Original subtitles

Previously on "Rome: Rise and fall of an empire..."

Ethnic tensions continue to divide the already ravaged empire,

as the barbarian-born general, Ricimer, claws his way to the throne.

Hungry for power, he kills anyone who stands in his way-

including his closest friends.

Now...

Roman control of the empire's once-great western provinces

is swept away by a storm of barbarian warlords and kings.

Out of the chaos, one Roman leader rises up, determined to restore Rome to its glory days.

But in his path stands a fierce barbarian warrior-prince.

For the empire, the clash of their swords is the beginning of the end.

ROME RISE AND FALL OF AN EMPIRE

THE LAST EMPEROR

By the fifth century A.D., after hundreds of years of constant warfare,

the western Roman empire is a mere shadow of its former self.

The empire was into full-blown crisis.

There was increasing pressure from barbarians outside the empire who wanted to come into the empire.

And above all, there was this tremendous financial pressure.

The empire wasn't generating the revenues that allowed it

to keep its military forces strong and its infrastructure repaired.

Without a well-armed military, Rome is powerless against

one of the largest barbarian forces the empire has ever seen: The huns-

led by their ferocious leader, Attila.

Fifth century chronicler, Callinicus recounts their savagery:

"The barbarian huns became so great that more than a hundred cities were captured.

And there were so many murders and bloodlettings that the dead could not be counted."

The huns, a nomadic tribe from the east, lay waste to what little is left of the empire.

The fact is that there is no state in the west.

The west has dissolved.

The west has fallen apart.

There's so many different entities, so many different armies,

so many different powers that are vying for control that there's no control.

Though the eastern capital of Constantinople is able to survive the hunnic invasions,

the weaker Western empire feels the brunt of their expansion,

and is forced to cede the Roman region of Pannonia to Attila the hun.

In the empire's former territories, romans must now answer to their barbarian rulers-the huns.

Romans and barbarians can identify each other by the way they speak, by the way they dress,

by the way they smell, by the way they wear their hair.

Even though by this time, romans and barbarians are really used to each other,

I think it's fair to say that ethnic tensions have never gone away.

But one Roman moves through the troubled society with ease, and finds opportunity in Attila's new regime.

His name is Flavius Orestes.

Orestes was a Roman who had grown up in territory dominated by the huns.

But he got a high position at the court of Attila.

The empire may be falling down around him,

but it is his Roman heritage that makes Orestes and the other Pannonians valuable to Attila.

They're Roman because they talk like romans.

They walk like romans, and there is still the cultural, the social,

everything that makes up what a person is and does is still Roman and that goes on for centuries.

Able to read and write, the cultured Orestes stands out among Attila's many barbarian allies.

Orestes is soon made secretary in the ruler's court.

Orestes got to see how Attila had a real political vision

trying to merge the huns with the romans through marriage and political alliance

to come up with a new empire there in the north.

Having daily contact with Attila the hun, Orestes experiences first-hand just how brutal barbarian justice can be.

His Roman sensibilities are easily offended.

I think it is fair to say that there's what we would call ethnic tension between barbarians and romans.

They faced a problem similar to the problem that we face today.

These different peoples from different cultures need to work together in important ways, they want to become like each other.

But there's tension between them.

Though Orestes is repulsed by the barbarians' blood sacrifice of their enemies-

in Attila's power, Orestes finds the ambition for something more.

Orestes-when he served in the court of Attila- was able to see how this leader was organizing a nation out of nothing.

And I think Orestes above all would have learned that there is a real possibility of seeing a new kind of Roman world,

one led by a king that melded barbarian and Roman strengths

to restore the glory of Rome the way it had been at the time of the founders, the kings.

Orestes may be ruled by barbarians, but he will always be Roman

and always think of himself and his people as superior.

He longs to return the once-great empire to its Roman roots.

In 453 A.D., Attila's reign comes to an unexpected end, on his wedding night-

soon bringing about the collapse of the mighty huns and their barbarian allies.

