Concerning the Fall of Western Rome

This is not an alternate history question, but a question about actual history. To the average Western European, how important was the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD? Was it an epic social and technological collapse, or just one of many regime changes? Or something in between? I can look up facts online, but I have difficulty judging the connotations of the fall of Western Rome, which is what I am looking for. Is the importance of the year 476 traditionally overrated, or was it actually a turning point in European history?

Thanks for all the help. If you'd like to take this thread in an alternate history direction, that's perfectly fine, as long as we can discuss what happened OTL first.
 
For the average peasant, the day Romulus Augustulus was deposed didn't mean anything beyond Italy and it was viewed as just another change of ruler by the peasantry in Italy itself. After all, Germanic generals/nobles had actual power over the throne for quite some years before 476 - for example, Orestes through his son.


If anything, the Sacks of Rome in 410 and, to a lesser extent, 455 were much more dramatic events which sent shockwaves throughout the west - and east. Politically, the usurpation of the Western throne by Orestes from Julius Nepos signified the political-diplomatic end of the Western Roman Empire, as the occupant of the throne was not recognised by the Eastern Emperor after mid-475. But this event, too, was not considered that important or dramatic; it was just another change in a long history of usurpations, assassinations, civil wars and strife.


IMO, the following events were much more important and pivotal to the course of history in the West:

  • The Death of Theodosius and Division of the Empire, 395
  • The Crossing of the Rhine, 406
  • The Sack of Rome, 410
  • The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains and the Killing of Aetius and then of Valentian, 453-5
  • The Subsequent Sack of Rome, 455

476 is the most prevalent date to signify the end of the Western Empire, but can it be said that something important was decided on 4 September 476? In my opinion, no. It's just that what was already de facto became de jure - and not even that, considering Zeno technically appointed Odoacer to rule in his name.
 

scholar

Banned
The true end of Roman culture and governmental rule came with the end of the Ostrogoth after Justinian invaded. Odoacer is important and remembered for one act, deposing the last Western Emperor. An act that really only involved one thing: the death of an emperor and returning the imperial seal to Constantinople. As far as Odoacer was concerned, he was saying there did not need to be an Emperor in the West anymore, true Roman authority should be put under the Emperor at Constantinople, and Odoacer continued on as usual.

The Byzantines thought that this was a bit insulting and that Odoacer was getting too grandiose, so they authorized Theodoric to invade. Theodoric quickly dismantled Odoacer's government, absorbed what was left, and ruled as a representative of Roman authority in Italy. He controlled military matters, but he regularly consulted the Senate (which was still around) and created what many people in Italy actually thought was a Roman Revival. The Goths were relatively famous for this idea of either Roman revival or a Roman Synthesis. You saw the reimergence of some building projects: walls and aqueducts were being built for the first time in a long time, and overall things were relatively peaceful.

The Visigothic King Athaulf was similar:
At first I wanted to erase the Roman name and convert all Roman territory into a Gothic empire: I longed for Romania to become Gothia, and Athaulf to be what Caesar Augustus had been. But long experience has taught me that the ungoverned wildness of the Goths will never submit to laws, and that without law a state is not a state. Therefore I have more prudently chosen the different glory of reviving the Roman name with Gothic vigour, and I hope to be acknowledged by posterity as the initiator of a Roman restoration, since it is impossible for me to alter the character of this Empire.
The true end of the Western Roman Empire and marked a true end to Roman institutions in Italy actually came when Justinian invaded. Before this Italy was greatly weakened by the Ostrogothic Civil Wars, and the first thing he did was destroy the carefully built relationship Italy had with its military leaders the Goths. The aim was to redirect these loyalties to Constantinople, but in order to do that he needed to conquer Italy. In order to conquer Rome and other settlements they destroyed the recent rebuilding projects, and in the end conquered Italy for the East. Before, italy wasn't really conquered. Different military factions competed for control, but Italy was never a conquered people. Justinian made them a conquered people, alienated the Romans who still weld considerable influence in the peninsula, and later when Eastern Rome proved incapable of redirecting the Roman relationship back to Constantinople, the Lombards took over and then Italy and Western Rome was truly lost.

