What happened to the Roman empire in 476 CE?

Answer 1

The date usually given for the Fall of Rome is September 4, 476 AD, when Romulus Augustulus, who is described as the last emperor of the West Roman Empire, was deposed.

There are enough problems with this date that it can only be considered a convenient label where no other is much better. These include the following:

• Romulus Augustulus had never been recognized as emperor by Zeno, the Emperor of the East, as was required for him to be emperor. This meant that there was good reason to regard him as a usurper. He was, in fact, a puppet of his father, who was not legally qualified to be emperor and so attempted to put Romulus on the throne instead. He also never ruled, as he was too young to rule, and was deposed in less than a year, so he could hardly be considered to have successfully acquired the title.
• Emperor Julius Nepos, who had been emperor before Romulus, had been recognized as such and was clearly legally emperor. He had left Italy because of rebellions there, but he was still alive, and still claiming to be emperor of the West, until 480.
• The person who deposed Romulus Augustulus, Odoacar, had the Roman Senate ask Zeno to assume control as Emperor of the West and reunite the empire, which Zeno did. So the event called the fall of the empire was legalistically considered reunification at the time.
• The Senate of the Roman Empire continued to function in Italy until 603 AD, and possibly later, so clearly the government of Rome was still functioning for at least 127 years after it supposedly fell.
• With some exceptions, the people of the West Roman Empire still considered themselves to be within the Roman Empire.
• Roman law continued to function in many parts of the West until it was unified with Germanic laws. This was a process that took centuries.
• The Byzantine Empire, which was the East Roman Empire, technically reunited with the West, continued to operate until 1453, when it was destroyed by the Ottoman Turks. During this time it was always called the Roman Empire. The name Byzantine Empire did not appear until long after it fell, and was used because it was a convenient way of distinguishing it from the ancient Roman Empire, the Carolingian Empire, and the Holy Roman Empire, all of which were called the Roman Empire by at least someone.

There seems to be a consensus today that the fall of the Roman Empire was a process, rather than event, and that it took a very long time, decades to centuries.

There is a link to a related question below, at which there is a timeline for the decline and fall of Rome. There are also other links.

Answer 2

Nothing much in 476 BCE - they were getting over the invasion by the Gauls in 490 - it was recorded however as the year of the Cebsorship of Rutilius and Strucus, thoughthis is probably a later fabrication, as is most early 'Roman History'.

However in 479 CE the western part of the Roman Empire ceased to exist, the remaining part being the eastern part centred on Constantinople.

Answer 3

The term fall of Rome refers to the fall of the western part of the Roman Empire (the eastern part continued to exist for nearly 1,000 years). The fall of the western part of the Roman Empire was a process. Many factors contributed to this. The main one was the invasions by Germanic peoples (Vandals, Alans, Sueves and Burgundians). This part of the empire crumbled under the weight of these invasions. It lost political cohesion. There was a lot of infighting and a string of usurpations. The Romans were unable to respond to the invasions. Within some eighty years all the lands of this part of the empire were lost. Many historians think that prior to the fall of this part of the empire there was a decline of the Roman Empire as a whole.

Historians have set 476 as the conventional date for the fall of the western part of the Roman Empire. In this year, Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the western part of the Roman Empire, was deposed by Odoacer, a Germanic military commander of the Roman army who led a rebellion of Germanic soldiers who had been stationed in Italy by the Romans and had been refused a grant of land in Italy. Some historians dispute this convention

Answer 4

476 is the date given by historians as the end of the western part of the Roman Empire because it was the year of the deposition of Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the western part of the empire.

Romulus Augustus was deposed by Odoacer, a Germanic military leader who led a rebellion of Germanic soldiers enlisted by the Romans. Zeno, the emperor of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, sent Theodoric the Great, the king of the Ostrogoths (the Ostrogoths had been allowed to settle in the eastern part of the empire) to invade Italy on his behalf. Zeno wanted to get rid of Odoacer. The Ostrogoths ruled Italy and the area of the former Yugoslavia for 61 years.

It has to be noted that by 476 the western part of the Roman Empire had already lost all of its lands except for central Gaul and Italy to the Germanic invaders who had created their own kingdoms. The Vandals established a kingdom in northwestern Africa (in 435), the Visigoths established a kingdom in Spain (in 456, they were sent there by emperor Avitus) , the Burgundians created their kingdom in Burgundy and Savoy in eastern France (in 443), The Alemanni took over Alsace, in northwestern France and most of the Swiss plateau (in 406). Britain was taken over by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians. Ten years after Romulus Augustus' deposition, the Franks, who had been allowed to settle in Holland south of the river Rhine and in Belgium, took over the Roman possessions in central Gaul.

Not all historians agree with 476 as a date for the end of the western part of the Roman Empire. Some argue that the empire had already been lost as the only remaining Roman territory outside Italy (central Gaul) had broken away from Rome and the Romans had already lost political cohesion and there were many usurpations. They also point out that Romulus Augustus was a pupped emperor. He was an inexperienced 15 year old who had been appointed by his father who was a usurper and wielded the real power and who was deposed after only ten months. They argue that the empire fell before 476. Other historians think that the empire lasted longer than that because Theodoric the great wanted to revive the empire.

Answer 5

In 476 AD Rome fell to Barbarian general Odoacer, who deposed Romulus Augustulus, the six years old last Emperor of the Roman Western Empire