payment page
Attila the Hun
As the Vandals descended upon North Africa, the Huns descended upon Rome. In previous centuries, Hunnic hordes recognized no united political leadership, but by the 420s CE, Rugila emerged as their ruler. He began to steeply increase the tribute Constantinople had to pay as ransom for peace in the East. In 433 CE, under the rule of Rugila’s successor, Attila, this tribute was doubled to 700 yearly Roman pounds of gold among other demands. Extortion continued to 441 CE, when Attila took a mixed Hun-German army over the Danube. Ravaging valuable agricultural lands, he withdrew only after increasing tribute to 21,000 Roman pounds of gold. Six years later, he returned, pillaging Balkan and Thracian cities and demanding imperial evacuation from land south of the Danube. In 450 CE, the new Eastern Emperor, Marcian, (reigned 450-457 CE) refused to pay further tribute.
Atilla, though angered, had other matters on his mind. Valentinian III’s sister, Honoria, had sent Attila a plea for help in rejecting her father's command to marry an aged senator, which he took as a marriage proposal. In 451 CE, he came West for his bride, demanding a dowry of the western half of the empire. Aetius, who had heretofore relied on Huns to rein in Germans, was forced to change course and turn to the Germanic tribes for soldiers. In 451 CE, at the Battle of Catalaunian Plains, Aetius and Theodoric (who died during the battle) defeated Attila, largely due to the aid of the Visigoths. Undeterred, Attila returned the next year to plunder the Po River Valley and Northern Italy but withdrew without proceeding to Rome. The Huns would not trouble Rome for much longer, as Attila died in 453 CE, and, taking advantage of the political vacuum he left behind, Hun-controlled Germans revolted, marking the end of the Huns’ influence on Europe.
The Puppet Emperors (455 CE)
Feeling he no longer needed Aetius and resenting his closeness to the Huns, Valentinian III had his Master of Soldiers killed, then was killed himself in 455 CE by Aetius's retinue. That same year, the North African Vandal leader Gaiseric sent a pirate fleet up the Tiber River, sacking Rome and plundering it heavily for 14 days.
The next 21 years were the practical end of the Roman state and saw a series of Germanic generals who controlled puppet Western emperors, and through those emperors cared only for Italy and, at times, North Africa. One general, Ricimer, held the greatest influence over the declining Wester Empire. He defeated the Vandals at sea in 456 CE, but failed to regain Africa in 460 CE. Over time, Ricimer began to favor peace with the Vandals rather than war, and succeeded in this endeavor, shortly before his own death in 472 CE, by installing as emperor Gaeseric’s brother-in-law.
The King of Italy
In 472 CE, the only areas still under imperial control were Italy and Southeastern France. Southwest France was Visigothic, while South-Central France was Burgundian. Ricimer's successor as Master of Soldiers, Orestes, made his own son Emperor Romulus Augustulus in 475 CE, but they were both overthrown in 476 CE by the Germanic-Roman general Odoacar. He notified the Eastern Emperor Zeno that there was no need to appoint a Western Emperor, as Odoacar himself would rule the West as Zeno's agent, and, as it turned out, as the king of Italy. Thus was sealed the official end of the Western Roman state.
Zeno seemed to acquiesce to Odoacer, at first, but eventually, in 488 CE, sent Theodoric the Ostrogoth to depose him. Theodoric succeeded in 493 CE and killed Odoacer, then declared himself Italy’s new king. As had countless Germanic rulers before him, Theodoric presented himself as a Roman official, and, in truth, ruled over much of the land that once belonged to the Western Empire, including the Burgundian and Visigothic kingdoms. His realms gave form to the first post-Roman, Medieval order, soon to be joined by the Franks in the 520s CE.
Why Did the Roman Empire Fall?
The Western Empire died a slow, painful death, ill-befitting the Empire that had once encompassed the Mediterranean. The question, then, is why? There are countless reasons why Rome could have fallen, but there is no single answer that completely explains what happened. Rather, it was a combination of factors that slowly strangled the Empire, but historians disagree as to what exactly those factors are, and furthermore, how much each actually impacted Rome’s decline.
Rome was plagued by many issues in its final decades and centuries. There was a distinct lack of political cohesion and a string of weak emperors, many of whom were more interested in war than governing a bloated Empire that was long past its glory days. Some point to the notion that the city-state, what Rome was originally founded as, was the basis of civilization in Antiquity, but this was no longer the case in the Common Era. Others blame the distinctly non-Roman character of its later rulers, the influence of Christianity, and even how the classical Roman ideal of the limitless abilities of human reason cannot from the basis of a government.
Two final explanations are worth considering. According to one, Rome’s weakness was its lack of true cultural unification surrounding Mediterranean. True Roman culture never really expanded beyond Italy, other coastal areas, and parts of Gaul. Even if it had, however, not everyone was willing nor wanted to buy into it. As the Empire faced challenge after challenge during the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries CE, older identities reasserted themselves, and regional loyalty to Rome disappeared. The other argument holds that, after the reign of Diocletian, the Roman state had simply become such an unsupportable burden to its citizens that not only could the system not continue, but it also became unable to inspire any sort of allegiance to it. In the end, a state and society that had met innumerable challenges since the 4th century BCE with ingenuity and governmental change had become too brittle by the 4th and 5th centuries CE to respond to new challenges realistically or dynamically.
The Remnants of Rome
Finally, what remained of Rome? While that is in many ways a central question of Medieval history at least until 1000 CE, even in the 6th century CE, we can find traces. All successor states to Rome, particularly the more Romanized Ostrogothic, Visigothic, and Burgundian realms, preserved Roman forms, parlance, and administration as well as they could. The Franks, who had been much farther from Roman cultural influence, were less able to do this, but the survival of the title “Holy Roman Emperor” shows a desire to maintain the link.
Of course, the “holy” aspect of this title suggests another Roman continuance: the Church. Beginning in Roman times, developed by the state, possessing regional divisions based on those of the defunct empire, and preserving its language and ethos, the Church was the sole institution through which the spirit of Rome could live on. Thus, in the West, an institution nurtured by the Roman state was able to preserve some aspects of that disappeared-state’s character. The living Church existed and evolved into the Middle Ages, while the geographical and philosophical architecture that Rome had built continued to influence the development of Medieval Europe, even if the Roman Empire itself was dead.
