Why Did The Roman Empire Collapse?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Dan Snow’s History Hit

Episode: Why Did The Roman Empire Collapse?

Released: June 18, 2026
Host: Dan Snow
Guest: Professor Peter Heather, Medieval History, King’s College London

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Overview

In this engrossing episode, Dan Snow is joined by acclaimed historian Professor Peter Heather to explore one of history’s enduring mysteries: Why did the Roman Empire collapse, specifically its Western half? From the empire’s height in the Early Second Century to its unraveling by the late 5th century, they analyze the internal mechanics, border dynamics, economic realities, and shifting barbarian tides that fueled transformation rather than simple destruction. With sharp insights and lively conversation, the duo dispels myths, untangles longstanding theories, and highlights what truly changed as Rome "fell" and gave way to the medieval world.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Allure of Rome’s Fall

• Dan opens by noting the obsession with Rome’s fall, emphasizing that there have been over a hundred different scholarly theories (06:02).
• Prof. Heather credits Gibbon, the American Founding Fathers’ self-image, and Rome’s abundant surviving records for fueling this fascination.
  • Quote: “They are. I think it’s got a lot to do with Gibbon...and a lot to do with surviving material.” — Peter Heather (05:45)

At Its Height: Imperial Geography & Longevity

• The empire stretched from Scotland to Iraq, the Sahara to the Danube, making it the largest and longest-lived state in Western Eurasia (08:13).
• Movement was slow—effectively making the empire feel 20 times larger than it looked on a map due to travel times (08:13).
  • Quote: “It’s like running all of Eurasia now, that’s the scale you’re talking about...So it is colossal.” — Peter Heather (08:13)
• Despite unwieldiness, its durability was unmatched, far surpassing later empires like Britain’s (09:21).

Luck, Neighbors, and the ‘Crisis of the Third Century’

(10:23–14:56)

• Rome succeeded partly through luck; there were no major peer rivals in the north or west for centuries.
• The "Crisis of the Third Century" (c. 200–300 AD) was pivotal: Rome’s own successes at Romanizing the provinces created new internal political demands, while a Persian superpower emerged in the east (11:18–12:07).
• Major military reforms shifted power to elite mobile field armies at the center, away from regional commanders (13:42), reducing local coups but leaving the empire reliant on quickly shuffling those armies across vast spaces.

Division of East and West

• Administrative division into East and West was more pragmatic than absolute—a series of improvisations, not a rigid split (15:00).
• The need for dual emperors arose from threats at both Persian and European frontiers.

Frontier Transformations and the Barbarian Question

(16:28–18:33)

• Germanic neighbors along the empire’s European borders grew in cohesion and power, becoming more organized and populous (16:28).
• Still, there was little evidence for major internal decay (e.g., economic collapse or loss of ‘martial spirit’) by c. 400 AD—if anything, rural population and productivity peaked in the 4th century, overturning older narratives of decline (18:58–20:26).
  • Quote: “The period of maximum rural population and rural productivity is the 4th century, not earlier. You know, it’s the total game changer actually.” — Peter Heather (20:08)

Cataclysms from the East: The Huns and the Gothic Crisis

(21:26–26:42)

• A mysterious disturbance in the Eurasian steppe (possibly environmental or political) sent the Huns westward in the mid-370s, disrupting Rome's frontier clients, notably the Goths (21:26–22:29).
• The Gothic Wars erupted when groups sought asylum within the empire, culminating in the disastrous defeat at Adrianople (24:28–25:00):
  • Quote: “Valens and two-thirds of his army are killed.” — Peter Heather (25:11)
• The Eastern Empire, protected by fortified Constantinople and insulated revenue sources, weathered the storm, but the West was less resilient (25:29–26:42).

Dominoes Fall: Invasions, Britain’s ‘Brexit,’ and the Unraveling

(28:49–36:12)

• Hunnic upheaval caused a massive population outflow (c. 406–410) across the Rhine into Gaul and into Italy.
• Although Rome repelled some invasions, others overwhelmed Gaul and spilled into Spain.
• Britain’s separation was practical—Roman authorities withdrew, local commanders attempted self-defense, and Roman identity lingered for a generation or so before collapse (33:56–35:29).
  • Quote: “In the aftermath...the central empire says goodbye. ‘Yeah, we’re not coming back.’” — Peter Heather (34:41)

“Feasting on the Corpse”: Disintegration of the West

(36:12–44:56)

• Barbarians divided up Spain and sacked Rome itself in 410 under Alaric (37:38).
• Yet, there were moments of “last hurrah” as Roman commanders temporarily restored order in Gaul and Spain (40:16–40:41).
• The fatal blow: After succession crises in the empire, the Vandals conquered North Africa—Rome’s agricultural and fiscal lifeblood (43:17).
  • Quote: “It is the jewel in the crown...It doesn’t cost the empire a lot, and it contributes a huge amount. Not anymore, it doesn’t.” — Peter Heather (43:14–43:15)

No Recovery: East Intervenes, But Too Late

(44:49–48:26)

• Repeated attempts (and disasters) to reconquer lost territories failed, due to accidents, military defeats, and disruptions from Attila and the Huns.
• The “last chance” expedition to recover Africa in 468 faltered, dashing hopes of genuine restoration (47:25–48:25).

The Actual End: Fragmentation and Aftershocks

(48:26–57:33)

• After 468, it was clear the Western center could not rebound. Barbarian leaders broke out of their “reservations,” conquering Spain, Gaul, and Italy (48:57).
• Odoacer’s deposition of the last Western Emperor in 476 was a symptom, not a cause—regional elites shifted loyalty, and landownership persisted where possible (51:17–53:57).
  • Quote: “He calls himself king, but doesn’t say what he’s king of...he sends a senatorial embassy to Constantinople, sending back the imperial regalia...saying there’s no need for more than one Roman Emperor anymore.” — Peter Heather (51:28)
• Britain and parts of Gaul experienced true collapse: disappearance of villas, towns, Roman elite culture, and language, confirmed by archaeological and genetic evidence (55:06–56:47).
  • Quote: “Roman London is a sort of ghost town...Latin disappears, all the marks of Roman culture disappear.” — Dan Snow and Peter Heather (55:45–55:46)

Legacy and the Transformation Thesis

• In many areas, old elites survived and adapted, melding with the ruling barbarians and helping build the post-Roman kingdoms.
• The militarization of landowning classes foreshadowed medieval Europe (56:47–57:33).
• Eastern Rome (Byzantium) survived and thrived, showing Rome’s system itself was resilient—provided its tax base was secure (57:37–58:12).
  • Quote: “The Roman system is alive and kicking in the Eastern Empire...the unraveling of the West’s control of its tax base and hence its ability to fund its armies, which undermines the West.” — Peter Heather (57:42–58:12)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Roman durability:
  “Makes the British Empire look like a complete joke. Flash in the pan.” — Dan Snow & Peter Heather (09:21–09:22)
• On 4th century vibrancy:
  “The staggering...fact...from all of that is that...the period of maximum rural population and rural productivity is the 4th century, not earlier.” — Peter Heather (20:08)
• On the randomness of collapse:
  “In some places, Rome’s fall did look a little bit like Mad Max. But in other places, it’s striking to ask what endured.” — Dan Snow (59:16)
• On taxation and military weakness:
  “The process...that brings about the imperial unraveling is the loss of tax base, which then leads to the weakening of the military forces at the center.” — Peter Heather (43:16)

