Everyone keeps asking why Rome fell yet no one ever asked what happened to Rome after the sack. Was it empty...

It did become incredibly depopulated, but the Vatican ensured it would always be an important city.

At what point did the city of Rome stop being important?

It's somewhat open to debate, but I would say from most of the reading i've done most say it was from very early on. I would put a date in the early 3rd century AD. As soon as Rome stopped having a military function and the senate became piss-weak under the military emperors such as Septimius Severus, Gallineius and Diocletian, Rome ceased having more than a ceremonial importance. Even provincial cities like Sirmium, Augusta Treverorum, Antioch and Milan became more important as emperors spent more time closer to the frontiers and men like Diocletian appointed colleagues. Cities like Antioch were crucial forward staging posts and central to the road network. Rome on the other hand was basically a backwater. When Severus got rid of the Praetorian Guard it stopped any group in Rome being the kingmakers, so instead it was the frontier armies that tended to produce usurpers that would challenge the emperor for the purple. This meant the emperor would be far safer near the frontiers, discouraging any rebellion.

It would be easy to argue that Rome actually regained some of its importance in the 5th century as the senators began to accrue power that they had previously lost as the imperial institution began to weaken under cucks like Honorius and Valentinian III. As the actual capital though, it basically tended to be wherever the emperor himself was, and from 400 that would be either Mediolanum (Milan) or Ravenna, both far easier to reinforce from Constantinople. So basically it was a non-entity from 200 to

>Oh, and Rome was already in Germanic hands for a long time, it was actually a good thing, since Germanics unironically did more to save the Empire than Romans themselves.

Yeah, I'm sure all those barbarian snowniggers that Attila brought to Roman lands were wonderful for them and didn't have anything to do with the collapse at all.

>Yeah, I'm sure all those barbarian snowniggers that Attila brought to Roman lands were wonderful for them and didn't have anything to do with the collapse at all.

Learn your history. Attila was a glorified raider who didn't take any barbarian snowniggers into Roman lands. In fact, the tiny Roman army allied with a shit load of Germanic foederati warriors that had been settled in Gaul to take on Attila at the battle of Aurelianium. The Visigothic king gave his life to defend Roman lands.

It's a common misconception that the Germanic tribes were the root cause of the destruction of the Western Empire. The Roman army destroyed itself in the 410s and 420s while the barbarians waltzed across the Rhine and through Gaul, Spain and Africa. They destroyed themselves and the barbarians were settled in the empire to replace the soldiers that had been lost to protect it against foes like Attila.

>In fact, the tiny Roman army allied with a shit load of Germanic foederati warriors that had been settled in Gaul to take on Attila at the battle of Aurelianium. The Visigothic king gave his life to defend Roman lands.

Hmmm, I wonder why that is. Could it be because their lands were being ravaged by the Huns and they were literally the rapefugees of the ancient world as a result?

Well, no. It's more due to food supplies and worsening weather pushing groups into more fertile lands.

Rome's population had shrank to a fraction of what it had been during the height of the empire by the time Odoacer set himself up as king and much of its infrastructure was crumbling into ruin even then. In a way it was kind of cute, because the Barbarians still acted like Rome was the center of civilization and wanted to LARP as kings of Rome even though the Romans had long ago moved the center of power away from the dilapidated birthplace of their empire. The Eastern Empire kept right on going like nothing had happened and the western empire was if anything grateful that they didn't have to be responsible for the overgrown ghetto that Rome had become, because their fractured, decrepit state had long since lost the ability to maintain most of the territory it laid claim to and it was all effectively ruled by Germans at that point anyway.

>The Barbarian invasions of the 5th century were triggered by the destruction of the Gothic kingdoms by the Huns in 372-375. The city of Rome was captured and looted by the Visigoths in 410 and by the Vandals in 455.

>
Wikipedia is wrong on this. The general consensus has moved definitively away from the Huns being the primary cause behind the 5th century migrations. It's a surface idea that had been perpetuated by figures like Jordanes.

>discussions about ancient history
>without demographic tables

Ancient demography is absolutely meaningless. It's an even more futile endeavour than studies of the "ancient economy".

>The size of the city at the time of the Emperor Augustus is a matter of speculation, with estimates based on grain distribution, grain imports, aqueduct capacity, city limits, population density, census reports, and assumptions about the number of unreported women, children and slaves providing a very wide range. Glenn Storey estimates 450,000 people, Whitney Oates estimates 1.2 million, Neville Morely provides a rough estimate of 800,000 and excludes earlier suggestions of 2 million.[75][76][77][78] After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the city's population declined to less than 50,000 people. It continued to stagnate or shrink until the Renaissance.[79] When the Kingdom of Italy annexed Rome in 1870, the city had a population of about 200,000. This increased to 600,000 by the eve of World War I. The Fascist regime of Mussolini tried to block an excessive demographic rise of the city, but failed to prevent it from reaching one million people by the early 1930s

>Huns conquered most of the Germanic territories, destroyed their lands, enslaved them and used them as mercenaries for their army
>Huns had nothing to do with the barbarian migrations

Explain.

