Rome's End: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

In this lecture, we examine Roman history from 235-476 CE, from the Third Century Crisis to the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
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[@CloudShepherd]

Whoa whoa whoa, dude. You can't just pump out three quality history videos in less than 12 hours.

[@theletterw3875]

If he dropped them on the ides it would have been S tier ballerism

[@wojackhistoriajedi3148]

You and guys like The Historian’s Craft are some of the the most underrated history channels on KZbin 💪🏼

[@danielchequer5842]

There's also Estoire. He's uploading a great courses plus course on the romans. Check that out bc it has some videos on roman culture/religion/art that are pretty interesting like the video on Cicero and another on roman literature. I'd advise you check it out before it gets taken down bc I don't thinl it will stay for long

[@christrumptastic3161]

This guy writes out way too much history and let's his tds into the narrative

[@andrewpestotnik5495]

The Histocrat is pretty good to

[@andrewpestotnik5495]

@@christrumptastic3161 he does research, he's clearly a professor or teacher at the very least

[@christrumptastic3161]

@@andrewpestotnik5495 if I paid for a class from him I would want a refund. Like I said months ago, he rewrites stuff he doesn't like or simply deletes it entirely. Emperor Majorian for example. But I will agree with your opinion of histocrat channel

[@decimusausoniusmagnus5719]

I just noticed there was no mention of the tragic hero, the last of the Romans, the noble soul, the last light before dark, the shield of civilisation, the man of the hour, the forlorn hope: Julius Valerius Majorianus the Great.

[@isaacshultz8128]

Are you from the domvs?

[@billychops1280]

I feel like Majorian should have been talked about in this vid

[@GoogleUserOne]

Can’t believe you dismiss stilicho. I think his most admirable trait was his grit when he had no reason to dedicate himself so. He could have been just like Alaric.

[@Clemeaux_]

Just when i needed more

[@OnlyInMelsele]

A very nice video. It's a shame that you didn't talk about Majorian, the last good Roman emperor. And Ricimer, the Magister Militum of Italia and last person who sacked Rome.

[@reidrobinson9724]

“Last good Roman Emperor” you failed to account for Justinian, Heraclius, or Constantine XI

[@reidrobinson9724]

Or Basil I, Basil II, Leo III

[@reidrobinson9724]

Michael VIII, Anastasius, Maurice, Romanos, Constantine VII

[@Miceman_Bonanza]

@@reidrobinson9724 AKA not the same empire

[@evzenvarga9707]

​@@Miceman_Bonanzathe same Empire.

[@dagothhyde7297]

I really enjoy your lectures man. They're very detailed and give a much clearer picture than other youtube channels or podcasts I've listened to.

[@michaelhasfel7]

"That sounds pretty cool!" - Odoacer I love you man! keep up the good work!

[@br9377]

I am extremely hungover right now and this is the perfect content to relax and listen to. Thank you. 🙏

[@Pepper462]

been waiting for this, great vid as always

[@kv1-781]

This channel is a gem

[@heitoroliveira2025]

Love How your redoing some topics you've alredy cover with better detail. Keep up the good work. Would love to see some han dynasty videos since you've been doing the 3 kingdoms rankings lately.

[@jacob_swaggerz]

I'd love to hear a full lecture on Elagabalus

[@TheAndertejker]

oh man, I know what I am going to listen to while working.

[@player101snoop]

Love the channel Thersites and I really enjoyed this series on Rome. I know you get non-stop requests for ideas/lectures but I would really appreciate a lecture on Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus. The Fabian strategy is still taught in military colleges 2000 years later (it is arguable that Ukraine is currently employing it) and your take/knowledge on the man would be very interesting to hear. Thanks again for this channel!

[@ThersitestheHistorian]

I will definitely cover him in the future.

[@bradenglass4753]

I've always loved the format of these videos, more strictly academic than mere entertainment like other big history channels. Definitely catered to other history majors, very cool

[@evzenvarga9707]

It's nice to have to some maps and animations and all, but he explains everything really well, that's the most important for me.