Some remnant of it lived on in Visigothic Spain, but that was gone after the Arab Conquests, while what was in Gaul transformed itself into something of an inheritor to the will of Rome, but wholly separate to it after Justinian's conquests.
 
Romanos is right.

And yeah, in theory, 476 meant nothing. It was only two political generations later that the date actually came to be viewed as the end of Roman rule in the West, and then in the context of providing a justification for Constantinople to pursue renewed Roman intervention in the Western Mediterranean.

In 476, there were two reigning Western "Emperors". One of these, Romulus Augustulus, held Italy as the puppet of the Italian field army, while the other, Julius Nepos, held Dalmatia having been earlier expelled from Italy. Nepos was recognised by Constantinople, which was itself experiencing a bout of civil war at the time. When Augustulus was deposed, noises were made that Odoacer, a Roman officer after all, was governing Italy on behalf of Nepos and then, after Nepos' death in 480, the Eastern Emperor Zeno. This legal fiction was kept up by all the successor kingdoms, who initially ruled as viceroys of the Roman Emperor in Constantinople, or else were already ruling as viceroys of the Western Emperor.

TL: DR, nothing much changed on the ground in 476. Peasants continued to work the land, cities and urban communities continued to play an important role, the Church retained most, if not all, of its privileges. In the years after 476, and especially from the 490s onward, changes became more significant, as land was redistributed from Romans to "barbarians", but even then, things weren't particularly noticeable to the man in the street.

@Scholar, I think you're being very harsh on Justinian, and are perhaps falling a little prey to the prejudices of contemporary Roman aristocrats. Yes, Theoderic's regime is written up highly, but plenty of this was done in hindsight to attack Justinian.
 
This is not an alternate history question, but a question about actual history. To the average Western European, how important was the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD? Was it an epic social and technological collapse, or just one of many regime changes? Or something in between? I can look up facts online, but I have difficulty judging the connotations of the fall of Western Rome, which is what I am looking for. Is the importance of the year 476 traditionally overrated, or was it actually a turning point in European history?

Thanks for all the help. If you'd like to take this thread in an alternate history direction, that's perfectly fine, as long as we can discuss what happened OTL first.

The year 476 is as the previous posters have said somewhat symbolic; life in 477 was much the same as it had been in 475. Still, the process of the Empire's fall was one of "social and technological collapse" (even if not necessarily "epic collapse"), as infrastructure fell into disrepair and trade and communications dwindled. This was more of a gradual process than a sudden catastrophe, but the archaeological record certainly seems to indicate that by (say) 500 every Western province was poorer than it had been in 400.
 

scholar

Banned
@Scholar, I think you're being very harsh on Justinian, and are perhaps falling a little prey to the prejudices of contemporary Roman aristocrats. Yes, Theoderic's regime is written up highly, but plenty of this was done in hindsight to attack Justinian.
I think very highly of Justinian as a ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire, and I even admire his desire to restore the Roman Empire. I am critical of him in that after his campaigns he squandered much of the good will the Roman Empire still had in the world. In his desire to "reconquer" the West, he shattered the illusion that the Roman Empire was still a source of power and authority there. Almost the entirety of the Roman World was still Roman to the populous and their leaders, it was only after Justinian that the Roman World was what was under the Eastern Roman Empire. Soon, people no longer saw themselves as Romans, but as the heir to the will of Rome. Further, by conquering almost everywhere that wasn't North Africa, he turned a people who saw chaotic changes of martial power, but little of local societal changes (apart from losses of wealth) into a series of conquered peoples. Even the Roman aristocrats found themselves seen as second tier members of society.

Justinian knew the reality of the political situation and sought to correct it, but in the process he destroyed the cultural situation and his successors ultimately failed to revive it, inevitably leading to a dramatic reduction of the Roman World. It is in his wake that we truly talk about a post-roman world in the West. Because of that, I really cannot help but place the true fall of the Western Roman Empire at his feet.