>unironically quoting wikipedia
pleb detected

>that fucking map

Mate. Don't embarrass yourself.

If you seriously think a bunch of bumfuck tribals seriously posed an existential threat to other bumfuck tribals you have no idea about what life in the Barbaricum was like in Late Antiquity. The period of Hunnic dominance was a period of fantastic prosperity for the Germanic tribes outside the frontiers an absolute shit ton of wealth and tribute flowed in from the Eastern and Western Empires. The archaeological record suggests that this, combined with trade with settled communities within the Empire such as in Britain, hastened the early development of settlements and massively increased the population of formerly marginal areas. Eventually this hastened the development of the core of the later Frankish and Alemannic kingdoms.

Most of the tribes that joined up with the Huns did so for the same reasons that they had always done. You side with the strong, and you reap the rewards.

>we were never conquered by the Huns, I swear
>Aryan mustard race!

Kek. Most of the maps have Germania in it: google.com/search?q=attila empire&biw=1920&bih=901&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjZ1MOyqMDSAhXCjZAKHTCDAngQ_AUIBigB&dpr=1&gws_rd=cr&ei=I4S8WMHZPMj8wQTzo4iwDg

Only Scandinavia is dubious, but there is a lot of haplogroup Q1a there, which is associated with the Huns.

...

Honestly, I'd say Diocletian was the end of Rome being relevant.

I don't live in these areas.

>Most of the maps have Germania in it:

That's because they're wrong and historians have traditionally massively overexaggerated the size and power of the Hunnic 'empire'. Under Attila it literally solely controlled the Pannonian basin with some tributaries around it. It was the closest thing to a mafia state as you can imagine.

You honestly think that a group of uncivilized barbarians could control thousands of tribes from the Rhine to the Caucasus? The maps show many of the regions the Huns likely conquered as they passed through, but then, as a nomadic people, inevitably lost control over. Attila reigned for 19 years and wasn't the only king of a singular Hunnic group for all of that time. Most of the so-called Hunnic Empire was literally a bunch of disparate groups under their own leaders.

>haplogroups

Always piss weak evidence for anything, and primarily used by /pol/-tier posters.

I don't want to tell you that you obviously don't know shit about what you're talking about, but i'm thinking I have to.

>tfw they mirror each other perfectly
>Flavius Aetius sent a massive Hunnic army to massacre the Burgundians, Burgundy in France has a lot of it

Damn, the Huns really did some raping.

>it's impossible for horse nomads to conquer and control other people
>what is the Mongol Empire and it's successor Khanates

Kys.

>muh meme ideas
>believing in early historiography
These niggas are the only ones who have read into the new scholarship

Daily reminder that "Mongol Empire" is stupid meme, appeared in Encyclopedia Britannica of late 19th century.

>white boi mad he got KHAN'D

Reminder that horse nomads also genocided the Indo-Europeans in Central Asia as well.

>>Flavius Aetius sent a massive Hunnic army to massacre the Burgundians, Burgundy in France has a lot of it

>a few thousand mercenaries are enough to alter the genetics of an entire area for 2000 years

Wrong.

>>what is the Mongol Empire and it's successor Khanates

You are seriously comparing the bumfuck Huns to the Mongols of the 13th century? You know, the meritocrats that were masters of siege technology and intelligence gathering?

The Huns are a joke compared to the Mongols.

I'm pretty sure that was Turkic peoples a few centuries prior to the Huns.

You're full of shit. The Huns were an unstoppable force when they came. No one knew how to deal with them. They plundered and destroyed both East and West Romes.

Nobody can explain logistics of "Mongolian army", different "historians" lie about different methods, so Id just write favourite version of my school book:
"Mongolian army was very mobile, because every warrior had 2-3 horses. He could cut piece of horse, place it under saddle, wait some days till meat become soft and eat it during movement."

>Burgundy in France has a lot of it

It isn't Burngdy it is Provence, Burgundy is above.

White boi logic: The Huns could bend down East Rome to their will and plunder and destroy everything from North Italy to Rome, but it's too far fetched to consider they might've conquered Germania and other territories because they were invincible Aryan supermen.