[@Muzzeo]

Love your lectures mate

[@pablolongobardi7240]

Great video as usual;

[@Arwcwb]

Really appreciate these videos

[@es.sanres3179]

Great video as allways

[@ericcloud1023]

Awesome presentation as always! I absolutely love your lectures, I wish you could be my professor, the ones I've had seem to be too dispassionate about the very subject they teach

[@ricky-sanchez]

Because your professors realize that alot of Roman history is a lie. Not just made up by the Romans themselves, but also by modern day scholars and historical societies. All they want is money and influence. They don't care about history.

[@ammaryohanan9584]

I like history and you are the best in this business

[@DimitrisAndreou]

I very much enjoy these lectures. Though they seem to be extremely light when it comes to economic changes. Eg the inflation of the era would be a fun and even relevant (sadly) topic to explore, in relation to the disintegration of the empire.

[@alekisighl7599]

Have you read the historical fiction series "Masters of Rome" by Colleen McCullough? It's an excellent and in my knowledge highly accurate, albeit dramatized, depiction of the fall of the Roman republic from 110 BC and Marius' rise to 27 BC and Augustus. Highly recommend, and would love to hear your thoughts on it if you do read it.

[@majorianus8055]

Love it. Too bad Colleen is no longer with us. She's thinking of writing more about Rome. Some of her depictions though are wrong, like she basically portray Caesar as some super human guy.

[@marksherrill9337]

Okay, makes sense. Thank you.

[@nonainai]

Aurelian is The Greatest Roman Emperor. Restitutor Orbit. “A man is judged by how well he responds to chaos, turmoil, problems”. Aurelian Rose when the need be, at the peak of turmoil and conquered.

[@erichtomanek4739]

An excellent video, well researched and presented. Looking at a map of the Roman Empire I thought, why divide it just East and West? When dividing it into 4, or just 2, didn't work, what about a third division, South? Africa, capital Carthage, could have been this division. Makes sense geographically, and perhaps leave Egypt to the Eastern Empire; have the border at Al Alamein. South, there's the big desert and nomad tribes to trade with. Defensible. Shh about the Garamantes! West, there's the remainder of the Atlas mountains, the Canary islands, the other Atlantic Ocean islands and.......... The lands were still fertile and a bread basket. I suppose if you needed good soil, after the Nile flood dropped all that lovely black silt, you could raid the delta and ship it back to the lands that could be improved by its addition.

[@celdur4635]

The west was assigned northern Africa to feed it's population. in many ways the west fell because it lost Carthage and it's cheap food imports

[@thomascatty379]

Mistake at 32:39 the battle of the Catalaunian Plains took place in 451 not 454

[@rursus8354]

_"To basically _*_make the gods great again"_* LOL!

[@JustinCage56]

"We will build a wall across Persia and make The Pope pay for it."

[@callumbush1]

Gone but never forgotten, for the glory of Rome!

[@lakedaimonios480bc]

Hello. I think that the Goths of Alaric did not Plunder Athens in particular but the port of pireas. In addition Peloponnese suffered greatly at those times. Moreover Athens had not remained intact until then. During the 3rd Century the Eruls, people of German origin that are believed to have come from the jutland peninsula invaded South Greece and plundered Athens burning her temples.

[@frozen1762]

I don't think this is something completely explainable. Something happened in relatively short period of time between death of Julian the Apostate and 406 because Julian was still waging offensive wars and some ~40y later west couldn't defend itself from invasions and started complete political and economic disintegration. Historians point to Adrianople but to me that is more of an excuse because its only possible explanation we know of for legions complete inefficiency after that loss. I don't think the west "fell" its more like it disintegrated from within and "barbarians" just settled in broken pieces. But socio-economical implications are wielder- it seems socio-economic basis in whole of Mediterranean was wiped out to lower level of reproduction-aka "dark ages"-whole way of life, building techniques, infrastructure, just number of troops you could put out, everything shrink. You could say Bubonic but that was later and even before, Belisarius wage wars in Italy with tinny forces compared with what Romans could mustered 700y earlier. So, why this relatively sudden and irreversible socio-economic regression of a 1000y old civilization?