Had he attempted to revive the West through soft power, responsible campaigning, and supporting "loyal" federates, a true Roman revival may have been possible. Especially since the finances of the East would have been in much better condition to face off against the actual enemies of the Roman World.
 
but the archaeological record certainly seems to indicate that by (say) 500 every Western province was poorer than it had been in 400.

Archeological records indicate a decline since 300 and the IIIrd century crisis. On matter of production, demographics and trade, it was the background of all the Late Empire.

Not that you didn't have a decline by 400, but it's not really an "hard" infrastructural decline : Late roman society (that is, essentially an urban society in spite of the overhelming disproportion when it came to countryside) was pretty much existing by 500, but the unifiying administrative and economical body disappeared.

I made a (very) crude graph when it comes to cities, if it helps.

As for the political grasp of 476, I'm going to disagree with the other posters : it did had an impact. But not the one we think about it generally, and much smaller as well.

See, WREmperors after Valentian III were often merely puppets on the hands of Romano-Germanic patrices as Ricimer, and it was seen as the debasement of Imperial prestige and legitimacy.
While Nepos presence was legitim, on behalf of being supported by the other roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus was percieved as another usurper, mere tool of an half-Barbarian (Orestus)
When Odoacer overthrew Romulus Augustulus and sent back imperial regalia to Constantinople, he acknowledged (from a far) Nepos' authority and was considered as chasing off an usurper and an illegit and wrong barbarian grasp on an imperial dignity that had to remain Roman.

In the years after 476, and especially from the 490s onward, changes became more significant, as land was redistributed from Romans to "barbarians", but even then, things weren't particularly noticeable to the man in the street.
Giving the extremly limited "barbarian" demographics (keeping in mind that these "Barbarians" were an agglomeration of diverse people including Romans tied up by a hierarchical link to a rex/dux) that didn't bring a lot of change in the economical distribution, at least not more than the agrarian reorganisation of the Late Empire (lack of manpower, decentralisation of production, peasants tied up to a given land).

For Odoacer's Italy, it's interesting to notice that it took merely an handful of years for that distributed lands came back to great landowners' control.

The main economic difference is the absence of an unified administrative and interventionist (economically speaking) body : once the Empire gone from the West, and the Romano-German kingdoms being in charge, production goods remained in a mostly provincial circuit (African potery ceased to appear in Gaul around 500, for instance) and production itself turned to local consumtion (meaning disappearance of the middle-class' identy products and replacement with new identitarian, "barbarians", goods)
 
Further, by conquering almost everywhere that wasn't North Africa, he turned a people who saw chaotic changes of martial power, but little of local societal changes (apart from losses of wealth) into a series of conquered peoples.

The conquest of North Africa wasn't exactly stellar.

When Byzantine defeated Vandals, the first searched to impose an idealized vision of the imperial rule over Mauri, crushing tribal structures autonomies when possible.
The problem was that Romans of the previous periods never imposed a blunt rule on Berber entities, but rather went trough a complex system of federated and client tribes, on the borders or even inside the provinces.

It cost several campaigns, the withdraw of roman borders to a coastal region, the hostility of many Berber kingdoms and a semi-segregated division of Africa with Romans, Africans (Inner Mauri) and Extern Mauri preventing the fusion of populations that happened everywhere else in Latin Romania, to maintain the Roman rule in North Africa.
 
In his desire to "reconquer" the West, he shattered the illusion that the Roman Empire was still a source of power and authority there. Almost the entirety of the Roman World was still Roman to the populous and their leaders, it was only after Justinian that the Roman World was what was under the Eastern Roman Empire. Soon, people no longer saw themselves as Romans, but as the heir to the will of Rome.

Now, that is an interesting point, and it's not one I've seen argued elsewhere: so it's always nice to see some originality! :) That said, is it true? The fact that it's so novel makes me raise an eyebrow, but my knowledge is sketchy, so I can't really say whether I agree or disagree with the assessment. Hopefully LSCatilina will turn up at some point to add his thoughts, as he knows the West much better than do I.

