad her co-ruler. (she did not marry him, anyone who tells you she married him is wrong. Theodahad was already married.) this backfired very badly. Theodahad had her arrested, imprisoned, and murdered.

this was a huge mistake, because Theodahad was actually incredibly incompetent, and the Eastern Roman Empire was out the lookout for blood since the Emperor Justinian was on his high horse about ~reconquering the Roman West.

and this is when the "the Roman Empire fell in 476" narrative enters the picture. it comes from an Eastern Roman Latin writer names Marcellinus comes, writing during Justinian's reign, and he is the very first person who points to that date, to the usurpation of Romulus Augustulus (who was never acknowledged by Zeno), and to Odoacer as a big, BIG change in the Roman world. previously there is no evidence that anyone in either West or East looked at 476 and thought "something fundamental has changed here." (I mean, maybe they did, but they didn't write it down or if they did it didn't survive.) in fact, Odoacer's and Theoderic's reigns were the most stable period Italy had had in decades; they'd gone through five emperors in ten years. Procopius, writing the Wars, also identifies Romulus Augustulus as the last emperor and Odoacer and Theoderic as illegitimate rulers, but the man is very much writing propaganda. (just because the Secret History hates women and also Justinian does not mean the Wars is not propaganda.) the East has a vested reason for identifying 476 and Romulus as a sea change: they want a legitimate reason to invade the West, and "avenging Amalasuintha" and "reclaiming Rome from the barbarians" are good excuses.

(Procopius really struggles with how to identify Theoderic, because he has to identify Theoderic as a usurper and a tyrant (in the technical ancient sense, not the modern one) for his propaganda to work, but even to him Theoderic is a good ruler, who could have been an emperor but never claimed the title, who held all these Roman honors, etc. there's even a big debate about Theoderic's legal status vis a vis the Eastern Roman Empire in the Wars, so it's clear that it was unclear.)

Theodahad fucks everything up, is murdered by the Goths, and the Goths name a man called Witigis as king. to legitimize this, Witigis (apparently forcibly) marries Amalasuintha's daughter (Theoderic's granddaughter) Matasuintha. too late, the Eastern Roman Empire has already invaded and they aren't stopping for shit. in 535, Ravenna falls, and the remains of the Ostrogothic court (which include a lot of Italo-Roman civil officials) are transported to Constantinople.

THAT'S the end of the Western Roman Empire, the fall of the Ostrogothic Amal dynasty.

the Gothic Wars continue for another twenty years, the Eastern Romans fuck up Italy almost irreparably (there are arguments that the repercussions were still echoing in the 20th century), and then the Lombards invade and make everything worse, but at that point there's no more Western Roman Empire, even if the Roman Senate's still around (and they are until what seems to be the early 7th century).

so basically, I feel very strongly that if anyone says they know anything about the fall of Rome, they almost certainly do not. it's not actually an equivalent situation to the modern U.S. or tbh anyone else. the 476 year is nice, it's convenient, you get the romance of Romulus Augustulus's name ("little augustus," named after the legendary founder of Rome Romulus), but it was not for more than fifty years that anyone actually decided that year was important. the situation was way, way more complicated.