His bride finds him dead of a broken blood vessel and,

terrified of being accused of killing him, spends the entire night next to the corpse.

Sixth century historian, Jordanes:

"He fell, not by wound or by foe, nor by treachery, but happy in his joy and without pain."

But the huns' demise cannot save Rome.

The power vacuum that results only allows more barbarians to descend upon the fading Western empire.

In the following years, Rome's cities fall into disrepair.

Hunger prevails and beggars fill the streets.

Orestes wanders, no longer a man of influence.

He seeks his fortune in a land struggling to survive.

The infrastructure seems to have crumbled in some cases fairly quickly, varied from one region to another.

Aqueducts it's true, sort of perhaps fall into disrepair and the quality of pottery perhaps in some places diminishes.

It's all getting a bit more hectic.

The street plans begin to change, the regular features break down.

It is a time of diminished hope and starving children.

The details of Orestes' travels are lost to us,

but as a true Roman, he refuses to believe that the empire is beyond saving,

that the humanity and civilization at its core cannot be brought back.

He sets his sights on one day making his way to the city of Rome.

The fact is, is that Rome fell physically far earlier than it fell psychologically.

The idea that Rome could fall was difficult for many to accept;

And many didn't accept it.

They believed as long as there was an emperor on the throne, there was a Rome;

As long as there were walls around the city, there was a Rome;

As long as there was somebody who believed a Rome existed, the empire in fact existed.

In the mid fifth century, after years of constant pressure from barbarian attacks,

Rome is forced into a treaty with a powerful tribe called the burgundians

granting them valuable Roman land in exchange for military service.

Originally from Scandinavia, like many germanic barbarians, the burgundians are allowed to settle in southern Gaul.

These territories on the periphery of Italy are the first to go.

It's just very slowly; little bits and pieces are given away.

In a way it's kind of like if you think about your body.

If you're out in the cold, your body is programmed to make sure

that your brain and your sort of heart and whatever survive no matter what.

So your fingers go first, your toes, your feet, your hands...

And it's very much like the Roman empire.

In return for these land grants, the burgundians must supply the empire with mercenary soldiers

but this treaty only furthers Rome's plight.

When they give land to the barbarians, since land is a great source,

perhaps a principal source of revenue, the more land they give away, the less money they have coming in.

The less money they have coming in, the more land they have to give away

in order to keep barbarian support, to keep the army strong.

So it really is a vicious spiral that leads more and more to a financial crisis.

The burgundians' leader, Gundobad, is the son of a mighty chieftain,

but as the empire grows weaker and more desperate for his tribe's many mercenaries, he is a powerful force in Rome as well.

In the empire's capital, Gundobad is made the master of soldiers,

but he controls more than the army. He also chooses Rome's emperor: Glycerius.

It's a choice made by Gundobad because Gundobad thought that he was a loyal figure,

but it's clear that Glycerius must rule at the pleasure of Gundobad

and he must rely upon the support of Gundobad to do this effectively.

The emperor's great throne room is filled with more barbarians than romans.

The western Roman army at this point is overwhelmingly barbarian if not entirely.

It seems likely that there were still native Roman forces in there,

but when we do hear of this army, it's an army that contains Turks and Germans and a range of other non-romans.

In charge of Glycerius' barbarian mercenaries is a barbarian warrior named Odovacar.

Odovacar found a position in the imperial guard, close to the center of power.

Surely because he had demonstrated military competence and real leadership ability.

This is the Rome that Orestes encounters when he finally arrives-after decades of travel.

Upon first meeting Odovocar, he cannot know how deeply the empire has changed since its glory days.

The power of the Western empire is certainly gone in the 470s,

but I think it's probably not clear to everybody that this is a doomed enterprise.

It does seem potentially to be just a momentary weakness and,

had the course of things gone differently, perhaps it could have recovered.