Scholar said:
Justinian knew the reality of the political situation and sought to correct it, but in the process he destroyed the cultural situation and his successors ultimately failed to revive it, inevitably leading to a dramatic reduction of the Roman World. It is in his wake that we truly talk about a post-roman world in the West. Because of that, I really cannot help but place the true fall of the Western Roman Empire at his feet.

I can't really agree with this. Had the war in Italy ended in 540, then the apparent destructiveness would have ended at a stroke, and it's strongly suggested that Justinian was pushing for this aim: it was Belisarius who squandered the chance for peace. War continued, and no doubt it was unpleasant, but I am somewhat sceptical about the claims of Italy being left a blackened wasteland after the 540s. Syria and upper Mesopotamia, after all, were fought over repeatedly in the period and remained flourishing centres. I'd argue that the decline of Italy perhaps has at least as much to do with plague, the flight of the aristocracy to Constantinople and changing patterns of commerce as it does with Justinian's wars.

Had he attempted to revive the West through soft power, responsible campaigning, and supporting "loyal" federates, a true Roman revival may have been possible. Especially since the finances of the East would have been in much better condition to face off against the actual enemies of the Roman World.

How much of this is particularly realistic in the context of the time, though?

The last point about finances, finally, is worth bearing in mind. The Italian war took a long time because of lack of money, not in spite of it. I've made the point before, and I repeat it here because it's important: at no point in his reign did Justinian ever spend a great deal of money on Italy. The biggest investment in the peninsula seems to have been the army assembled by Narses in 553, which pretty promptly demolished the remains of Ostrogothic power and pacified the province. Prior to this, the region had been given only skeleton funding. The overwhelming bulk of taxpayers' money went to the armies and ambassadors on the Iranian front, and the financial difficulties of what followed almost certainly have considerably more to do with dealing with active and belligerent Iranian kings than they do Roman military adventures in the western Mediterranean.
 
Now, that is an interesting point, and it's not one I've seen argued elsewhere: so it's always nice to see some originality! :) That said, is it true? The fact that it's so novel makes me raise an eyebrow, but my knowledge is sketchy, so I can't really say whether I agree or disagree with the assessment. Hopefully LSCatilina will turn up at some point to add his thoughts, as he knows the West much better than do I.

The division Roman/inheritor to Roman is a bit blunt for me, to be honest.
As I tried to point on another thread, the passage from a Roman identity to a Barbarian identity didn't imply a radical political/cultural change.

Barbarian identity, when it came to this, was first about pledging alliegance to the King of [Insert people there], and eventually adopting features percieved as "definitely not Roman" even if it mean make them up, as Romans accepted an identity that gave us administrative privileges (being close to royal trust) and fiscals (not paying as much taxes)

Not that Barbarian and Roman political cultures weren't conciliables : Gregory of Tours is a proud Roman while serving Frankish kings, Sigismond consider himself as submitted to Constantinople, etc.

That Justinian brutal reconquest of Italy did played an important role : Ostrogothic Italy was seen as the garant of the unity of western Romania (as points out its mediation between Franks and Visigoths, for exemple) and probably provoked a shock among Romano-German elites, with some sort of "sacred union" over a Barbarian identity that was, culturally speaking, essentially romanised and therefore meaning not that much change for a post-imperial Roman identity that was influenced by provincial and germano-roman features.

We know that Franks, while their hegemony over western Europe grew, created themselves an historiography where they were liberators of Gaul from roman tyranny, at the point Charlemagne (contrary to popular belief) never claimed the title of "Roman Emperor" or "Emperors of the Romans" but rather the strange "Emperor ruling over the Roman Empire" (and still prefered to use "King of Franks and Lombards" especially in the, mostly ceremonial, carolingian gold coinage).

That said, I don't think the passage from post-Imperial to post-Roman was only issued from that : inner matters prooved as much, if not more, decisive.

Let's take the exemple of Goths : in Italy, where the Roman political and cultural prestige was really high, the identitarian fusion didn't really happened as the Barbarian identity (in spite of administrative and fiscal privileges) wasn't attractive enough.

And in Spain, where the Roman prestige wasn't exactly stellar (critically with the Byzantine presence on Betica, that cristallized much resentment), you had the maintain of a distinct Gothic identity for longer (the fusion of Gothic and Roman elements was achieved within the VIIth century only), while Roman refugees in Spain from North Africa were a general trend.