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Important Timestamps

• Intro to the episode’s main question (03:38)
• Comprehensive map of the Empire’s height (06:26–07:59)
• Division of East and West (14:56–15:28)
• Transformation of Frontier Neighbors (16:28–18:33)
• Material prosperity in 4th c. Rome (18:58–20:26)
• The Huns and the Gothic Crisis (21:26–26:42)
• Britain’s exit from the Roman world (33:56–35:29)
• Sack of Rome by Alaric (37:38–37:43)
• Loss of North Africa and fatal impact (43:17–44:56)
• Endgame: failed expeditions, failed recovery (47:25–48:25)
• Odoacer topples the last emperor (51:17–51:48)
• Regional variation in collapse/adaptation (53:20–54:57; 55:06–56:47)
• Survival of Eastern Empire (Byzantium) (57:33–58:12)
• Dan’s closing reflections on legacy (58:28–59:41)

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Tone & Takeaways

• The discussion is lively and approachable, balancing scholarly depth with accessible language and humor.
• Both host and guest favor a nuanced “transformation” view: Rome’s fall as a complex process of change, not simply catastrophe.
• Some regions suffered dramatic collapse (notably Britain), while others transitioned to post-Roman structures with old elites and some aspects of Roman life persisting.
• Ultimately, the collapse stemmed not from internal rot but from external shocks and the loss of the tax base required to maintain a strong central army and administration.
• The survival and flourishing of the Eastern Empire underscores that the Roman “system” was fundamentally robust—if tax revenues and external security held.

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For a comprehensive, clear-sighted take on the fall of the Western Roman Empire—demolishing doom-laden myths and exploring what really happened to shape medieval Europe—this episode is essential listening.

Transcript

[Dan Snow]

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Rome for centuries, the unshakable titan of the ancient world, its territory spanning three continents. Its soldiers gazed out on the frontier from massive defensive fortifications. Its engineers built cities, moved rivers, and turned the desert green. Roads stitched its provinces together, from the sands of the Sahara to the great rivers of the east to the misty crags beneath Hadrian's Wall. Its legions conquered and campaigned to the edges of the known world. Its emperors claimed dominion over millions of human beings. Yet by the late 5th century that empire, which had believed itself immortal, was gone across much of Western Europe and North Africa. The last emperor deposed, the imperial court dissolved, the map redrawn. New kingdoms now claimed Rome's lands as their own. So what on earth happened?

[Dan Snow]

It's one of the greatest questions of all, folks. And right now here we on Dante's

[Co-host or Narrator]

history are going to answer that question. Today we are delving into the internal and the external forces, the unstitched, the Western Roman Empire. While acknowledging that the eastern half of the empire endured and evolved into something new and long lasting. We're going to explore how regional loyalties replaced imperial unity. We're going to look at Rome's relationship with frontier peoples, how it broke down, how it became corrupted, how the empire's vast size really was one of the roots of its vulnerability. And how changes on the distant Asian steppe, not for the last time in history, would plunge Europe into an epoch of fight and violence. This isn't just a story about collapse. It's a story about change, about one world ending another beginning, about transformation as much as finality.

[Dan Snow]

This is the last of our episodes on our little series about the Roman Empire.

[Co-host or Narrator]

Over the last two weeks, we've heard about how the empire rose, what it was like at its height.

[Dan Snow]

And there are links to those episodes

[Co-host or Narrator]

in the show notes, so be sure to go and check those out before listening to this final episode. All about the Empire's demise. I'm so happy to say that I'm joined by Peter Heather, professor of Medieval History at King's College London, an expert in the later Roman Empire and its successor state.

[Dan Snow]

He's the author of the Fall of

[Co-host or Narrator]

the Roman Empire, A New History of Rome and the Barbarians.

[Dan Snow]

He's the co author. You'll have heard him on this podcast for he's written a book called why

[Co-host or Narrator]

Empires, Rome, America and the Future of the West.

[Dan Snow]

I used to read his books when I was a kid, when I was a student. It is a great honor to have

[Co-host or Narrator]

him on the podcast. Always meet your heroes, folks. They're brilliant. He really is the guy to tell this story.

[Dan Snow]

Enjoy. Peter, thank you so much for coming on this podcast.

[Peter Heather]

It's an absolute pleasure.

[Dan Snow]

We've set ourselves a great task. You've spent your entire career stewing and why do people think this is the great question of history? Why does Rome fall? And does it fall? And it just seems that people are obsessed with it.

[Peter Heather]

They are. I think it's got a lot to do with Gibbon, got a lot to do with the American Founding Fathers understanding themselves. As Rome. And it's got a lot to do with surviving material. So there's a lot of information that you can play with.

[Dan Snow]

And there's that great sort of list that someone's made. Various scholars have come up with how many different theories?

[Peter Heather]

Oh, it's well over 100.

[Dan Snow]

Well over 100?

[Peter Heather]

Yes. I can't remember. It was 120 and counting.

[Dan Snow]

I think, Peter, I'm very upset if we don't get every single one of these theories into the next hour. Right, first of all though, let's. Should we have a look at the Roman Empire? So let's start in the northwest of Europe, the outlying section, England and Wales. Britain, Britannia, the Roman province. What are we talking about? The height of the empire? The early second century. Trajan or Hadrian, Those emperors that follow? Yeah.

[Peter Heather]

About 150. Well, no, actually probably more like 200 is the absolute physical maximum.

[Dan Snow]

So we got.

[Peter Heather]

Because they add a bit more in Mesopotamia.

[Dan Snow]

How much of Holland, I don't want to get this wrong. How much of Holland?

[Peter Heather]

Western Holland west.

[Dan Snow]

Okay. Western Holland. Right down through northern Italy, obviously Rome itself.

[Peter Heather]

Bavaria.

[Dan Snow]

Bavaria.

[Peter Heather]

Austria and Bavaria.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, A bit of Bavaria there. Okay, interesting. North Africa.

[Peter Heather]

Yes.

[Dan Snow]

So strip along the coast. How far inland is Roman?

[Peter Heather]

Well, the power stretches as far as the decent agricultural land does up into the Atlas Mountains. I mean it's a very ill defined frontier because it's basically about protecting agricultural production.

[Dan Snow]

Right, okay.

[Peter Heather]

So there's no formed enemy there.

[Dan Snow]

Come to Egypt. And of course it's equivalent down the Nile because there's good funk. So we'll go down the Nile there. That's right.

[Peter Heather]

Not Sudan, but not Sudan. Well, into Iraq.

[Dan Snow]

That's one. Iraq. Anatole, Turkey. The bit that I'm interested in, what's going on in Crimea, Even parts of Russia and modern Ukraine.

[Peter Heather]

The empire is stretching up the western coast of the Black Sea, but not as far as Crimea. There are independent cities there which have very close relationships with the empire and there are lots of ambassadors there.

