Apply social science skills to understand the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire: the political, economic, social, and military causes of decline, the division of the empire into West and East, the traditional fall of the West in 476 A.D., and the survival of the Eastern (Byzantine) empire, setting up the medieval world (WHI.6).

What this topic is asking

This part of standard WHI.6 asks why the Western Roman Empire declined and fell, and what came next. Rome did not collapse overnight; it weakened over centuries from a combination of political, economic, social, and military problems, was divided into eastern and western halves, and saw the West fall by the traditional date of A.D. 476 while the East survived as the Byzantine Empire. This is a classic cause-and-effect topic, and it is the bridge between the classical world and the medieval world that follows.

A decline with many causes

Division of the empire

The empire had become too large for one ruler to govern. To make administration and defense easier, it was divided into a western half and an eastern half, each with its own administration. This division mattered enormously: it meant the two halves could meet very different fates. The wealthier, more urbanized East (with its capital at Constantinople) was better defended and more economically resilient than the West.

The fall of the West, A.D. 476

The East survives as Byzantium

While the West fell, the Eastern Roman Empire lived on. Centered on Constantinople, it became known to historians as the Byzantine Empire and lasted until 1453, about a thousand years longer than the West. It preserved Roman law and Greek learning, kept a strong economy and military, and spread Orthodox Christianity to Eastern Europe and Russia. The survival of the East is why so much classical knowledge reached later centuries, and it is covered in detail in the Byzantine topic.

Try this

Q1. Give two different kinds of cause (for example political and economic) for the decline of Rome. [Short explanation]

• Cue. Political: civil wars, weak and short-lived emperors, corruption. Economic: heavy taxes, inflation, and dependence on enslaved labor and on conquest that had ended. (Military and social causes also count.)

Q2. Explain the significance of the year A.D. 476. [Short explanation]

• Cue. It is the traditional date of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, when the last western emperor was deposed; it marks the end of the ancient world in Western Europe and the beginning of the Middle Ages, while the Eastern empire survived as Byzantium.