Early Middle Ages

What year did the Western Roman Empire fall?

The Western Roman Empire fell in 476, when Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus, but the collapse was a process, not a single event.

Question & answer

Short answer

The Western Roman Empire is conventionally said to have fallen in 476 CE, when the Germanic chieftain Odoacer deposed the emperor Romulus Augustulus in Ravenna. There had been no emperor in the West for several years, but the formal abolition of the office and the sending of the imperial regalia to Constantinople marked the symbolic end of the ancient Roman state in the West.

A longer answer

The year 476 is the conventional date, but the fall of the Western Roman Empire was a long process, not a single event. To understand the fall, it is helpful to look at the major turning points of the late fourth and fifth centuries.

The crisis begins: 376–410

The collapse of the Western Roman Empire is usually dated to the decades on either side of 400. In 376, the Visigoths crossed the Danube into Roman territory, fleeing the Huns, and within two years they had defeated and killed the emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople. This was the first major shock.

In 410, the Visigoths under Alaric sacked the city of Rome itself, an event that had not occurred in eight centuries. Although the physical damage was less than later tradition suggested, the psychological impact was enormous. The Christian thinker Saint Augustine began his great work The City of God in response to the sack.

The Vandal kingdom: 439

In 439, the Vandals under Geiseric captured Carthage, the richest city in the western Mediterranean. The loss of the African provinces deprived the Western Empire of much of its grain supply and tax revenue. The Vandals also became a major naval power, raiding Roman shipping and even sacking Rome itself in 455.

The end: 476

The final act came on September 4, 476, when Odoacer, a Germanic chieftain of Scirian origin, deposed the young emperor Romulus Augustulus in Ravenna. Odoacer spared the young emperor’s life and sent the imperial regalia, the diadem and the purple robe, to the eastern emperor Zeno, with the message that the West no longer required its own emperor. Zeno, in a complicated political maneuver, eventually granted Odoacer the title of king of Italy.

The story of this last emperor is told in the Who was the last Roman emperor?, and the biography of Odoacer in the Who was Odoacer?. The wider context is in the The Last Western Emperors.

Why 476 is the conventional date

Historians have chosen 476 as the conventional end point of the Western Roman Empire for several reasons. First, the abolition of the western emperorship was a constitutional event of the first order. The Roman Empire had existed continuously since 27 BC, and the very idea of the imperium Romanum had been central to Roman political thought. Second, the title of Roman emperor was not claimed by another western ruler until Charlemagne’s coronation in 800, more than three centuries later. Third, the date is convenient: a single year, easily remembered, that allows for a clear before-and-after.

It is worth noting, however, that contemporaries in 476 did not necessarily see the event as a major break. Odoacer ruled Italy as a subordinate king, recognized the eastern emperor, kept Roman administration in place, and continued to use Roman law. The Roman senate continued to function. Many historians now prefer to describe the fall as a long, gradual process, with major shocks at 376, 410, 439, 455, and 476, and a slow transformation from Roman to post-Roman civilization stretching into the seventh century and beyond.

Could another date be used?

Several other dates have been proposed as the “real” end of the Western Roman Empire:

  • 410: The sack of Rome by Alaric, the first time the city had fallen to a foreign enemy in eight centuries.
  • 455: The Vandal sack of Rome, which was more thorough and destructive than the Visigothic sack of 410.
  • 476: The deposition of Romulus Augustulus, the conventional date.
  • 480: The death of the legitimate western emperor Julius Nepos, who had been deposed by his own general in 475 but was still recognized by the eastern Empire. With Nepos’s death, the western imperial line was finally extinct.
  • 568: The Lombard invasion of Italy, which broke the fragile recovery that the eastern Empire had established under Justinian.
  • 711: The Muslim conquest of Spain, which destroyed the Visigothic kingdom and ended Roman-Christian rule in most of Iberia.
  • 800: The coronation of Charlemagne, when the western imperial title was revived for the first time in more than three centuries.

Each of these dates captures a different aspect of the long process. The fall of the Western Roman Empire was, in the famous phrase of the historian Joseph Tainter, a “collapse by complexity,” in which a complex political, economic, and military system broke down under the weight of its own problems.

Conclusion

The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 CE, but the fall was a process, not an event. The major shocks came in 376, 410, 439, 455, and 476, and the long aftermath stretched into the seventh century. For a detailed timeline, see the Timeline and Key Dates of the Early Middle Ages.