[Dan Snow]

So almost client king sort of stuff. Almost Greece, of course. And then is it the Danube frontier? I mean, I know Trajan conquers beyond the Danube, but the line of the

[Peter Heather]

Danube is the place to start. But then you do have to add Transylvania beyond at this point. So there's a big arc up into the Carpathian system.

[Dan Snow]

Is that empire. Geographically it looks different to China, doesn't it? It looks different to sort of the Aztec empire. It's based around the Mediterranean. Is it unwieldy geographically or does this actually make it quite Coherent. Is it easy to move troops and supplies around?

[Peter Heather]

Well, you've got two things going on. First of all, it is the biggest state that western Eurasia has ever seen. It's much bigger than Charlemagne's empire. It's much bigger than the Holy Roman Empire. You know, it is colossal. It goes from Scotland to Iraq. I mean, that tells you it's huge. And of course, it's bigger than it looks. Because land transport moves, you can do a kind of rough calculation and come up with a round number about 20 times more slowly than today. Than today. So it's actually measured in. Because the real distance is how long it takes you and me to get from one place to another. That's the real measure. Measure of distance. Not miles or kilometers or anything like that. So it's actually 20 times bigger than it looks. It's like running all of Eurasia now, that's the scale you're talking about. So it is colossal. Transport is slow. On the other hand, it's also the longest lived state that western Eurasia has ever known at its fullest extent. Apart from that Dacian hump, It's lasting for 500 years, half a millennium. So climb from us to Henry VIII. Nothing has lasted that long. Makes the British Empire look like a complete joke.

[Dan Snow]

Flash in the pan.

[Peter Heather]

Yeah, absolutely nothing. Complete nothing. So it's doing something right. Although it's colossal and unwieldy, it works in an amazing way.

[Dan Snow]

Part of that I learned from your books is some of that is luck. I mean, they get quite lucky in that there's no massive empires, for example, pushing in through what is now Northern Europe.

[Peter Heather]

That's right. I mean, there's a pattern of under development still. What's different from China is that the Roman system doesn't take in all the kind of arable farmers of Western Europe. Some are left outside. Whereas the Chinese system incorporates basically all the sort of arable farmers of the. Of the eastern end of Eurasia. But that farming area is still very underdeveloped. Population densities aren't high and you don't have any large structured states. So if you look at the expansion pattern of the Roman Empire, it basically takes over all the bits of Europe that were worth taking over in about the first century bc. Right.

[Dan Snow]

Tough hit on the Scots there, but we'll let it.

[Peter Heather]

But they did argue that actually Britain was not worth taking.

[Dan Snow]

No, exactly. It was a vanity project.

[Peter Heather]

Yes, you always go a bit further than the Scots benefit.

[Dan Snow]

So if we're gonna look at the. Well, whether it's the Collapse, the fall of this western empire, the dissolution, the change of this western empire into something different. Is it important to start with actually not the fitt fifth century when it all gets very dramatic. Is it important to start with the so called crisis of the third century?

[Peter Heather]

I believe it is. I think you need some backstory. I think you need to understand how the imperial system is working in the 4th century at the verge of the outbreak of the process of unraveling or whatever you want to call it. Because I think if you don't understand. Well, the process of unraveling is dictated the precise nature of it by the way that the empire works. And if you don't understand how the empire works, you are not going to understand the process of unraveling.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, talk me through it. How does the empire sort of deal with these great crises it face and then reconstitute itself?

[Peter Heather]

The third century crisis is really interesting because in part it's caused by the Romans own success story. What they've done is turn the provincial populations everywhere from Britain into Iraq into Romans. So you know, the Brits have stopped painting themselves blue, they're learning Latin, they're living in villas, they're wearing togas, they're in the imperial system and they want more from it. So the success of romanization policies self romanization in the first 200 years creates a lot of political voices who want a share in the system. And the third century crisis is very substantially the internal side of it is about these provincial voices wanting a share in the system. It's also caused by the rise of a Persian superpower next door.

[Dan Snow]

Right. So they've got a peer competitor for the first time in a while.

[Peter Heather]

Absolutely first.

[Dan Snow]

And that's in what roughly modern Iran?

[Peter Heather]

Iraq and Iran. So southern Iraq and Iran. So it's the two combined. So you can, if you think about that, it's a pretty hefty competitor. 3rd century crisis takes the form of various emperors being defeated by the Persians and then various provincial subgroups breaking away from the center in response to the fracturing of imperial authority. So the Persians challenge imperial authority on the battlefield and then these provincial communities start setting up their own branches of the Roman Empire. So we get a Gallic empire that lasts for two generations in the second and third quarter of the third century. Why this is important is the way that the empire actually overcomes the crisis, then shapes the nature of where we are in the fourth century. And in particular, I suppose two things stand out. One is we refashion the military. So gone are the legions Early Roman Empire, you have legions, big units. They're 5,000 men. They're a small expeditionary army in themselves, each one dotted around the edges of the Empire. It's a usurpation in waiting. Basically. In response to the breakaway units of the third century, we create a hierarchy. So there are still units on the frontier, but they're small, they're not very well equipped. There are some regional armies, intermediate. But the real striking power of the imperial army is concentrated in elite formations around the Empire.

[Dan Snow]

So he sort of maintains a monopoly of force within the Empire. Interest?

[Peter Heather]

Absolutely no political dissidents after the year 300 takes the form of a frontier or a regional commander challenging central imperial authority.

[Dan Snow]

Because they don't have the muscle, they

[Peter Heather]

don't have a chance.

[Dan Snow]

Okay.

[Peter Heather]

You will be dead in no time at all. So we get lots of coups at the center for control of that potent military force, but you don't see anyone challenging it, trying to fragment it.

[Dan Snow]

Okay. But then the problem is the emperor has to get that field army to wherever there's trouble on the borders.

[Peter Heather]

Yes, he does.

[Dan Snow]

And that's a huge space.

[Peter Heather]

It is a huge space. And this, I think, is the great downside of the third century crisis is that it becomes clear that if you've got enough force to counter the Persian threat and Persia doesn't go away, it's countered, but it's not destroyed. Then you've got to have an emperor in the east, close to that concentration of military force. And if you've got an emperor in the east, he's too far away from the west to control political developments there. So it's often talked about as a system. It's not really a system. It's a series of improvisations in each political generation. But we usually end up with more than one emperor because of that, you've got to have one in the east. And if you've got one in the east, the west is too far away.

[Dan Snow]

And so is there a formal divide between what becomes this east and west empire?

[Peter Heather]

It is broadly. If you started at the northern end of Greece and went straight up, it's more or less there.

[Dan Snow]

So it's Albania.

[Peter Heather]

Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

Okay.

[Peter Heather]

Albania is part of the east, but Serbia would be part of the West.

[Dan Snow]

Okay. And Libya? Somewhere in Libya.

[Peter Heather]

Libya is east. Tripolitania. So Tripoli, that's West.

[Dan Snow]

And initially, that wasn't hard. And fires. It wasn't designed to become two different states. That was just okay.

