The fall of the Western Roman Empire, also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome, was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vast territory was divided among several successor polities. The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed it to exercise effective control over its Western provinces; modern historians posit factors including the effectiveness and numbers of the army, the health and numbers of the Roman population, the strength of the economy, the competence of the emperors, the internal struggles for power, the religious changes of the period, and the efficiency of the civil administration. Increasing pressure from invading peoples outside Roman culture also contributed greatly to the collapse. Climatic changes and both endemic and epidemic diseases drove many of these immediate factors.

The disintegration of the Western Roman Empire unfolded gradually during the Migration Period (c. 400–800 CE), as waves of migrating and invading peoples reshaped Europe. After the death of Theodosius I (reign 379–395 CE), the last emperor to govern both East and West, the empire was formally divided, leaving the weaker Western half vulnerable. Over the following decades, military defeats, economic strain, and internal instability combined with external pressures from Visigoths, Vandals, Huns, and other groups, eroding imperial authority. The conventional “fall” is often dated to 476 CE, when Romulus Augustulus (reign 475–476) was deposed, or to 480 CE, with the assassination of Julius Nepos (reign 474–480), the last legitimate Western emperor.

Yet Roman power and traditions did not vanish overnight. Latin remained the language of administration, Roman law and coinage persisted, and successor kingdoms drew heavily on Roman models of governance and military organization. Italy, Gaul, Hispania, and North Africa came under the control of groups such as the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, and later the Franks, who both disrupted and assimilated Roman traditions. Rather than a sudden collapse, the Migration Period marked a protracted transformation, blending imperial legacies with emerging medieval political and cultural structures that would define Western Euroasia’s future.

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  • Euergetes [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    41 minutes ago

    did you know there’s a party in spain today called izquerrda republicana? like hero-cult of manuel azaña founded in '77. and they’re in the left united front list with the PCE, lmao.

    obviously kinda silly but its fascinating theres still a heap of a couple hundred libs out there with an anti fascist line that includes communists before christian democrats. an endangered species

  • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    3 hours ago

    James from Prolekult in this episode is getting on my nerves now that I’m getting around to watching the link that @Gosplan14_the_Third@hexbear.net posted.

    As a guest he’s talking about community farms and agroecology as “things that do not scale”. They don’t have to scale, they just need to be replicable. A hectare is a hectare, you’re not building a rocket or any feat of mechanical engineering, a calorie of food doesn’t act any differently whether it’s grown for local use or distant use. In fact, scaling up actually gives you more logistical hurdles with more warehouses and shipping routes.

    Absolute strawman on the Half-Earth approach where they’re talking about the proposal of rewilding half the Earth. “Well 50% of the Earth’s land area is already dedicated to human use, you would have to displace so many people, that’s monstrous” as if urbanization didn’t already do something like this. Also a huge amount of land is rangeland, or cropland for animal feed, or grass lawns, or private property that’s beyond what the proprietors could tend to on their own, or grass lawns, or industry that’s used for overproduction.

    Which brings us to veganism. “Forced veganism? pearl clutches I don’t see how you’d do that.”
    It’s easy, dumbass, you just deactivate all the CAFOs, and use state power against anyone who tries to set a CAFO back up again. That gets you 95% of the way there, where anyone who wants eggs has to take care of their chickens, and anyone who wants cow milk needs to find grazing space for a cow. “But protein”… Protein comes from plants, eat your beans, fool. Also pulses don’t need to be refrigerated the way animal products do; you can cut down on electricity demand by just not allowing the tech tree that leads to modern industrial animal agriculture.

    He’s almost dead set on perpetuating a society that has a comparable level of individual alienation from the means of existence.

    The lack of divergent thinking is pissing me off.

    He’s trying to criticize Kohei Saito but I really don’t think he himself understands how and why the world works. Stop name-dropping a bunch of obscure philosophical authors and read something that has numbers and units. And preferably, something, anything, from a vegan author.

  • LeylaLove [she/her, love/loves]@hexbear.netEnglish
    7·
    4 hours ago

    I’m so annoyed. I have a bunch of short shifts this week. I’m working 6 days this week and still not getting full time hours off it. The hours are better than what I was getting, but as is everything good that happens in my life, it always comes with a catch

  • Wmill [they/them, fae/faer]@hexbear.netEnglish
    7·
    5 hours ago

    Working maintenance is like is just so much “fuck it we ball” if my company could hire contractors to do it they would have I’m just trying to keep this place running until the higher up release the money to actually fix shit. I got 3 days of training and that’s it they ain’t firing me.

  • tombruzzo [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    6 hours ago

    SPRAWL. ZERO. LAUNCH. DAY. SPRAWL. ZERO. LAUNCH. DAY. SPRAWL. ZERO. LAUNCH. DAY. SPRAWL. ZERO. LAUNCH. DAY. SPRAWL. ZERO. LAUNCH. DAY. SPRAWL. ZERO. LAUNCH. DAY. SPRAWL. ZERO. LAUNCH. DAY. SPRAWL. ZERO. LAUNCH. DAY.

  • thelastaxolotl [he/him]@hexbear.netOPMEnglish
    4·
    6 hours ago

    transmisogyny is a criminally underacknowledged vector of oppression but its impossible to talk about online without summoning a hundred he/himmlers and they k rowlings who just need to talk about how the term makes them feel bad