Orestes' diplomatic experience earns him a high position in the imperial army,

but he is surprised to find Odovocar- a lowly barbarian-holding equal standing.

They obviously were both highly ambitious. They had survived really tough circumstances.

Orestes is seated at the court of the blood-thirsty Attila the hun.

Odavacar had been a military commander and had brought himself literally later from rags to riches at Rome.

I think their ambitions as well as their special competences would have put them on the track to compete with each other.

Both have their own visions of empire-one Roman and one barbarian.

After spending years in the court of Attila the hun, the Roman, Orestes, is made a general in the Roman army.

But in Italy he encounters an empire that's disintegrating and hardly Roman.

Its power resides not in its emperor, Glycerius, but in the barbarian generals- Odovacar and the burgundian chieftain, Gundobad.

In the past, Rome had integrated its barbarian mercenaries in the army to ensure that they never gained too much power.

But what happens in the fifth century is that they stay as germanic groups.

They get to keep their own clothing, their own food, their own culture,

their own administrative structure, the political structure, the military structure.

And it's bizarre but they aren't romanized.

And now Gundobad's warriors hold the same rank as their Roman peers in emperor Glycerius's Roman army.

The army at Glycerius's disposal- rather basically, that Gunderbad has at his disposal-

would be a mixed formation, no doubt comprising some Burgundians but many other various groups as well

that together form as it were the army in Italy.

In the case of the Roman army, there seems to have definitely been tensions at times

between barbarians who were serving and romans who were serving;

Romans who felt that because it was the Roman army that their leadership capabilities should be recognized.

Whereas barbarians should be disqualified because they were barbarians.

The once unified power of the Roman military is lost as violence explodes within its ranks, dividing the army against itself.

General Orestes-once so skilled at diplomacy- soon finds that even he is powerless against it.

As Rome suffers greater losses against tribes like the visigoths in Gaul,

Roman soldiers must question the allegiance of their barbarian allies.

I think everybody had their own interests at this point.

Things become somewhat fragmented and diffused.

So that what we're dealing with is a group of people

whose interests are no longer united, even among the romans themselves.

Chaos reigns on the battlefield when the army no longer fights for the empire-but every man for himself.

When the enfeebled Western empire can no longer keep its enemies from sacking the mediterranean coastline,

the stronger Eastern empire, based in Constantinople, finally steps in.

In the imperial palace, the aging eastern emperor Leo enjoys the security of his heavily fortified capital.

The reality of the Roman empire in the mid-fifth century was that there was a distinct east and west.

The reality was also that the east was prosperous, the west was not.

Blaming Glycerius for Rome's failures,

Leo hopes to extend his own reach by appointing a new western emperor: Julius Nepos.

The thinking about why Nepos was chosen to go to the west revolves around the position that Nepos had at court.

He was a very well placed person, related by marriage to the emperor Leo.

He was a figure who was suitable for leading an invasion to Italy.

In 474 A.D., Nepos assembles an army and leads his troops away from Constantinople-bound for Italy.

The east is going to look to reassert its influence in the west and find a candidate who could depose Glycerius.

Its reaction is not a surprising one.

As a newly appointed emperor, Nepos has a great deal to prove, and even more to lose,

if he fails in bringing the western empire back from the barbarians.

As Nepos' army sails from Constantinople,

the western emperor Glycerius must prepare his own army to counter the attack in Rome.

But when Glycerius orders Orestes and Odovacar to ready their troops for battle,

he encounters, first-hand, the problem of barbarian loyalty.

Gundobad and his burgundian troops desert him in his hour of need.

What happens is that Gundobad abandons his position to go back

and become king of the burgundians, which is clearly a whole lot more fun than generalissimo of Glycerius.

The army, because it's not a Roman army in terms of its native background,

has a different agenda and a different set of desires than perhaps a citizen militia would.

Without his burgundian support, even the armies of Odovacar and Orestes

cannot save Glycerius from the invading forces of Nepos.