[Peter Heather]

And they don't operate completely as two different states. This is a myth that some of my Colleagues put around emperors, pass laws for both halves of the empire, that's

[Dan Snow]

telling you they're operating and occasionally will take over the other half and put a son on the throne and all that sort of stuff.

[Peter Heather]

Absolutely. It's not easy. There's lots of conflict. So one form of internal conflict is replacing your emperor in east or West. The other form of conflict is occasional head on civil wars between eastern, West.

[Dan Snow]

But that, roughly speaking, keeps the empire going for another hundred or so years.

[Peter Heather]

Yes, it does. It makes it impossible for an unraveling of the system in terms of geographical fragments emerging to independence. Right.

[Dan Snow]

You can't do it now. You've got a western emperor who's sort of really, usually in France, Northern Italy.

[Paige Desorbo]

Yes.

[Peter Heather]

He's either in Trier, Milan.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. Nowhere's too far away.

[Peter Heather]

Yeah, okay, exactly.

[Dan Snow]

So but as we come to the end of that 4th century, get into the 5th century, the 4000 AD, what starts to happen?

[Peter Heather]

Well, we get a new element into the equation and that is round the edge of Rome's European frontiers between the first and the fourth century, we have seen a kind of social and economic and therefore political transformation of largely Germanic speaking neighbors. They're becoming a bit more coherent, their economic systems are becoming more productive. So their populations are growing, they are still client states.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, so they're on the outside the empire. Yes, but their leaders are sort of, they're trading with Rome.

[Peter Heather]

Absolutely.

[Dan Snow]

Rome might be sending ambassadors and yeah, giving them some military assistance and things.

[Peter Heather]

Occasionally Rome turns up once a generation, beats the crap out of them. Right. Make a diplomatic agreement.

[Dan Snow]

Okay.

[Peter Heather]

A lot of formal submissions rather than necessarily head on conflict, but a little bit of bloodletting just to make the point that the empire is in charge.

[Dan Snow]

But they start to what becomes more coherent, more threatening.

[Peter Heather]

They are becoming more coherent. You can see that by the 4th century, the one change we'd make to the map is to remove that Dacian hump. So Transylvania in Romania, it's part of the third century crisis. The response to it, the empire decides to shorten its defensive lines.

[Dan Snow]

Okay. And so on this northern frontier, we're starting to see it, well, almost a peer threat like we do in Persia or something that can actually beat the Romans.

[Peter Heather]

They're too small to beat the Romans. If the wind is in their favor and conditions are right, they can extract better terms. Okay, so for instance, the Goths who are on the lower Danube opposite Romania and Bulgarian now, they can get better, better terms out of the Emperor Valens in the late 360s, because the Persians are getting uppity in the east, he needs to go and fight them. So he's in the middle of a Gothic war, but the Persians are much more important. So he'll do a deal that gives the Goths something of what they want in order to extract his armies and fight Persia. So they need that kind of a thing to go in their favor.

[Dan Snow]

And is there anything within the Roman people talk about disease or economic change, climate change. Is there anything going on within this Roman world that is somehow weaken? Of course, Gibbon, the 18th century historian, would have said, well they all became Christian and started loving their neighbors and all because often, and people often still don't, they talk about how they became luxury loving and they all got a bit too. They forgot their martial traditions. Is there anything going on in this Roman world that is sort of weakening it?

[Peter Heather]

There is nothing that we can see, really. Yeah. And this is in fact the colossal new data set that's become available since the 1980s. Rural surveying, you can date Roman pottery to within a decade, its progressions and we know from careful sampling how dense a concentration of surface pottery means a settlement underneath. So rural surveying, very boring. You go, move forward a meter, collect everything, put it in a plastic bag.

[Dan Snow]

You don't have to dig anything. It's on the surface.

[Peter Heather]

Yeah. Tractors mean that modern plowing techniques pull it all up. So you just go forward, collect it all, look at it. And what's emerged from that is not only where there are settlements in the Roman period, but when they're there, because you can date them to within a decade. And the staggering it would have been to my older colleagues. Fact, we're sort of getting used to it, but still thinking about it now that has emerged from all of that is that across the vast majority of this imperial landscape, the period of maximum rural population and rural productivity is the 4th century, not earlier. You know, this is, you know, it's the total game changer actually.

[Dan Snow]

Amazing.

[Peter Heather]

I think we're all still kind of wrestling with the significance of that and what that does to your understanding of Roman collapse. Because it basically takes out all the old explanations about social and economic collapse. There might be other internal reasons, but it's not going to be straightforward social, economic.

[Dan Snow]

So things are going pretty. So we're approaching 400 A.D. things are going pretty well.

[Peter Heather]

Yeah.

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

Yes.

[Peter Heather]

You wouldn't be looking at it and thinking crisis and actually the sort of material and non material cultural remains of the 4th century suggest creativity. They're plentiful. There's a lot of people doing a Lot of interesting things. The amount of writing, once you realize, which a lot of classicists didn't, that Christian 4th century people aren't still Romans. So you do look at what Christians are writing as well as in the traditional genres, but you add it all. The amount of creative writing generated in the 4th century is colossal.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, so things are fine.

[Peter Heather]

You would think so. Well, you know, apart from that, you've had to divide the empire.

[Dan Snow]

Yes. Yeah.

[Peter Heather]

There are issues. And no human state that we've ever seen is without its problems.

[Dan Snow]

Well, indeed, indeed. Who are we to point the finger?

[Peter Heather]

Indeed.

[Dan Snow]

Right, so let's get into those years. Beyond 400, what starts to happen?

[Peter Heather]

Well, we get a very interesting effect. There's some kind of problem on the great Eurasian steppe, in the world of the nomads. So east of the River Volgar, not exactly sure what causes it. There is some ice core evidence that it was getting a bit hot and dry. It may be, therefore, that the nomad world is facing a problem about grazing and animals, but that's certainly a plausible candidate. The other would be that actually it's empire building going on on the steppe, because they do that as well.

[Dan Snow]

And when they do, the rest of the world is going to find out about it.

[Peter Heather]

But what we find out is in the mid-370s, a previously unknown in the west, group of nomads called the Huns start to impact upon Rome's frontier clients in the Danubian region. First off, Goths, north of the Black Sea.

[Dan Snow]

So the Goths are now finding themselves squished between these Huns that are arriving and the hammer of the Huns and the anvil of the Roman Empire.

[Peter Heather]

Yes.

[Dan Snow]

Which is going to give way.

[Peter Heather]

Yes. They're faced with a dilemma as to what to do. There are several different Gothic groups. They don't all do the same thing. But in the autumn of 376, two separate large groups of Goths, one called Tervingi, one called Grutungi, ask for asylum inside the Roman Empire.

[Dan Snow]

And the Romans are minded to let them in or not?