[@cormacdonnelly365]

In the words of a professor of mine, Roman socio-economic integration was just a thinly smeared veil over the co-option of existing local economies and societies. Where the overwhelming majority of the population were simply existing as subsistence or barely-above-subsistence farmers, is it so hard to believe that the elements of society which did not benefit from the cultural or political achievements of the elite would be indifferent to its disappearance?

[@frozen1762]

@@cormacdonnelly365 Probable. But what happened with Roman colonies/big cities? Roman "culture" was dominant ruling culture and it must have had big impact in shaping at least culturally indigenous people over centuries of rule-aka Romanization. But when the "fall" came "barbarians" were the one who assimilated the Romanized people, not the other way around. So "inferior" civilization swallowed "superior". And it happened in the west same as in the east- most ethnic states of Europe today are coming from this heritage. We have no remnants of some sort of ancient Roman folklore, Roman culture outside of Italy was completely wiped out in collective memory, and even in Italy it transformed into something else. Was it violent or a process? Probably both I guess.

[@cormacdonnelly365]

@@frozen1762 The urban/colony point you raise is good; whatever about the cultural/linguistic nature of remote countryside, the cities of the west were undeniably Roman. Perhaps the collapse of the complex economic/taxation systems which allowed urbanisation resulted in their rapid demise and co-option by migrating people's, resulting in a replacement as opposed to a conversion of the local populace. This really isn't my area of expertise, so that's just a hypothesis. As for your second point, I'm not convinced national consciousness (insofar as it existed pre-modern era nation-states) wasn't heavily influenced by Roman culture: romance languages, for example, spread as a dialect continuum from the central italian Latin sprachsbund all the way around the western Mediterranean coast through provençal and catalan to Galician. Given the prevalence of linguistic and catholic cross-community ties on the continent, I'm not convinced that the nations emerging from the migration period aren't just as much products of a Roman Imperial skeleton as they are the tribes that make up the "invasions." Granted its likely to be a different story in the east, but ultimately, cultural conversion of an elite on to a large population is difficult and can backfire: Graecia capta cepit ferum victorem and all that.

[@deeznoots6241]

I’d argue that Julians offensives weakened the Empire at a time when it really needed to recover strength

[@nilslanglois-cannon4900]

Hey man please do a video on the iraq war!

[@selvoselvo1]

3:07 Aurelian was murdered...how many times emperors that would bring stability and prosperity were killed by some idiots for their stupid ambitions, and ruined the state wholetogether at the end.

[@drakehashimoto685]

Keep in mind, in the case of Aurelian, he had proposed a reform that, if memory serves, proposed to decrease corruption and/or things of the like, as a result, one of the officials, rather a somewhat low official, drew up and engineered the assassination of Aurelian under fear for his own purposes. As a result, Aurelian was killed, by desperation rather, by his officers later on. Of course, Aurelian was avenged later on, but death occurs only once and it was already too late.

[@Youtuber-xs9cp]

14:20 Julian wanted to make the gods great again. So he was a MGGA...lol

[@charlesmaeger6162]

The late empire literally was running out of silver to make coinage with. Inflation of prices was out of control year after year.There were no more cities for Rome to pillage and plunder and obtain the booty of silver and gold.

[@Mrch33ky]

Indeed, the bubble was contracting at long last.

[@Emojohnnyblackxd]

What do you mean 1000 years he trying to say that the late byzantine empire wasn’t really Roman

[@third.act.countdown]

25:13 Video please

[@claytonbenignus4688]

How do we know that Romulus Augustulus lived a full life? What Historian said so?

[@alanpennie8013]

Thomas Hodgkin, the biographer of Theodoric, is the man. He discovered a letter from Theodoric which discusses Romulus' pension, dated to either 507 or 511. Romulus is generally believed to have died after 511 but before The Ostrogothic War began.