As Nepos draws near Rome, Glycerius and his commanders ride out, not for battle but to plead for mercy.

And so Glycerius found himself in a situation where he really couldn't expect military support,

either from hired barbarians or from his local troops.

So when the Eastern empire sent Nepos to take over, Glycerius made the only rational decision:

He surrendered without a fight.

Nepos, having come to Italy to violently unseat Glycerius, now spares the emperor's life.

Nepos wanted the appearance of legitimacy, that he would become emperor with the backing of the eastern emperor

and the approval and agreement of the western emperor who would step down

because he recognized that Nepos was the better man for the job.

He orders Glycerius be made a bishop and sends him into exile far from Rome.

In June 474 A.D., when Nepos is crowned western emperor, he is lauded by Orestes and Odovacar.

Being equally ambitious, both men transfer their loyalty to their new leader immediately.

Orestes, being Roman, also has an idea that there is still a Rome and he can still protect Rome.

In the case of Odovacar, there seems to be a recognition that there is no more Rome.

And so how it plays out is you've got two very capable men at the very moment in time

when a decision is made whether Rome will cease to exist

Nepos promotes the Roman Orestes and the barbarian Odovacar

to the highest posts in his court, giving them unmatched power in Rome.

Elevating Orestes and Odovacar at the same time,

giving them kind of equal power-at least equal recognition- he's kind of prepared his own demise.

In both of these characters he's elevated individuals who are of strong will and of great capabilities.

But the court politics in Rome are quickly overshadowed by relentless visigoth invasions

against the last, remaining western Roman territory of Gaul.

At the height of the Roman empire, this region now known as Provence, France,

was a prosperous community, but throughout the 470s its people are subject

to constant raids from the visigoth barbarians and their king, Euric.

The very ambitious visigothic king who was a real expansionist

decided that he was going to attack this area there in southern France that wasn't under his control.

By this time, the visigoths really did have an overwhelming force.

So it was simply part of the process by which Roman territory in Gaul was constantly shrinking

until it was reduced to just a tiny slice along the coast of what is today southern France.

The bloodthirsty visigoth warriors lay waste to the villages of Provence,

showing no mercy to the helpless Roman citizens.

The eastern emperor Leo sends Julius Nepos to Rome as the new western emperor.

Nepos is counting on his two commanders- the barbarian Odovacar,

and the Roman, Orestes- but even with their support, the Roman empire is in terrible jeopardy.

Barbarian visigoths invade southern Gaul,

forcing the meager Roman legion, stationed on the border, into battle.

The imperial soldiers, under-armed and unprepared, are no match for the visigoths.

The goths seem better organized.

Their kingship seems to be stronger.

They seem to be able to mobilize more forces,

and the forces seem to be better able to deal with whatever eventualities occur in warfare.

The fighting is brutal, the carnage overwhelming.

Something must be done.

Though the Roman commander Orestes is inexperienced in battle,

emperor Nepos sends him from Rome to Gaul with orders to drive the barbarians out.

He's to be the new commander in chief in Gaul.

Now, the thing is you can ask yourself is this such a great honor or such a great position to be given,

given that there's very little that's left to be controlled in Gaul?

It seems like an honor, but perhaps it was actually a way of sidelining him. We don't know.

But in his camp on the Italian border, the former diplomat Orestes tries his hand at military strategy-

hoping to sideline Odovacar and the new emperor Nepos, instead.

He offers a deal to his mostly barbarian soldiers:

If they march with him against emperor Nepos, he will Grant them valuable land in Italy.

We know that Orestes turned against Nepos.

That instead of following the emperor's instructions,

he decided to try to seize power for himself.

Why did Orestes turn against Nepos? I think Orestes had a vision of restoring Rome.

Abandoning Gaul to the visigoths, Orestes leads his army from their camp in northern Italy back towards Rome-

but when emperor Nepos learns of the invasion, he flees to Ravenna.