[Peter Heather]

Well, Valens is in the middle of another war with Persia, so all his army is in Syria and Iraq. What he decides to do is to let one group in and keep the other group out. No Roman emperor who claims to be chosen to be emperor by the supreme creator of the cosmos can ever admit that he's forced to do anything by a barbarian. This is an admission that he's not actually divinely supported because he shouldn't be being forced to do things if he Were. So Valens's propaganda says, yeah, great, we love to see the Goths, but actually what he does is only let in one and try to keep the other one out. And he also takes measures to control all the food supplies in the Balkans where the Goths are intruding. So I think Valens is stuck. He can't disengage from Persia quickly enough. He's going for the least worst scenario that he can see, which is let in one group of Goths, keep the other one out.

[Dan Snow]

And I take it that doesn't work.

[Peter Heather]

It doesn't work. And I don't think Valens's heart was in that agreement ever. I do think the control of the food supplies is a real indicator that he's thinking, I've got to do this in the short term, but in the long term I'm going to restore normal service. And he negotiates peace with Persia, gets his army groups free, negotiates with his nephew who's the Western emperor, for a joint campaign. In the meantime, I think the Goths are equally unconvinced that the first agreement is going to hold. So the Goths who are admitted form an alliance with the Goths who weren't admitted. They all end up inside the empire and this is where we are in 378 and they end up in Adrianople.

[Dan Snow]

So we get this accursed place for the Romans, Adrianople. Valens rushes to fight the Goths before his nephew turns up.

[Peter Heather]

Yes, he's got some intelligence, I think that only one of the two Gothic groups are there, so he thinks he can win a fast one. Valens has been a bit short of military victories for a God chosen emperor. So he's looking for one.

[Dan Snow]

Nice to get one under the belt.

[Peter Heather]

And his nephew has been quite slow in turning up, so I guess his advisors said, yeah, okay, we've got an opportunity.

[Dan Snow]

And the result is one of the great military catastrophes in Roman history.

[Peter Heather]

Both Gothic groups were there, not the one. And the Romans are ambushed from the side when they haven't fully deployed and Valens and two thirds of his army are killed.

[Dan Snow]

And that's what's always interesting about this story, is that it's this catastrophic defeat in the east that actually proves rather disastrous in the west, doesn't it? And is that because we've got Constantinople, this is the capital of the east, so you think, gosh, they must have been under threat, but they're very well defended. The Goths can't capture that city, can they?

[Peter Heather]

They can't. And even more Amazing walls. And even more important, they can't get across. The key revenue producing areas of the Eastern Empire are coastal Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria, Middle east and Egypt. And they are insulated from the threat to the Eastern Empire's European territories. So you can't get at the Eastern heartlands. It means that there is the constant flow of revenues which keeps the army in existence, keeps on coming. So none of the threats to the empire challenge the key revenue zones of the Eastern Empire. The tax base remains intact.

[Dan Snow]

So the Westerners thought, well thanks very much, that's great.

[Peter Heather]

Yes, after a while.

[Dan Snow]

So you've now got the Goths sort of running wild in the Balkans.

[Peter Heather]

Well the end result of this conflict is that I think east and west agree that they can't at the moment terminate the Goths independent existence. So we get a treaty in 382 I think dragged kicking and screaming out of the Empire which recognises Gothic autonomy on Roman soil within the Balkans, within the Balkans.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, Not a great sign.

[Peter Heather]

No. And we've got the speeches that the then Eastern Emperor's spokesman gave while trying to sell the agreement to the Senate of Constantinople, which is a gathering of Eastern landowning opinion. And he pretty much admits, which is astonishingly rare, that the Empire's been forced into it. But he also looks forward to Gothic autonomy disappearing in the medium term. He projects that as a likely outcome.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah, sure, of course, like our public sector debt issue, it will just sort of disappear.

[Peter Heather]

Growth will make it disappear.

[Dan Snow]

Growth will make it disappear. Right, let's get back to the West. What is the problem here in Western Europe?

[Peter Heather]

The problem in Western Europe is that we haven't really seen the Huns yet. All we've seen is the kind of knock on effects of the Hunnic advance guard. There is no evidence for large scale Hunnic intrusion into the fringes of Europe itself. Before the year 400 when we first get Huns in large numbers in what's now hungary, that's about 410. Coincidentally. I don't think it's a coincidence. Other people think it's a coincidence. The years before the sudden appearance of the Huns in Hungary, we get a massive outflow of population from that Central European region, the great Hungarian and its adjacent areas. One into Italy and one across the Rhine into Gaul. So two massive invasions, one in 400, five into Italy and one at the end of 406 into Gaul. The Roman sources concentrate on the effects of these things. There was a source which told us what the causes were, but it survives only in Fragments and in a bowderized, confused later version where someone had read it and copies a bit out. So it's entirely reasonable, as some of my colleagues would do, to argue that the invasions come first and the Huns move into a power vacuum. Myself, I think it's the other way around.

[Dan Snow]

And why can't the Rome just. Let's do the basic thing first. Why can't the Roman Empire just smash these barbarian invasions?

[Peter Heather]

Well, it does smash the first one.

[Dan Snow]

Okay.

[Peter Heather]

The invasion of Italy in 405, that is broken up. It's led by a king called Radagaijius, who might be a Goth. The resources are messy and that's why we can't be certain. But his coalition is broken up. A large number of his elite warriors are drafted into the Roman army of Italy. Lower status warriors are sold off as slaves in such large numbers that the bottom falls out of the slave market in Italy. And Radagasius himself is executed outside Florence. Right.

[Dan Snow]

So normal. So that's what the Roman Empire. They've been dealing with problems coming from the north since the beginning. Yes, but you have left this thrust entering Gaul.

[Peter Heather]

The thrust into Gaul is more problematic. The main military concentration is in northern Italy, not in Gaul. And the local military commanders, with landowner support, go into revolt, particularly in Britain.

[Dan Snow]

That's interesting.

[Peter Heather]

They revolt because of the lack of, I think, care and attention coming in their direction. The revolt it proclaims itself and the actions of the emperors, particularly Constantine iii, the third of the usurpers, is to confront the invaders that have come in.

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[Dan Snow]

Okay, so I should say that this Gaulish incursion it stretched across to Britain as well.

[Co-host or Narrator]

Has it?

[Peter Heather]

Well, the the effects of it have so breakdown.

[Dan Snow]

There's people from elsewhere seeing the opportunity jumping in.

[Peter Heather]

So Constantine III is a military commander in Britain. There are some moderately high quality troops in southeastern Britain. He unites those with the moderately high quality troops on the Rhine to create his power base.

[Dan Snow]

And he says if Rome aren't going to defend us, we're going to try and do something ourselves. Okay, so so Britain sort of Slightly. The risk of sounding like an idiot, they slightly Brexit from the Roman Empire in this period.

[Peter Heather]

The end result is that they do. Absolutely. It's about another within a decade or so. That's true.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, so curiously, Britain oddly takes itself out of the empire.

[Peter Heather]

Okay, it does. Well, content is trying to take over the whole empire to start with. And in fact it's partly Brexit. I mean I call it the first Brexit in one book just as a joke, but it's partly ejected in that. In the aftermath of the fallout from all these attacks, the central empire says goodbye.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah, we're never coming back.

[Peter Heather]

Yeah, we're not coming back.