[@decimusausoniusmagnus5719]

The saddest moment in human history until the birth of Chingis Khan or the 20th century.

[@Michael_the_Drunkard]

While Western Rome was beautiful but mismanaged, poorer and weaker than its eastern counterpart, Rome itself remained under Roman rule until the 8th century.

[@johnmurdoch8534]

Ackshually the ostrogoths lasted until the 550s ...so about 60 years or so.

[@Mitch93]

Yeah bwoi!

[@getoffmypage123]

But what really happened?

[@panagenesis2695]

A society where Truth and Justice are not observed has the writing on the wall for itself. Don't forget that Julius Caesar ended the practice of Fiat currency, which helped the republic prosper, switching to a gold standard benefiting the wealthy, and also ended the experiment in self-government. Most importantly, where Christianity was wholly embraced and practiced in the East, Byzantium, they continued on for 1000 years.☦

[@Mrch33ky]

Que?

[@jjwnew24]

I’d like to understand how you formed the opinion that Stilicho was overrated? Personally I think that’s completely unsubstantiated

[@ImAMassiveBender]

Robin Thicke, the scourge of god

[@JustinCage56]

22:45 Hot takes like this are spicy, man. I do agree Aetius is overrated in terms of being "The Last True Roman" since he pretty treacherous in his dealings in the court (guy legit forced Majorian to retire early because Majorian was too popular with the armies for crying out loud!) But Stilico still does deserve the accolades he's received over the centuries. To put it in perspective, when H*norius branded Stilico a traitor, he peacefully turned himself in knowing a civil war would destroy the empire and that Rome wouldn't accept a "barbarian" emperor if he won. Aetius would have definitely revolted without thinking twice about it. Then again, you have to remember he did save rome from the Huns so give credit where credit is due.

[@Georgios1821]

THE Papal Romancatholic Church has nothing to do with the Church in the 300s. The Papal Church began unofficially in the 750s when the Pope instead of being the Bishop of Rome and Patriarch of the West became a King in Central Italy and officially in 1054. The Church that you are talking about is the Orthodox Church. Study the two and you will realised which is older.

[@JonBrownSherman]

Flavius Julianus 2024! "Make The God's Great Again! Let's return this empire to its traditional Hellenist values!"

[@ChevyChase301]

Isn’t it crazy how the state that inherited the single most Roman land was the rashidun caliphate

[@genericyoutubeaccount579]

Inherited is not the right word. Stolen is the word you are looking for.

[@Michael_the_Drunkard]

They weren't core lands but in terms of size that's true.

[@CutieZalbu]

@@genericyoutubeaccount579 like we stole Native American land?

[@Mrch33ky]

Can't say I agree 100% with your police work there Lou.

[@Michael_the_Drunkard]

*of the Western Roman Empire

[@HeyThereItzJessie]

You always skim over majorian bro

[@jackdonith]

Ah, the fall of the Roman empire! 1453! No, wait, it's about the fall of the western part. Oh, well, that's nice too I guess.

[@midnightblue3285]

No the true rome fall with the rise of judaism and the legalization of christianity with the constantine

[@christrumptastic3161]

If I wanted inaccurate history I would watch dovahhatty. At least he is entertaining and has better jokes.

[@Decarock10]

It’s libertarian to fund the military?

[@billychops1280]

Well technically the empires end was in 1453, the western Roman empires fall marked the end of the actual Roman people since all that was left in the east were Greeks illyrians Thracians and Egyptians, although the later 3 would disappear as a distinct ethnic group

[@Michael_the_Drunkard]

Absolute bullshit! It's muuh 476 again. No, the Illyrians, Greeks Thracians were Roman citizens since 212, thus Romans. Not only did the Thracians (actually Moesians) and Illyrians speak Latin but the Greeks had been strongly romanized as well, culturally and linguistically (latin influence in Greek). Aside from the cultural aspects, the emperor in Constantinople (a city equal to Rome) was the bearer of the imperial title, inherited from Constantine himself. The eastern provinces were also part of the Roman Empire, they were seen as such also by contemporaries. Muh Roman Peoples is also a bad argument, as the Ibericelts and the Gauls were romanized as well. You are also wrong about the "disappearance" of the Egyptians and Moesians. The former became the Copts, whose Christian descendants still live in Egypt today. The latter are the Romanians of today, who had migrated north of the Danube due to the Slavic invasions of the 6/7th century. They were then known as the Vlachs until the 14th century.