In August of 475 A.D., Orestes marches into Ravenna and orders his troops to scour the city in search of the emperor.

The barbarian soldiers go on a rampage, terrorizing the citizens and destroying property.

I can only imagine Orestes either thought that Nepos was selling out the Roman empire to the barbarians

or Orestes simply had this overwhelming ambition to capture the Roman empire's leadership for himself.

But even under the threat of death, no one reveals the emperor's hiding place.

Emperor Nepos is forced to secretly escape the city, according to sixth century historian, Jordanes.

Nepos fled to Dalmatia and, deprived of his power,

he languished there as a private citizen in the same city where the exiled emperor Glycerius recently became bishop.

Soon Nepos is on his way out.

He's exiled and will continue to be exiled, calling himself emperor until 480.

In fact, some historians give him sympathy as the last Roman emperor.

But he's long since ceased to exist as an emperor.

With Nepos gone and the barbarian soldiers under his thumb,

Orestes believes he can restore order to an empire engulfed in anarchy.

In a surprising turn, Orestes does not take the throne himself,

but instead names his young son, Romulus Augustulus, emperor.

Orestes decided that he, with his childhood having grown up among barbarians and his service at the hunic court,

that maybe the Italian elite wouldn't want him, Orestes, as the emperor.

But they would accept this pure, Italian Romulus as their leader.

Because it would appeal to their sense of tradition no matter how empty in terms of power that feeling was now.

The boy will remain in the well-protected city of Ravenna.

And he was protected by Paulus, his uncle.

Romulus is still an adolescent and had not yet come to full maturity, hence his name Augustulus, little Augustus.

Young Romulus is merely a puppet for his father.

It is Orestes who will rule the empire,

finally edging out his rival Odovacar to become the most powerful man in Rome.

Swollen with pride, Orestes ignores his debt to the barbarian soldiers.

But after holding up their end of the deal- helping Orestes unseat Nepos-they demand their payment of land.

These guys want to get settled on Italy, on Italian territory, on the land of Italian senators.

And Orestes is enough of a Roman to know that this isn't going to fly.

And so he says no.

Orestes couldn't pay the soldiers.

For the soldiers, the purpose of having an emperor was to pay them.

So when Orestes, the power behind the throne with the son on it,

can't come up with the money that they want or can't come up with the land that they demand,

then there's only one answer: Get rid of that emperor and get somebody else who can get us what we want.

With the help of his guards, Orestes is able to flee the chaos,

but he underestimates the power of the barbarian army, now bent on revenge.

After years of competing for power with his barbarian co-commander, Odovacar,

the Roman Orestes gains the advantage- crowning his own 12-year-old son as puppet emperor.

But tensions rise as the barbarian army goes unpaid.

When the barbarian soldiers are denied what Orestes has promised them-

settlement land in Italy- they turn to his greatest rival for help- Odovacar.

So the soldiers made a perfectly rational decision to go to somebody else,

in this case Odovacar, who they thought had a better chance of satisfying their demand.

Odovacar was a barbarian and they'd expect that he wouldn't have nearly as many qualms about

giving them land or money or whatever they needed regardless of where it came from in order to make them happy.

The soldiers make Odovacar an offer he can't refuse.

So they turn to him and they say,

"well, if you can get us this land, we'll make you king. How does that sound?"

"Oh, that sounds all right."

So off they go and he seems to be a leader of this sort of ragtag bag

of germanic peoples in this supposedly Roman army.

Together, they set out to bring down all Roman power in the empire.

Odovacar will now taste the revenge he seeks against Orestes who dared to usurp his power in Rome.

They immediately begin to raid the cities of Italy.

The narration that we have of this talks about days and days of plundering.

The wealthy being stripped of all of their money.

After risking their lives for the sake of an empire they can't even call their own,

the barbarian soldiers feel the time has come for Rome to pay, in blood, what they cannot pay in money and land.

Pretend you're a solider for the moment.