Or the case of Aquitains, that considered themselves Romans up to Peppinid conquest (and later).

I think Justinian reconquests probably pointed out the existance of a plural Romanitas to Western Romanian peoples and elites and did provoked a political and cultural change, but more trough cristallisation of a cooperation between Romans and Barbarians than hastening an identity change whom Barbarian policies may have been more responsible of.
 
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scholar

Banned
The conquest of North Africa wasn't exactly stellar.

When Byzantine defeated Vandals, the first searched to impose an idealized vision of the imperial rule over Mauri, crushing tribal structures autonomies when possible.
Definitely true, I won't argue with that. The Berbers seemed actually to initially welcome the Eastern Romans over the Vandals, but this good will was squandered early on. However, to the Romans in North Africa, this was one of the few areas where people seemed happy to rejoin the empire and the economic viability of North Africa wasn't seriously damaged until after the Islamic Conquest.

Now, that is an interesting point, and it's not one I've seen argued elsewhere: so it's always nice to see some originality! :) That said, is it true? The fact that it's so novel makes me raise an eyebrow, but my knowledge is sketchy, so I can't really say whether I agree or disagree with the assessment. Hopefully LSCatilina will turn up at some point to add his thoughts, as he knows the West much better than do I.
To be completely fair, its not something I have seen argued much elsewhere either. However, it is something of an inference drawn from a closer study of the Roman revival under the Ostrogoths and the Roman transformation into something completely different with the Eastern Roman Withdrawal. I've recently been listening to an audio course on the Late Antiquity Crisis and Transformation, and while the professor never comes out and says it, he does heavily imply it.

The rest is me and my lurking here. :eek:

(Aside: Take a look at that price! Only buy it on clearance or get it at a local library...)

I can't really agree with this. Had the war in Italy ended in 540, then the apparent destructiveness would have ended at a stroke, and it's strongly suggested that Justinian was pushing for this aim: it was Belisarius who squandered the chance for peace. War continued, and no doubt it was unpleasant, but I am somewhat sceptical about the claims of Italy being left a blackened wasteland after the 540s. Syria and upper Mesopotamia, after all, were fought over repeatedly in the period and remained flourishing centres. I'd argue that the decline of Italy perhaps has at least as much to do with plague, the flight of the aristocracy to Constantinople and changing patterns of commerce as it does with Justinian's wars.
Syria and Mesopotamia had trade to fall back on, major urban centers, and its position as a crossroads of civilization. Italy wasn't as fortunate. One should assume hyperbole, but even then its very clear that something happened. Given that the Catholic Church became dominated by old Roman families and maybe little Italian republics also propped themselves up on old landed aristocracies, I question the extent to which the flight was actually truly damaging. The Roman Senate, which had sort of been reviving, almost certainly finally being crushed and lose all real significance with the restoration of Eastern Roman Rule and the appointment of officials from there certainly didn't help matters.

But your reason for disagreement hinges on an if and a shift of blame. Perhaps Justinian wasn't to blame for the war being protracted, but nevertheless it was under his watch that the war started in the first place, and its protraction damaged the credibility of Rome severely in the region. The result was ultimately the same. The Ostrogothic leadership had many ties with Roman aristocracy, marriages and patronage, and the two cultivated a strong relationship with the perceived support of the Roman Emperor. In the few generations the Ostrogoths were there, no doubt many of the soldiers had intermarried and adopted the customs of the region they moved into - this was common everywhere in the former Western Empire, though with varying levels of anti-romanism added into the mix. They started to identify themselves as Roman, and this apparently got bad enough that Theodoric actually tried to ban his followers from adopting Roman customs.