[@Michael_the_Drunkard]

So here is my correction: the Western and Eastern Empire were both successors of the United Empire (27BC-395). The former fell in 476, the latter in 1453.

[@billychops1280]

@@Michael_the_Drunkard first of I’m not even sure what your arguing about because most of what you said I agree with but the east and west weren’t separate entities of one whole empire, it was all one, it was just impossible for one man to rule it that’s why it was divided, and no the Copts weren’t part of the actual province of Egypt so they don’t count and the moesians have had so much Slavic and Hungarian and Germanic blood in them they basically don’t exist anymore, same for illyrians, they have all become their modern day equivalents because they could not survive as a distinct ethnicity, also you drastically overestimate the influence Latin had in Greece, the fact is greek was way more prominent, mostly because the east supplied most soldiers at least in the early empire and Greek was widely spoken around that area of the world far before Rome became an empire

[@billychops1280]

@@Michael_the_Drunkard also you got the romanization of Greece backwards, it was Rome that was hellenized culturally and religiously to certain extents

[@Michael_the_Drunkard]

@@billychops1280 1. the east and west had their own army and their division was permanent. If they hadn't been separate, why did the germanic invasions only affect the West and not the East? Why did they even have a border and 2 different capitals and co-dependent yet independent emperors ? Yes, that's not what Theodosius envisioned, but the empires acted more and more as separate entities. 2. Can you cite any source which proves that the Romanians are more Slavic than Moesian/Pre-Slavic? Even if that were true, their language is of the Eastern Romance branch, spoken by the Romans in the Balkans. 3. The Copts are the natives of Egypt, whose language descends from ancient Egyptian. Their numbers have gone down over the millennia due to Arabization and Islamization. 4. You should really look into "byzantine" court and military titles. Many of them have their origin in latin. Latin names also survived in their hellenized form. Latin was actually still spoken by some Greek scholars and diplomats in "Byzantium" to communicate with the Catholic West. Greek was however the language of the Roman East (natively in Greece, Anatolia, as a lingua franca in Syria and Egypt), apart from the latin-speaking garrisons and administration, which explains the linguistic influence of it in Greek.

[@TheSci-fiAnarchist42]

#NotMyEmperor

[@babelhuber3449]

While I really appreciate your channel, I think this video was shortened so much that it is missing some relevant information: - In Adrianopel in 378, Valens was totally defeated by the Goths, it was a one-sided massacre. So I doubt that the Roman Empire would be victorious even with the reinforcements from the Western Empire. Also, this was the first time in centuries where the Romans lost a battle against "barbarians". Perhaps valens thought he could act like Cesar, who defeated numerically superior Gauls quite easily. And I'd add that this was proof for other barbaric tribes that the Romans _can_ be defeated. This plays a role in the invasion of 406 acros the Rhine I'd assume. - the Visigoths ran rampant in Italy from 400 to 410. As you correctly stated, Alaric was a Roman general. So his claim that he has to be paid was somehow understandable. In addition, the bishop of Rome and other Roman leaders were completely incapable of solving this crisis. They seem to have lost the ability to make sane political decisions, which compounded the fall of the empire. _If_ the Roman elites would have acted in a sane manner, Alaric would have been a much needed reinforcement for Stilico's troops. Then things could have looked totally different in 406. - After Diocletian's reforms, the Roman economy never recovered from the crisis of the third century. The emperors never had enough money, so they decreased the purity of their coins. This led to economic crises which further damaged the economy. While the exact impact of this is debated, it could not have done any good. - The cities were shrinking - on average - after Diocletian. Obviously there are exceptions like Constantinople or Trier. Big landowners moved from cities to their rural estate, so the importance of cities shra´nk. - When the Western Roman Empire finally fell in 476, the economy was lightyears away from its peak in the first and second century, e.g. the big villages in Gaulle which developed into cities in the first/ second century shrank back to bigger villages in the 5th century. After the Franks took over, there even was _actual economic growth_ in some ares, like Paris. - The taxation became so high over time that not only the economy shrank fiurther and further in the 5th century - even in areas still controlled by the empire - so that a lot of people did not want to be Roman citicens anymore. In a lot of instances, people welcomed the new barbaric overlords or even joined them to get rid of the Romans. I think a second part which focuses less on maps and chaps and more on economics and other developments in the society would be very interesting. Just my 2 cents, keep your good work!