Pretend that you have to live on the meager wages that you've got and now you miss a payday.

One payday you may be able to make it. 2, 3, 4 paydays in a row, you're starving.

Are you going to have much allegiance to the army that has let you starve?

Now answering to no one, Odovacar relishes the opportunity to finally assert his dominance over Italy and Orestes.

What we're talking about in 476 is not a war per se.

There's no great battles; There's no sieges. You've got starving soldiers seeking to survive.

And in order to survive, they will do whatever it takes to do so.

Because they are trained to fight, they will put down anyone who encounters them.

And riots and rampages and sackings and rapings take place.

With Odovacar closing in, Orestes leaves his son, the young emperor, Romulus, in Ravenna

under the care the boy's uncle, Paulus- while Orestes escapes to Ticinium in northern Italy.

Orestes is forced to seek refuge from Odovacar and his troops in Ticinium which is modern Pavia.

We're told by a text that the bishop of Pavia gives Orestes sanctuary in the city.

But even the house of god cannot protect him from the barbarian forces.

Orestes is forced to flee as Odovacar and his men ravage the church, desperate to root him out.

The bishop had his collection of alms stolen,

all the money he collected to help the poor was stolen by Odovacar's forces.

They also burned buildings, including the church.

As the church goes up in flames, so do Orestes' visions of the empire's rebirth.

Odovacar does not care about the perpetuation of Rome.

In fact, it's a realization to him very early on that Rome no longer exists.

But what role does he play? What power can he hold?

Orestes and his guards escape Ticinium,

hoping to buy enough time to prepare for the certain face-off with Odovacar

Once they were peers in the emperor's court.

Now they are locked in a struggle for their very survival.

Both are very proud of the position they hold,

and neither are willing to recognize the other has any power at all.

Now, in that case of course, a clash is imminent.

Orestes and his army get as far as Placentia- modern-day Piacenza, Italy-

before they are finally confronted by Odvacar on the battlefield.

The inexperienced Orestes has little chance against the savagery of Odovacar's barbarian troops.

It would have been loud, chaotic, bloody, violent, dusty, which is why morale, even more than training,

when push came to shove, was at the heart of who was going to win and who was going to lose.

There are dead bodies to climb over.

There are injured men yelling.

There are people loosing their bowels from fear.

There was something still symbolic about the empire,

as if the last few gasps of imperial...power

could be hung onto by someone who felt that the empire could be restored by that.

They thought the empire was still existent or that they could save the empire.

We know as historians now that they cannot.

No matter how foolish, Orestes refuses to admit defeat.

When the Roman general Orestes breaks his promise of land to his barbarian troops,

they launch a full-scale revolt led by Orestes' rival, the barbarian general, Odovacar.

Now, fighting on a battlefield near Placentia, Italy,

the two adversaries vie for supremacy, just as they once did in the emperor's throne room in Rome.

Odovacar and Orestes are the two most important individuals in the west.

On their shoulders lie the future of Rome and one has to agree with the other.

There has to be some compromise made.

If not, there will be violence and that's, in fact, what happens.

It's a brutal fight to the death, and in the battle's end,

just as in the empire's, the Roman finally succumbs to the mightier barbarian.

We don't know exactly what happened when Odovacar caught up with Orestes.

But my suspicion is that it was a quick and brutal end.

There was not going to be any any elaborate ceremony. or elaborate funeral.

Orestes was to disappear. I'm sure his execution was swift, silent and total.

Victorious, Odovacar and his troops march to Ravenna

to address the only unfinished business left- the young son of Orestes, the last western Roman emperor.

The 12-year-old emperor, Romulus Augustulus, and his uncle Paulus

are unaware of Orestes' death and unprepared for the murderous assault of Odovacar's men.

When Odovacar comes to Ravenna, Romulus is not able to put up much of a fight but Paulus,

who is charged with protecting Romulus, manages to do this and tries to protect his nephew.