Though there are problems with this analogy, imagine you are a second or third generation immigrant to the United States. You speak English and probably your place of origin's language. Because of a tenuous political situation, your grandparents moved to this region to restore order with the blessing of Washington D.C. The political situation wasn't solved, but it was substantially better than it had been before. However, a change in leadership at Washington leads to the decision that the political situation must be resolved and a new army comes in - an army to root you out and take direct control. For years you are fighting with the people who sent you to this part of the US, and as you fight you are fighting alongside some of the people whom the government is ostensibly trying to take the land back for. After decades of conflict, a large amount of death, and the destruction of much that had been done, do you still see yourself as an American? If you do, do you see yourself as the same type of American?

Granted that analogy is fraught with problems, many of which you are no doubt already ready to respond with, but I think the point is made somewhat clearer. You see a heavily romanised group working with romans with the blessings of roman authority suddenly attacked by the "real" romans trying to kick you out or subjugate you.

How much of this is particularly realistic in the context of the time, though?

The last point about finances, finally, is worth bearing in mind. The Italian war took a long time because of lack of money, not in spite of it. I've made the point before, and I repeat it here because it's important: at no point in his reign did Justinian ever spend a great deal of money on Italy. The biggest investment in the peninsula seems to have been the army assembled by Narses in 553, which pretty promptly demolished the remains of Ostrogothic power and pacified the province. Prior to this, the region had been given only skeleton funding. The overwhelming bulk of taxpayers' money went to the armies and ambassadors on the Iranian front, and the financial difficulties of what followed almost certainly have considerably more to do with dealing with active and belligerent Iranian kings than they do Roman military adventures in the western Mediterranean.
It would have required a different type of leader, one more eager to play for influence and prestige over conquest and political control. Or one who desperately wanted to play an active role in the greater Roman World, but was unable to devote any serious assets because of problems with Persia making it mostly a prestige, trade, and cultural venture. There had been Emperors like this in the past, and plenty of examples to follow outside of OTL Roman tradition.

Italy wasn't the only campaign though, and Justinian did ascend to power with a relatively full treasury. Perhaps the war would have been over quicker if more funds were made to make the war possible, but once more it was the mishandling of that war that alienated people from Rome. Furthermore, your phrasing may also be used to highlight the disconnect between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Roman people and their Germanic leader. Justinian saw the reconquest of provinces, but provinces in the roman sense lost almost all of their significance. Now it was just Romans and their military leaders. To them it wasn't being restored as a province, but something being robbed from them.
 
The Berbers seemed actually to initially welcome the Eastern Romans over the Vandals
That's debatable : Vandals pretty much kept the former Roman stance on Berbers entities (and actually let them pretty much of highlands).

Africano-Romans coastal population may have welcomed, but Inner Mauri (giving the sheer ignorance of realities during Byzantine re-conquest, Outer Mauri weren't really considered on the "welcoming") did find immediate great changes, as the Roman provincial takeover at the expanse of tribal entities was something immediate (and they did welcome the Outer Mauri expeditions whenever possible).

If we take in account the regret of Vandal period, even on pro-byzantine circles of Africa, when it comes to the regret of peace with Berbers, it seems that Mauri had a better relationship with Vandals (and it can be easily argued that Inner Mauri and Roman population began to merge, the process being stopped with the Byzantine conquest).

EDIT : Modified a bit my last post on Justinian conquest and its impacts on Western Romania.
 

scholar

Banned
That's debatable : Vandals pretty much kept the former Roman stance on Berbers entities (and actually let them pretty much of highlands).
In this regard I cannot say too much. I would put forward the idea that the Vandals gave the Berbers much more freedom to bribe them into pacify and to give them a way to concentrate their power in the regions they wanted to control, rather than just a continuation of former roman policies. I am not too knowledgeable in this area and am mostly relying on what others have said and my own intuition.

That said, I would say that the region was not really economically damaged by Justinian's conquest and it was one of Eastern Rome's last territories to be abandoned, well after other regions had been taken over. Something had to be going right, even if Rome lost the faith and support of the semi-nomadic peoples in the region. And, if this is wrong, that only makes my criticism of Justinian's role in ending the idea of the Greater Roman World even more damning.

