The Western Roman Empire didn’t fall in a day. It was a long and messy process that played out over centuries. By the fifth century Rome was already split into eastern and western halves, and the western half was increasingly under pressure from within and without. It was a great superpower that gradually collapsed under its own weight and waves of outsiders.

Much of the problem was economic. Heavy taxes squeezed farmers and merchants to pay for the army and bureaucracy. But inflation soared as emperors debased the currency. Trade networks broke down, cities shrank and large estates became self-sufficient, feudal-like operations. Many small farmers lost their farms and went bankrupt. Meanwhile the government grew bloated and corrupt, officials skimming what they could.


Militarily things deteriorated. The disciplined Roman legions were increasingly dependent upon barbarian mercenaries, who had less loyalty to Rome. These new recruits had their own customs and sometimes changed sides when it suited them.  The external threats persisted. Germanic tribes such as the Visigoths crossed the Danube in the late 300s, fleeing the Huns from the east. In 410 the Visigoth leader Alaric sacked Rome itself, shocking the ancient world, though the city had lost much of its old glory. Other bands followed: Vandals overran Gaul and Spain into North Africa, severing the grain supplies. Attila and his Huns rampaged through the Balkans and northern Italy. With each invasion territory and resources were chipped away.

At the top the empire was in political chaos. Emperors rose and fell quickly, often killed by generals or overthrown by them. The division of the empire in 395 made the west poorer and more vulnerable, while the east with its centre in Constantinople remained relatively stable and wealthy. Western rulers could not easily raise taxes or keep up roads and defenses.

By the mid-400s much of the west had broken away from central control. Britain, Gaul, Spain and Africa, were for the most part lost, or governed by local kings. In 476, a Germanic chieftain called Odoacer deposed the teenage emperor Romulus Augustulus. Historians often use this as the end, but life for ordinary people changed gradually. Some places kept Roman laws and Latin for a while, others mixed the old ways with the new.

What exactly caused it scholars still argue. Moral decay, climate change, lead poisoning, or just too many problems piled on each other? In fact, it was probably a mixture. The eastern empire lived on for another thousand years as Byzantium, proving the Roman idea could last. But in the west the fall opened the way to the Middle Ages, where new kingdoms rose from the ruins and eventually shaped modern Europe. It reminds us of how even the strongest powers can disappear when they lose the ability to adapt.