[@frozen1762]

I think Adrianople is way too exaggerated with historians because its the only "big" thing they can pin to explain why Roman military became so ineffective after it. And Romans did lose before and after battles to barbarians, Adrianople wasn't even that big when you look at the losses. Also inner civil wars had way bigger battles. The psychology of "Romans losing to barbarians and even an emperor" is kind of 21c view...barbarians didn't have Instagram to see it worldwide lol I think there is just not enough written sources from the time, maybe there were other bigger battles that wiped out Roman army and wrecked economy just couldn't replenish the losses in time.

[@babelhuber3449]

@@frozen1762 Well, at Adrianople the Eastern Roman field army of 30000 was annihilated, only 10000 survived. Even though the barbarians didn't have Instagram, such news certainly spread. It doesn't need to be quick to have an influence in 406 😜 Perhaps you can point us to other comparable defeats before 378 against barbarians, because I'm not aware of any...

[@frozen1762]

@@babelhuber3449 My incentive is based on aftermath of that loss. There weren't direct military concessions, empire dealt with the Goths, they were no existential threat. Longer term effects were more important- Romans changed their policy in regards to how they "integrate" barbarians on Roman territory. Looking back it was a big mistake, idea of giving them some sort of "internal autonomy" on parts of territory then expecting to put one tribe against the other and wipe them out. 20k is nothing they had like ~30y to rebuild up to 406 even historians know that so explanation is that officer core was mostly eliminated and "knowledge and tradition" somehow lost because of that one battle. Weak arguments in my opinion. Barbarians steadily had pushbacks and successes since the time of crisis of 3c in far more important battles, I think one of the emperors before Aurelian was also killed in battle.

[@babelhuber3449]

@@frozen1762 You forget that the empire was already quite weak in 378, so recovering from such a loss was a difficult endeavor - even with a sane government and bureaucracy, which Rome didn't have anymore. See the other points in my OP. So no, this _was_ a disaster. Since you haven't specified comparable losses before 378, I guess you concede the point that this was a first?

[@frozen1762]

@@babelhuber3449 I disagree because there was no reason to assume empire was so weak militarily in 378. Julian waged offensive war 15y prior going to Persia with enormous army of 120k He did lose the war and got killed but it was mostly a tactical humiliation. It makes no sense that you can do that kind of grand operation if you cant defend from relatively small groups of barbarians on western border. In regards to numbers, most of battles of the time are unclear and unreliable. In regards to barbarians you have Battle of Abritus and Totenberg forest where approx. 3 legions were lost, but that's only history that we have some vague records. So there were big losses to barbarians before, even bigger between Romans themselves and even bigger in wars with other empires so 15-20k in 378 seems odd to me to be this big loss that completely broke the camels back.

[@philsoro491]

You're in need of a new mic m8. Sounds like you're talking in a fish bowl. Otherwise great stuff

[@generationclash5004]

Why do you think Stilicho and Aetius are overrated?

[@jjwnew24]

I’d like to understand how you formed the opinion that Stilicho was overrated? Personally I think that’s completely unsubstantiated

[@alanpennie8013]

He failed to develop a good working relationship with The Eastern Empire. That may not have been his fault but a failure is a failure.