I'm sorry man. I'm not. They plundered the East, got bribed to fuck off and attack the West. They attacked the West, got beaten near Orleans and retreated. They attacked Italy, then got rekt by malaria so retreated. They were pussy tier.

>No one knew how to deal with them

There's one solid way to deal with northern barbarians. Give them money.

Even groups like the Cimbri, Goths, Heruli and other pathetic tribes had managed to do that. The Visigoths devastated Italy far worse than the Huns ever managed to do.

Alaric got defeated twice in Northern Italy, you faggot. He sacked an irrelevant city that was no longer the capital of the empire. Attila managed to devastate everything with no defeats and reached as far the gates of Rome before being convinced to turn back by the pope with a large sum of gold.

The Hunnic raid wasn't the same as roaming unchecked across the peninsula for 3 years straight. The Huns didn't even manage to sack the Rome (which was still filled with riches and plunder), which says a lot about their weakness. Just because it was administratively a waste of space by the 5th century it was still no. 1 on the raiding barbarian warlord's most wanted list.

>muh Rome

Someone didn't read the thread before posting:

Alaric was just an irrelevant snownigger who was mad he wasn't promoted to a higher rank. He's nowhere near the greatness of Attila.

>Someone didn't read the thread before posting:

What? I've already posted multiple times in this thread.

>muh Alaric was better than Attila because he sacked an irrelevant depopulated city

That isn't why he was better.

Alaric led his people from being a bumfuck barbarian horde into the most powerful foederati group settled in the Empire. The Visigoths remained powerful and independent for another three centuries.

Attila the Hun did some raids, died of a nosebleed and was spared the embarrassment of watching his people tear themselves apart and vanish into obscurity within 20 years and total oblivion within half a century.

Attila took from the empire and Alaric became a part of its system and his tribe became far wealthier and long-lasting because of it.

Do you think the unusually cold weather during the 6th century was the primary cause, if not the sole cause, in that case?

>defeated twice at Northern Italy
>only accomplishment is plundering West Greece, Albania and Rome, all irrelevant at the time
>Huns plundered and destroyed entire East Rome and forced them to pay tribute to be left alone
>Attila plundered and destroyed everything from North Italy to near Rome with no defeats
>"Visigoths were better"

It was contributory. Climate change generally was definitely impacting them. For example, the Saxons and Frisians of the North Sea coast often lived on artificial islands. By the 5th century these were sinking into the sea. This is the reason so many of them crossed to Britannia and settled there as mercenaries and farmers. Another major reason was the increasing weakness of the Western Roman Empire, which was independent of the barbarians. They could smell the weakness and groups would now cross to make their fortunes on a more regular basis than before. So many barbarians were in the Roman army that would send weapons, cash and goods back to their homelands caused massive changes societal and cultural changes. Basically the entire thing was a stirred up hornet's nest. The 406 Rhine crossing was the biggest symptom of all of it. The WRE never really managed to repair the breach in the Gallic frontier afterwards and had to rely on the Franks to hold it for them, which meant there was a far more porous frontier. The disruptive impact of the Huns was, of course, another reason, but nowhere near as important as was once believed by 19th century Christian historians who were obsessed with the satanic imagery used by the Christian writers of the time for Attila.

There were a fair few reasons really, as there always are.

>defeated twice at Northern Italy
And survived.

>only accomplishment is plundering West Greece, Albania and Rome, all irrelevant at the time

Actually the western Balkans were rich as fuck in this period. Also, their actual achievements include defeating the Huns in 451, conquering half of Gaul and pretty much all of Spain including destroying the western Alani, Suevi and pushing the Vandals across to Africa.

TBC.

>barbarians =/= modern day ''refugees''
They were good people, more often than not, yet were always mistreated in the army and viewed as second class citizens.

''We Germans are not taking aggressive action against the Roman people, but we are ready to fight if provoked. For it is our traditional custom to resist any attacker... We wish to say, however, that we have come into Gaul not from choice but because we were expelled from our homes by the Suebi. If you Romans desire our friendship, we can be of service to you... The only people whose superiority we acknowledge are the Suebi... There is no one else on earth that we cannot conquer.''

Germans to Caesar, 55 B.C.

Contd.

>Huns plundered and destroyed entire East Rome and forced them to pay tribute to be left alone

The Huns didn't do shit except destroy some border cities like Naissus. The ERE was so rich that they could easily afford to pay them off, which was standard anti-barbarian policy at the time. When the ERE stopped paying later in Attila's reign, there wasn't shit he could do about it.

>Attila plundered and destroyed everything from North Italy to near Rome with no defeats

The Roman army in the 450s was nothing compared to the still pretty substantial army of Stilicho and Constantius III in the 400s and 410s. Shit, most of the army at that point was made up of Hunnic foederati.