[Dan Snow]

So yes, you tried to take security into your own hands. While this time we have other priorities. Right, we have other priorities. And then Britain will see incursions from Ireland, from what is now Scotland, from northern Europe. Yes, we can discuss exactly the extent to which Romanness remains, but it's sort of gone from the empire at that point.

[Peter Heather]

It's gone from the official empire from about the second decade of the fifth century. I mean, I think, and I'm not alone, most people do think this, there's a sub Roman population, at least in southern Britain that keeps its ties to the continent, that keeps its Latinate culture for a generation or two. The continental chronicles say it's in about 440 that the manure really hits the air conditioning in Britain.

[Dan Snow]

Oh really?

[Peter Heather]

So you know, 25 years after the separation is when things get really nasty. I think they're probably right. I think they know what they're talking about.

[Dan Snow]

Breakdown of agriculture, the barbarian hordes.

[Peter Heather]

Yes, all that sort of large scale intrusion. So I think there's a sort of funny 20 year period in Britain where it's outside the Roman Empire, but still very Roman in character.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, so what's going on with this unchecked barbarian invasion through what is now France?

[Peter Heather]

They clear off in 40910 into Spain.

[Dan Snow]

Wow. They're on the move.

[Peter Heather]

And they divide Spain up between themselves. Everything except the very northeastern corner. So the vast majority of the Iberian peninsula, they divide up amongst themselves.

[Dan Snow]

So this is a remarkable. And you can see why in the past they assumed there must be some other factors at play. They assumed there must be some terrible disease in the Roman world because this is in the space of two years. These barbarian kings are just feasting on the corpse of what had been the Western Roman Empire.

[Peter Heather]

Yes, that's right. And the thing is made worse by the fact that the Goths who'd made the Treaty in The Balkans in 3, 382 also go into revolt, and they move into Italy in 408.

[Co-host or Narrator]

Right.

[Dan Snow]

So they decide to again leave the Eastern Empire alone. They now march up through.

[Peter Heather]

Yeah, they want a deal. They want a better deal. They've been frozen out of the political establishment of the Eastern Empire. The west is obviously in trouble. They can see they can get a better deal from that. And this is Alaric, who moves into Italy.

[Dan Snow]

He marches up through what is now places like Croatia and Slovenia into Italy,

[Peter Heather]

and then he gets lots of reinforcements from the leftovers of Radagaya, Isis's attack. So.

[Dan Snow]

Oh, they're still hanging around.

[Peter Heather]

They're still there.

[Dan Snow]

A few of them around.

[Peter Heather]

Yeah. And they substantially increase Alaric's force. So we end up with two big new barbarian coalitions that have been created. Alaric's in Italy and then this emerging Vandal Allen coalition in Spain.

[Dan Snow]

Just a complete omnishambles. Yes. Right. And Alaric, once he's in Italy, the unthinkable happens. And Rome itself.

[Peter Heather]

Yes.

[Dan Snow]

Is sacked.

[Peter Heather]

It's sacked. Yes.

[Dan Snow]

For the first time in centuries.

[Peter Heather]

Yes. The last time was some Celts in 300 BC, 200 BC, something like that. I'm a medievalist.

[Dan Snow]

I don't remember. Of course. Don't worry, it's not a test. Okay.

[Peter Heather]

But I failed.

[Dan Snow]

Hundreds and hundreds of years, there are foreign enemies rampaging around the streets of Rome. And things get worse.

[Peter Heather]

They get worse, but they get better first.

[Dan Snow]

Okay.

[Peter Heather]

They get better in the sense that Alaric was trying to sack Rome to get a deal. He's sitting outside Rome for 18 months.

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

Oh, wow.

[Peter Heather]

He could have sacked at any point, but he's trying to use it as a bargaining counter to get a deal out of the Western Empire. They won't do a deal with him.

[Dan Snow]

By the way, where is the Western Empire at the moment? Just a few blokes living on Sardinia. What is the.

[Peter Heather]

The Western Empire is the army groups of Northern Italy. The army is still there, or the main central striking force is still there. And the flow of revenues that keeps it in being is. At least some of it is still there.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. And they're still getting some revenue from North Africa.

[Peter Heather]

We're getting lots of revenue from North Africa. Sicily is good. The Western Balkans. So Croatia is very nice. Lots of money come from there.

[Nikayla Matthews Akome]

Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, so it's still. The organs are still functioning.

[Peter Heather]

Yes, they are. And when we get a powerful leader emerging in the Western Empire, he's not the emperor, but he's the generalissimo. Who acts as the front man, then he suppresses the usurpers, unites the Roman military forces, the Goths, who've retreated by this time into southern France, they've retreated out of Italy because they've kind of been starved out of Italy and no deal has been offered them. He does a deal with them that restricts them to a small area around Bordeaux and he mobilizes the Goths in alliance with his forces to attack the people in Spain. And the groups in Spain were two separate groups of Vandals, Hasdings and Silings, and a number of separate groups of Alans, each under their own kings. And it's quite clear that the Alans were originally the most numerous group. This leader called Flavius Constantius destroys the Siling Vandals, destroys the independence of the Alans, wins a whole series of victories, and inadvertently creates a new, more concentrated Vandal Alan confederation around the surviving Hasding Vandals. But you know, he wins a whole series of major victories in Spain and restores most of it.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, so imperial control. Okay, so we're gonna have a last hurrah here for the Romans in Spain.

[Peter Heather]

Yeah, absolutely. And most of Gaul is brought back under control as well, and most of Gaul as well. So we're left with a couple of barbarian enclaves around Bordeaux. Yeah, Goths in Bordeaux and probably in Portugal, the surviving Vandals and Alans.

[Dan Snow]

At this point, as it had many times before, the Roman Empire looks like it might sort of bounce back, it might recover its vitality.

[Peter Heather]

It does. It absolutely does.

[Dan Snow]

No interest yet in Britain because crisis is still too immediate. Okay, what happens next?

[Peter Heather]

The next crucial move is really that. And this is the problem with, I mean, you asked about weaknesses in the imperial system. The weakness in the imperial system is the lack of any clear succession plan policy. In fact, pre modern empires don't tend to have clear succession things when it's really important who runs the empire. You can't have primogeniture.

[Dan Snow]

Do you get an idiot son?

[Peter Heather]

You do, yes. One hates to, to tell that to kings and things, but it's only when they're not important that you can have primogeniture. So periodically, the Roman Empire. The course of politics in the Roman Empire had always been emergence of a strong man. It's a one party state. If you think of those images of Putin with those people around the table, his power is preeminent. When he dies, you get chaos. It's like when Stalin died, you had half a dozen people at each other's

[Dan Snow]

Throats arresting each other.

[Peter Heather]

Yeah, exactly. Until the next one emerges. And that can take a while. And in that interregnum, it offers opportunities. Once you've got these barbarian confederations on Roman soil, they can start taking independent action. So in the middle of the succession crisis that follows the unlooked for early death of Flavius Constantius, the Vandals move into North Africa.

[Dan Snow]

Yes, this is the bit they hop across. And again, people might be thinking, well, North Africa, what's at the time, North Africa? Enormously valuable agricultural land, farming, breadbasket of the Roman Empire.

