When Did the Roman Empire Really End?

Civilizations never collapse on a single date

7 min readApr 27, 2021

The Ottoman Turks taking their army and fleet to Constantinople. Source.

There are generally two dates used to demarcate the fall of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires: 476 and 1453, respectively. The Western Empire is believed to have fallen due to the deposition of its last emperor, Romulus Augustus by the Germanic foederatus chieftain, Odoacer. The Eastern Empire nominally lasted for another 977 years until 1453, when the Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed II conquered its capital, Constantinople. But these dates shift depending on what you consider Rome to be as an ancient civilization. Did it exist due to a certain language, the continuity of the senate, or because its people called themselves Roman?

Based on these different features of a state and others, we can come up with differing dates of collapse from what is usually asserted:

The Latin Language

Latin was the preeminent language of Roman civilization from the republican to imperial era. It was also the tongue of “civilization,” as the word barbarian originates from the Latin and Ancient Greek terms for “savage” and “foreign.” The language cemented the empire’s connection to the Italian peninsula and particularly the city of Rome, which was the cornerstone of Roman identity. As the city declined, Constantinople, intended as a Roma Nova by Constantine the Great, flourished.

The year 395 is recognized as when the Eastern and Western Roman Empires became practically independent of one another. And though Latin was still the official language of both, Greek had a strong influence in the Eastern Empire, which increased as Eastern and Western Rome diverged. The differences intensified further after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, when several Oriental Orthodox Churches broke communion with those in Rome and Constantinople. The Chalcedonian Schism set the stage for the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Rites of Christianity in 1054.

Furthermore, Justinian, who was Eastern Roman Emperor from 530 to 565 was possibly the last to be a native speaker of Latin. This was still nearly a century after the collapse of the Western Empire, but Latin would not remain prominent in the east for long, due to a succession of Greek-speaking emperors. In 610, Emperor Heraclius changed the official language of Eastern Rome from Latin to Greek, ending the former’s thousand-year domination. Latin only survived as a liturgical language of the Catholic Church and died out forever as a spoken language soon after.

“During this time the Empire became more strongly Hellenized. Greek was proclaimed the official language of the administration replacing Latin. By the next generation knowledge of Latin was rare even in educated circles. Thus another barrier was raised in the interchange of ideas between the Greek East and the West, where through the instrumentality of the Church, Latin had become the language of the learned. The old Roman titles of caesar and augustus were abandoned in the East; the head of state became the Basileus; succession to the title was well on its way to becoming hereditary.”
— Leo Donald Davis, The first seven ecumenical councils (325–787): their history and theology

“Roman” as an identity

Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed II with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Gennadios. Source.

After the Edict of Caracalla in 212, all free men in the Roman Empire were given the right of citizenship, and all free women were given the same rights as Roman women. This led the Roman Empire’s inhabitants in the east (typically Greek speakers), to call themselves Romaioi or “Romans.” Even after the fall of the Byzantine empire in 1453, this term remained in frequent use for centuries.

In fact, the Ottoman Sultans even took the title of Kayser-i Rum (Caesar of Rome), and the Ottoman political system included different sets of personal law applicable to various minority groups of the empire, called “millets.” One of them was called millet-i Rûm, which literally translates to “Roman Nation.” This particular millet applied to the Eastern Orthodox Community.

Unfortunately, the use of this ethnonym has declined in the past century due to genocide and population transfers between Greece and Turkey, which have resulted in either the death or emigration of the Greek-speaking populations of Anatolia who would have called themselves “Romans.” The Ottoman Empire and the Millet of Rum both ended in 1922, as did the use of the title “Caesar of Rome” by the Ottoman Sultan.

The Structure of Governance

Map of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine Empire) in 900. Source.

In the 3rd Century, the reforms of the Emperor, Diocletian divided the empire into a set of provinces with strict divisions made between civil and military rule. But as the Eastern Roman Empire entered a period of crisis in the 7th century, this system was hugely restructured. From 602 to 628, the Romans fought a devastating war with Sassanid Persia, which left both nations militarily exhausted and politically shaky by its end. The Persian Emperor Khosrau II was subsequently dethroned and executed along with his sons, leading to a crisis of succession that would play perfectly into the hands of the Arabs. The Sassanid Empire subsequently collapsed due to the Arab Invasion, and Roman power was permanently damaged.

Eastern Rome lost Egypt, its most profitable province and source of free grain, as well as Jerusalem, the rest of the Holy Land, and Carthage. Its Balkan territories were also lost due to incursions by the Avars and Slavs. As a result, administrative divisions known as themes, essentially military districts were established in the mid-6th century. There is a conflict between historians and scholars as to when and from whom the theme system originated, but it is believed to have been in the backdrop of Rome’s fight for survival in this period. The rise of such a new form of governance indicates a decisive discontinuity between the Ancient Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire.

The Roman Senate and the City of Rome

*Cicero Denounces Catiline by Cesare Maccari, 1888.* *Source*.

The Roman Senate was one of the oldest continuously existing deliberative bodies in the world, having lasted for well over a thousand years. It not only existed before Rome was an empire or even a republic but even outlived Rome as a political entity. Counterintuitively, the Senate’s power increased after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Previous emperors had often used it as nothing more than a rubber stamp assembly, but the new Germanic kings who ruled Italy protected its political power. The Senate even had the authority to elect popes.

“The fall of the Western Roman Empire and the invasion of the barbarian king Odoacer in 476 paradoxically brought about a strengthening in the influence of the Senate and its principal members. In 483, Pope Simplicius feeling his end draw near, turned to the senate to ensure a peaceful succession, and an election of clergies and senators prepared the election of Felix III.”
— Philip Levillain, John W. O’Malley, The Papacy: Gaius-Proxies

During the Ostrogothic kingdom and the rule of its first king, Theodoric, the Senate was clearly able to exercise independent power. In one instance, it elected a candidate for the papacy in opposition to the nominee Theodoric had suggested. But its influence critically waned once again when the Byzantine Army invaded Italy several times under orders from Eastern Emperor, Justinian to retake lost territories. Many senators died or escaped east during the campaign, and by its end, the great city of Rome was devastated. The senate had lost virtually all its status while the great aqueducts of Rome were destroyed, leading to the city’s irreversible decline in prestige and authority. Pope Gregory I made note of this tragedy in a sermon in 593:

“For since the Senate has failed, the people have perished, and the sufferings and groans of the few who remain are multiplied each day. Rome, now empty, is burning!”
— Pope Gregory I

The senate went out with a whimper, finally disappearing from the historical record sometime after 603. By the year 630, it was noted that the body’s meeting place, the Curia Julia had been converted into a church. The Byzantines held onto the shattered husk of Rome for another 150 years until the Pope asserted the sovereignty of his dominions in Italy with the creation of the Papal States in 754.