>"Visigoths were better"
Yeah. They survived.

East Greece was the actual rich and powerful part of the ERE. Alaric didn't touch that. The Huns did.

Greece was always irrelevant after the Classical period. It wasn't rich at all because it had no military significance, therefore no soldiers were stationed there, therefore little liquid gold was floating around. Illyricum was far wealthier and more important to the empire since it was near the frontier.

Hahaha. What a bunch of bullshit. Is that why Constantine moved the capital to Constantinople and ERE maintained it for over a thousand years? And the capital of the WRE at the time of Attila's invasion was Ravenna. Milan had also been important. He certainly did some damage to those since he ravaged Northern Italy the most while buttmad snownigger Alaric got BTFO there.

>Constantinople
>Greece

Lad.

>the capital of the WRE at the time of Attila's invasion was Ravenna. Milan had also been important. He certainly did some damage to those since he ravaged Northern Italy the most while buttmad snownigger Alaric got BTFO there.

You're right on the first point. Wrong on the latter. Attila besieged but failed to take Mediolanum, and didn't attack Ravenna since it was dangerous malaria filled swampland. It was malaria that forced him to flee Italy since it tore apart his army after he ended up going through the Latium marshes.

Also, as I said, Alaric got beaten by the army of Stilicho which was still a relatively powerful Roman army as shown by the Notitia Dignitatum. By the time of Attila, after thirty years of Roman civil wars between Bonifacius, Aetius, Felix, Joannes etc. the 'Roman' army was a joke.

>Attila besieged but failed to take Mediolanum

He sacked it but didn't conquer it in the same way that Alaric sacked Rome (irrelevant city) but didn't conquer it. He tried to sack Ravenna and did some damage to it, but retreated.

You're right there. My mistake.

>mongols that I learnt about watching Marco Polo on my Netflix with bae
No you spastic, they were all separate hordes and client states but who all answered to one man the Khan, just like Napoleon and Charlemagne

>separate hordes
Separate hordes or "UNITED EMPIRE"?
>client states
or "EMPIRE" ?
>but who all anwered to one man
Throught Mongolian telegraph?

>By the time of Attila, after thirty years of Roman civil wars between Bonifacius, Aetius, Felix, Joannes etc. the 'Roman' army was a joke.
That's a 19th century historiographical meme my dude. The Roman Army never stopped being effective. They won basically every battle they ever fought until the very end.

>That's a 19th century historiographical meme my dude.

It isn't. I'm not talking about Gibbonian memes about degeneracy and all that, i'm talking about how the Roman army outright destroyed itself, which forced the beleaguered Western Roman state to use settled foederati instead since they were cheaper.

>The Roman Army never stopped being effective. They won basically every battle they ever fought until the very end.

You are right. The problem is their size plummeted. Instead of the Roman army c.400,000-500,000 strong in the late 4rd century generals like Aetius could barely scrape together 30,000 men from their half of the empire.

veekyforums.com/thread/2459881/history/everyone-keeps-asking-why-rome-fell-yet-no-one.html

What

A United empire would have consistent laws throughout

As said before in the thread, life in Rome didn't change much as people still went about their daily lives, just in a severely depopulated and damaged city, but taxes were paid to the governor who in turn paid to the Ostrogoths.

This set up only lasted about 60 years when the Eastern Roman Empire came back for Rome and retook it, it switched hands a few times but ultimately was won for the Romans, who held Rome and administered it like any other city until 754, when Rome was given to the Pope to try and improve relations between the western and eastern church, and because the Byzantines were unable to defend the city any longer and they knew it. After which the Papal States history begins.

And the Caesar massacred them, snowniggers deserve genocide

Ah okay, I misunderstood you, that's fair enough

What are some good books about the Roman Army in the 5th century? Most books I have on the "late Roman army" stop at the end of the 4th

>You honestly think that a group of uncivilized barbarians could control thousands of tribes from the Rhine to the Caucasus?

Yes

>using an anecdotal cliffnote from hundreds of years before the German population influx as evidence they are good people.

Yeah, no.

As I said earlier, 13th century Mongols with exposure to China aren't the same as Huniggers in Late Antiquity.

The Huns came from exactly the same place as the Mongols you dumb retarded failure

lmao'ing at all these romanboos

Why would coming from the same place be meaningful in any sense? The Huns spent a century and a half crossing the steppe into Europe. The Mongols did it in like a decade.

>They won basically every battle they ever fought until the very end.
In the absence of foreign adversaries they fought themselves and got a little too good at it