[Peter Heather]

You've gotta think Algeria, Tunisia, where all the millionaires had their summer houses, indeed, their winter houses in the interwar period. It's gorgeous country, gorgeous. I mean, if people have not been there, we're not talking the Sahara Desert here. We are talking fields of wheat, as

[Dan Snow]

far as I can see.

[Peter Heather]

Oh, yes, and beautiful gardens and lovely temperatures. The Atlas Mountains mean there's plenty of rainfall, enough rainfall to generate really prosperous agriculture. And it's a beautiful place to live. And more than that, it is the jewel and the crown, because there are no enemies there. You know, Berbers raid from the desert occasionally, but they're not a major enemy. You've never had to have a large military establishment there. It doesn't cost the empire a lot, and it contributes a huge amount.

[Dan Snow]

Not anymore, it doesn't.

[Peter Heather]

No, it does not.

[Dan Snow]

Falls over like a pack of cards.

[Peter Heather]

Yes. The best bit is really Tunisia and Western Algeria and the Vandals seize that in 439. And that is another real moment of crisis, because great flow of revenues is cut off, and the central army, which is what keeps the empire in being, relies on that flow of revenues. So the process, at least as I understand it, that brings about the imperial unraveling is the loss of tax base, which then leads to the weakening of the military forces at the center. Until the center is no longer the center. It doesn't have that preponderance of force anymore.

[Dan Snow]

How long does this stagger on?

[Peter Heather]

It staggers on for about two political generations.

[Dan Snow]

After about 15 minutes.

[Peter Heather]

Well, yes, in Roman terms. Yes, because they do realize that the way to fight back is actually to retake North Africa. And the Eastern Empire is still willing to play. It doesn't. Never writes the West a blank check. But again, the idea that the east leaves the west to its fate is just not supported in the evidence. So there are three projected and actual expeditions to recapture North Africa from the Vandals, two of which the east are substantially involved in the first one we got, it's immediately afterwards in 442. We're gathering huge armies in Sicily from the east and west for a major expedition. But then, blow me. Attila sees the opportunity and he invades across the Danube.

[Dan Snow]

Ah.

[Peter Heather]

And that's what stops the 442 expedition from going, right? Because the East Roman contingents have come from the Danube front. Attila is threatening eastern territories, so the east withdraws its armies to fight him instead.

[Co-host or Narrator]

Rome falls after this.

[Dan Snow]

Don't go away.

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[Hayden]

Howdy, howdy ho, and welcome to Fantasy Fan Fellas. I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson.

[Stephen Bookish]

And I'm Stephen Bookish, Internet goofball, but you can call me the Smash Daddy.

[Hayden]

And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Steven here has not read Mistborn before.

[Stephen Bookish]

That's right.

[Acast Announcer]

Hey.

[Stephen Bookish]

Hey. So each week, you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chapter.

[Hayden]

And along the way, we'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert, he'll be wrong.

[Stephen Bookish]

News flash. I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find Fantasy Fan fellows wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dan Snow]

So the east has the misfortune to be facing Attila the Hunt. So, again, timing. Just as the Roman Empire benefited in some ways from time and space over the previous centuries, it's now absolutely up again. It's got one of the great nomadic cavalry commanders of all time banging on the front door.

[Peter Heather]

Exactly. And what Attila has done is, it's only, I don't know, maybe a third of Rome's frontier clients had run over the border of in the 370s and four hundreds. And he's pulled a lot of the rest into a nomadic empire, which contains a lot of the Germanic Speaking frontier clients of the Roman Empire.

[Dan Snow]

And those guys know how to fight the Roman Empire? They do as well.

[Peter Heather]

Absolutely.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, so that's very potent. So North Africa not. Do I remember from your book that there was a gale that destroyed one of the fleets? Yes.

[Peter Heather]

They have two more. Goes 461. The vandals see that coming and burn the shipping which have been gathered in Spain. And then 468 is the big one one. And the eastern Empire really burns the money on that huge expedition. But they're caught against the Lee shore in a storm and the Vandals throw in fireships. Wow. So it's like the Spanish Armada. In spades.

[Dan Snow]

But it is a bit like Spanish Armada in that it really feels like one of those moments. I remember reading that in your book years ago and thinking that feels like one of those moments where history at the corporate course of history, it could have worked.

[Peter Heather]

It really could have worked. Because only what, 60 years after that, an East Roman expedition does manage to land and does conquer Vandal North Africa. It's not an impossibility. It could have happened in the 460s. And if it happened in the 460s while Italy, Sicily, Southern Gaul and the Adriatic coast are all still part of a functioning rump Western empire, then yeah,

[Dan Snow]

could have led something.

[Peter Heather]

It would have led to something.

[Dan Snow]

Instead. Instead it doesn't. And that rump empire, when do you think, if we can, that we should put a date on the end of that Western empire?

[Peter Heather]

It is the defeat of that expedition in 468 which clearly changes perceptions. That's what makes it clear that the Western center, imperial center, is not going to be revivified in any major way. So immediately in 469, the Goths break out of their gallop Gallic reservation, start conquering Spain for themselves.

[Dan Snow]

If you can't trust these Goths, no. Who can you trust? Okay. So tough few years to be Spanish.

[Peter Heather]

Yes.

[Dan Snow]

To be living in Spain.

[Peter Heather]

Yeah, it really is. And Burgundians who have also fled Huns there in sort of Geneva and the Rhone Valley. They break out, start making an independent empire. This is what happens. Groups duck out of participation in an imperial project. They realize that the center does not have enough money and enough military force to force them them into a political relationship. And they start creating their own structures. And Roman landowners. We have lovely letter collection from a man living in central southern France at the time. They're caught between a rock and a hard place. Their lands are where they are. Their land is the total source of their wealth. And elite status. You can't move it. You know, it's not movable wealth, not stocks and shares. It's where it is. You're faced with a quandary. What is the best path to secure your future? Do you try and stay part of a Roman Empire for as long as you think there's going to be one? Do you start cozying up to the nearest barbarian king, Goth or Burgundian? And you can see what's very nice about this letter collection. I think it's a man called Sidonius Apollinaris. And you see his friends, and they make different choices. You know, it's one of those moments where you don't know what's going to happen. And people are guessing. They're making their best guess and acting on it.

[Dan Snow]

Some marry off that unmarried sister to the local barbarian chief and hope that they can keep the party going.

[Peter Heather]

Yes, absolutely.

[Dan Snow]

So we've got the Burgundians, we've got the Goths invading Spain. Come on, finish off Italy for me.

[Peter Heather]

Yes. We've had renegades from. Cause Attila's empire's been and gone by this stage.

[Dan Snow]

Attila dies.

[Peter Heather]

He dies in 453, and his empire breaks up.

[Dan Snow]

Well.

[Peter Heather]

In a succession dispute between his sons, which gives everybody the chance to. To clear off because they don't want to be part of the Hunnic Empire. Quite a few of them have ended up in Italy, including a man called Odoace, who is a senior general. But the tax revenues are not there to support that army anymore. And it revolts. And it revolts over a lack of pay, which is not surprising because we've got to find a different way of paying it.