EDIT : Modified a bit my last post on Justinian conquest and its impacts on Western Romania.
I don't believe I disagree with your stance here. I think of the realignment or crystallization of the relationship between Romans and their Germanic rulers (which compromised a very small percentage of the population, comparatively speaking) represented a break from the idea that these were Romans part of the Roman world, to the ideas that they were the heirs of Rome and no longer part of the Roman World represented by Constantinople. This further materialized with the emergence of the Catholic Church, and and the Great Schism killed off any idea that the Western Roman Empire was still extant in any real way other than the Church... or the Holy Roman Empire. But, by then, I think we're in agreement that we're well past the point where we are talking about a Post-Roman world.
 
I am not too knowledgeable in this area and am mostly relying on what others have said and my own intuition.
If you read french, I'd advise you one really recent and really deep study (decade of work) on the subject avaible entierly there

According to Yves Moréand (and Abdallah Laroui, in his Histoire du Maghreb), the Vandal territorial control on Africa was more important than during Byzantine period (if smaller than during Roman period)

You did had a Maur revolt/expansion in the late Vandal period, though, with the palace coup of Gelimer preventing an effective campaign against them (and pushing coastal Africano-Roman population into Byzantine arms by fear of Maurs, even if Constantinople couldn't care less about this precise factor)

That said, I would say that the region was not really economically damaged by Justinian's conquest and it was one of Eastern Rome's last territories to be abandoned, well after other regions had been taken over.
It's ignoring the pressure of Maurs kingdoms and their regular alliance with Inner Maurs and semi-servile population (altough these alliances were often precarious). The Byzantine first answer was to pull a Leroy Jenkins, and when it properly failed to build fortifications and limes.

The loyalism of Africans is partially explained trough the aforementioned social separation between Romans and Maurs, the latter maintaining a pressure on the formers. It's less about something going right, than Byzantines continuing a similar policy than Romans and Vandals after having lost of the former's holdings in Africa.

I don't believe I disagree with your stance here. I think of the realignment or crystallization of the relationship between Romans and their Germanic rulers (which compromised a very small percentage of the population, comparatively speaking)
It was true in the late Vth century, but it already ceased to be in many parts of the Western Romania.
First, and again, "German" when it comes to Franks, Burgonds, Goths, etc. mean essentially a mix of whatever agglomerated around a king/lineage : different germanic or proto-slavic/dacian/sarmatian peoples as well, roman, laeti. Barbarian was a political identity that attracted many non-German people that, in order to distinguish themselves from Romans (that were passably influenced as well by Germanic features themselves) identified themselves as such trough, for exemple, material cultures whom many aspects appeared only when Barbarians settled in Romania (frankish axes, laws, gothic eagles, or even up to the dresses or hairdress)

Then, such cooperation existed : a Syagrius greatly helped to the formation of the Burgundian Law up to be nicknamed the "Solon of Burgundians", Justinian reconquest made it more systematical and Latins less prone to refer themselves to Constantinople.
Less prone doesn't mean they ceased to : hence Gondovald's revolt in 580's that was more or less backed by Constantinople (it could be argued that many of his supports were Romans from southern Gaul, and that Mauricius did so in a context of struggle in Spain between Orthodox/Catholics and Homeans), or after his revolt failed, Mauricius giving patriciate to a Syagrius (opening a way to a possible exarchate there)

Constantinople remained a focus for some Roman elites, even after Justinian era, that if played a role on this gradual identitarian evolution, was not a radical change in mentalities when opposed to inner Romano-German matters.

Other changes, such as the monothelist crisis (whom outcome may have been an earleir Latin/Greek schism if not for being stillborn because of the Arab conquests), the decline of Mediterranean trade (absence of byzantine gold) played as much an important role there.
 
Its a cool graphic, but I see you used a favorite word of yours 'ravitail' that I still don't know the meaning of, and still can't find a definition of.

Yeah, sorry. I'm working on a better one, that does have "food supplies" and focues a bit more on countryside.
 

Cook

Banned
Thanks for all the help. If you'd like to take this thread in an alternate history direction, that's perfectly fine, as long as we can discuss what happened OTL first.

I suggest you get hold of Adrian Goldsworthy's 'The Fall of the West', it will answer all your questions. Another good book is Peter Heather's 'The Fall of the West'.
 
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