Odovacar's forces then kill Paulus and move against the boy emperor Romulus Augustulus.

Terrified, the boy flees the sounds of his uncle's murder.

The last Roman emperor- trapped like a bewildered animal- cannot hide from the barbarian's blade.

There is no escape.

Romulus is a mere figurehead.

So there's no reason, in essence, for Odovacar to do anything to him.

But the ruthless warrior makes a surprising choice.

He spares the boy's life, sending him into exile.

By saving his life, Odovacar can show his clemency

and can show to the romans that he can behave in a way that a just sovereign ought to behave.

In the summer of 476 A.D., Odovacar becomes Italy's first barbarian ruler.

Odovacar's now king. Now, he's not king of Italy. He's not king of the Roman empire. He's just king of these guys.

This little motley band of whatever it was making up the Roman army at this point.

Odovacar is king, not emperor, because the Roman empire is officially dead-

just over 500 years after its birth in 27 b.C.

It really is the end of a Roman emperor in the west.

Now there's going to be a king in the west.

There's still a Roman emperor in the east, but the east has no effective control over the west.

In a real political sense, things have changed fundamentally.

News of Rome's fall travels quickly to the new eastern emperor, Zeno, in Constantinople.

The messengers arrive bearing the news the Eastern empire has dreaded for years.

They carry the last vestige of the boy-emperor's imperial office.

The last thing that Odovacar has Romulus Augustulus do before he formally steps down from the Roman throne

is send an envoy on behalf of the senate and the emperor conveying the ornaments of imperial authority to Constantinople

with the word that no emperor is needed in the west.

With a barbarian king lording over Italy, the remaining symbols of Roman power are no longer needed.

We know that Odovacar very publicly proclaimed

he was not going to wear the purple robes and the golden crown that signified a Roman emperor at the time.

He was going to leave those aside. Odovacar was something new.

He was a king in the west, not an emperor.

The robes and the crowns and the jewels of emperorship now belonged to the eastern emperor.

But in his hands, they no longer signify power and prestige, only failure and loss.

Back in Italy, the families of the barbarian soldiers are now finally granted the land they fought for.

The west now lies completely in their hands.

It's clear Odovacar did uphold what he had agreed to his soldiers.

He kept his promise. He gave them what was due to them and was a man of his word to those supporting him.

For the empire, invasions of women, children, and homesteads,

proved more powerful than those of warriors and siege machines.

Rome became strong in the beginning because it took in outsiders.

That is to say, it encouraged immigration.

But in the end, when the barbarians came in numbers and wanted to be part of the Roman empire,

for complicated reasons, the romans were unable to take them in in the way they had done before.

This failure to make immigration a positive source of strength

really was one of the principal reasons for the undoing of the Roman empire.

But despite the fall of the empire, in remote places like monasteries and libraries,

the great knowledge and ingenuity born of Roman civilization is miraculously salvaged and saved.

The idea of Rome endured because in those pockets where there was still an emphasis on learning and education and books,

it was romanness and the classics of Roman literature and culture that were seen as the foundation of a civilized life.

The Roman empire has bequeathed a huge amount to us, certainly in the west.

So many institutions, so much terminology.

The very languages that we speak that are so marked by Roman influence.

It's all around us.

We simply cannot escape the Roman legacy however hard we may try.

And that's why it matters.

From democracy to empire to its fall, Rome has inspired the western world as we know it.

Its civilization survived centuries of war, persecution, corruption, and plague,

only to die quietly, slowly, at the hands of one barbarian soldier.

There is a romanticism to caring about the fall of Rome,

caring about the Roman empire as a whole.

I mean, it certainly was a very important part of the formation of the modern world. But let's face it.

This has been around for 1500 years. Why should we care any longer?

And I think the answer's very simple in that:

we should care because in Rome lay all of the wonderful aspects of humanity and all of the terrible aspects of humanity.

And if we study those, we understand them,

perhaps we can repeat the good ones and not repeat the bad ones.