How Did the Roman Empire Fall - and Did It Really End?

After the Roman general Stilicho died, the Visigoth king Alaric attacked and captured Rome in the year 410 CE. This was a huge shock — Rome had been the powerful center of the empire for centuries. The city was looted (this is called a sack), and this marked the start of a big change: the Western Roman Empire was beginning to fall apart and become ruled by barbarian groups.

From around 410 to 472, the Western and Eastern parts of the Roman Empire started going down different paths. In the West, the emperor Honorius (who died in 423) was very weak. During this time, a man named Constantius gained power and briefly became Constantius III in 421.

After that, Valentinian III ruled from 425 to 455, but he was not very strong either. The real power was held by a top general named Aetius, who had to deal with enemies like Boniface, a Roman in Africa, and Attila the Hun, who invaded but was defeated in 451 at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (also called Campus Mauriacus).

Still, the Western Roman government was unstable. Different barbarian groups settled in its lands: the Visigoths moved to Aquitaine, the Franks and Burgundians took parts of Gaul, and the Vandals, Alani, and Suebi spread into other regions. From 457 to 472, a Suebi warrior named Ricimer controlled the West as a powerful general, even though he wasn't officially emperor.

In the Eastern Roman Empire, things were a bit better. Under Emperor Theodosius II (ruled 408–450), the empire stayed more stable, thanks to the efforts of Anthemius, a top official. This is when the Code of Theodosius was written — a big collection of Roman laws.

But even the East had problems. In 415, a pagan philosopher named Hypatia was murdered by a Christian mob in Alexandria. Religious arguments caused tension too, like the Monophysite dispute, and at the Council of Ephesus in 431, a Christian belief called Nestorianism was officially rejected.

Between 450 and 471, the East also faced military control by a powerful general — this time it was Aspar, who was from the Alani, another barbarian group.

Then came two big events that showed the West was falling apart. In 475, a Roman officer named Orestes (who once worked for Attila the Hun) kicked out the emperor Julius Nepos and made his own young son Romulus Augustulus emperor.

But soon after, in 476, a barbarian leader named Odoacer — who led the Heruli and also knew Attila — took over. When the Eastern emperor refused to recognize him as a Roman ally (a federate), Odoacer got rid of Romulus Augustulus and sent the emperor's crown and robes back to Constantinople (the Eastern capital). Odoacer then ruled Italy, Sicily, and Dalmatia as "king of the barbarian peoples."

Later, in 488, the Eastern emperor Zeno sent another barbarian — Theodoric the Ostrogoth — to defeat Odoacer. Theodoric killed Odoacer in 493 and took control of Italy himself. From then on, the Western Roman Empire was no longer Roman — it was in the hands of barbarian kings.

But this wasn’t the end of the Roman world. In the East, the Byzantine Empire (the new form of the Roman Empire) continued and lasted until 1453. In the West, the idea of being an emperor stayed alive. This is shown by the creation of the Holy Roman Empire in Germany, and the continued use of the title Caesar — in Russia as Tsar (until 1917), in Germany as Kaiser (until 1918), and in Bulgaria (until 1946).

Even today, much of what we call the Western world comes from the Roman Empire — especially through the Renaissance, which brought Roman ideas back to life. Many languages we speak come from Latin, and even English has a lot of Latin in it. Christianity, which started in the Roman world, is still a major world religion.

So in a way, even though the Roman Empire ended, Rome still lives on in our culture, laws, religion, languages, and ideas.