476 CE
The Fall of the Western Roman Empire
Rome · Italy · Political · Classical Antiquity
The story
No one in 476 believed Rome had fallen. Odoacer ruled Italy as a nominal subordinate of the emperor in Constantinople, taxes were collected, and the Senate continued to meet.
The date is a historian's convenience for a process that took two centuries: fiscal exhaustion, military federation, and the slow substitution of local power for imperial administration.
Numbers
503
years
1,000,000
people
Key figures
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