[Dan Snow]

There's no more money in the Roman treasury.

[Peter Heather]

No, there is not.

[Dan Snow]

And he topples the last Caesar.

[Peter Heather]

He does. Yes.

[Dan Snow]

And crowns himself.

[Peter Heather]

He calls himself king, but doesn't say what he's king of.

[Dan Snow]

Okay.

[Peter Heather]

And what's brilliant about him is he sends a senatorial embassy to Constantinople, sending back the imperial regalia, whatever they were, and saying there's no need for more than one Roman Emperor anymore. So he doesn't define what the new situation is.

[Dan Snow]

How odd.

[Peter Heather]

Yeah, Well, I think it's a bit like the breakup of the Soviet Union with the emergence of those republics. You know, what is this political situation?

[Dan Snow]

But it's interesting he doesn't get there and think, oh, Rome quite like this, I might crown myself emperor. It's interesting that he brings the curtain down on it.

[Peter Heather]

I think he was concerned that Constantinople might intervene.

[Dan Snow]

Okay. So actually you say, look, I'm not a pretender to your threat.

[Peter Heather]

Exactly.

[Dan Snow]

But there is now a new situation here.

[Peter Heather]

Yeah. Because actually, the person who takes over from him, Theodoric the Ostrogoth, he does the same kind of thing. He projects himself as an emperor. He allows his subjects to respond to him as though he was an emperor, but he never calls himself an emperor. Okay.

[Dan Snow]

Just as you talked about with that amazing study of pottery, it seems to me that historians have been backward and forward on what that means for the people of this space that used to be the Western Empire. Do you think in some places it would have felt like not much had changed? As you say, these landowners sort of make an accommodation. You put the local German in the palace and then you keep running the show and keep the water running on the aqueducts. And certainly.

[Peter Heather]

Certainly in the first instance. Yeah, in the first generation or so it would have seemed that way in some places. The end of the empire takes different forms in different places. So in North Africa, for instance, the vandals settled themselves in the richest provinces, but those were estates owned by absentee Roman senator move into the empty stately homes. So there's no sign of massive economic dislocation within. In the North African provinces, that archaeology is quite well known.

[Dan Snow]

And the local sort of officials are still collecting their tax, but now they're giving it to the guy in the big house who's a vandal.

[Peter Heather]

That's right, yeah. So the vandals are concentrated in what's now Tunisia. They don't pay taxes. The tax structures break down there. But western Algeria and southern Tunisia, the two other provinces, they do pay taxes, and that carries on as normal. Likewise, certainly in much of southern Gaul, the local landowners make their peace with Gothic power. This is the Visigothic Kingdom. We have a letter collection from the first generation of that kingdom, and a lot of those landowners are still there.

[Dan Snow]

And I suppose they're saying to Visigoth, look, mate, don't smash everything up. There's money here. We'll put you in the big house. We'll keep the systems of Roman government going and you can benefit. There's no point torching everything.

[Peter Heather]

And that's right. But there are land confiscations. I'm sure this has been much debated in the last scholarly generation. And there was one very popular line of argument when I was doing my finals back in 1980, one large book coming out two months before I did finals, thank you so much. Which is arguing that they didn't get actual land, they got tax Revenues. But actually the evidence for that is really ropey and it's quite clear that you get land expropriations, particularly in the Burgundian kingdom, little bit in the Visigothic kingdom and so on. These people have fought quite hard to be here. They've suffered from the Huns, they've fought Roman armies, they expect to pay off and they want landed capital.

[Dan Snow]

Can we finish on Britain? When I read your book 20 years ago, I mean, Britain feels like a place that one extreme and that does feel a little bit more collapse.

[Peter Heather]

Yes, absolutely. The unravelling of the imperial system would have felt different in different places. And certainly in northern Gaul and in Britain. The archaeology and actually the historical evidence, although it's not great from Britain, makes it very clear that you're looking at something much more apocalyptic. As we said, it looks like these Roman landowners survive, exiting the system for a generation or two in the fifth century, but by the end of the fifth, middle of the sixth century, they have completely gone.

[Dan Snow]

They're just nowhere to be found.

[Peter Heather]

No, they're not. The villas disappear, the towns disappear.

[Dan Snow]

Roman London is a sort of ghost town.

[Peter Heather]

Yeah, absolutely. Latin disappears, all the marks of Roman culture disappear. And actually the latest DNA evidence, although it's only one site, it had been argued that they stopped being Roman, but they kind of make themselves into Anglo Saxons. I never really bought that. You've got one very interesting cemetery now from Dover, looking at Anglo Saxon elite from the 5th into the 6th century. And the vast majority of the families in there and you can see their related families, they are intrusive continental groupings, as you might expect. One very interestingly, one family line is indigenous Romano Britain. So a minority somehow navigate across that boundary. But basically Roman culture and most of the patterns of Roman life disappear in Britain. The wonderful thing is there's great archaeologist in Canterbury, Ellen Swift, who's managed to show there is a market for secondhand broken glass in post Roman Britain, which I think tells you everything you need to know.

[Dan Snow]

Really exciting, high value goods.

[Peter Heather]

Yes. Give you some broken glass. Bits of northern Gaul look like that. Elsewhere the landowners survive. But I think one thing that's really important to know and notice is that although they keep their Latin and they keep their landed estates, the major pattern of their life changes in that they become liable for military service. So already in the great confrontation between the Visigoths and Clovis The Frank in 507, Roman aristocrats of southern Gaul are having to turn up and fight, fight. So we see a militarization of the landed aristocracies in the post Roman world

[Dan Snow]

looks a bit more medieval.

[Peter Heather]

Yes, it changes things in some very fundamental ways.

[Dan Snow]

And the last point though, is the eastern half of the empire, it's still functioning.

[Peter Heather]

Yes.

[Dan Snow]

Going into the 500s. So Rome does not fall.

[Peter Heather]

Yeah, absolutely. The Roman system is alive and kicking in the Eastern Empire. I mean, it's one of the things that makes it clear that there's nothing wrong with the kind of structural mechanisms of the empire inherently in that the Eastern Empire is run on the same ones as the Western Empire, but the Eastern Empire is able to protect its tax base or its tax base is not threatened. And it is the unraveling of the West's control of its tax base and hence its ability to fund its armies, which undermines the West.

[Dan Snow]

The east would have its day in court, but not now. That's another story.

[Peter Heather]

Yes, for the moment, they are in shock at having seen the Western Empire by go.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah, thank you so much coming the podcast and telling me all about it.

[Peter Heather]

It's my pleasure. Absolutely.

[Dan Snow]

It's a long ambition of mine fulfilled.

[Peter Heather]

Thank you.

[Dan Snow]

Thanks. Listening to that, folks, it's very clear to me, after spending time for Peter, of course, that the, you know, the

[Co-host or Narrator]

Western Roman Empire didn't disappear and leave an empty space on the map. Of course, it left those foundations, frankly, at their complete buildings. And it left roads and laws and languages and religions and cultures and people that successor kingdoms co opted and built upon. In Gaul, a Frankish kingdom would one day become France and Hispania. Visigothic kings issued law codes in Latin.

[Dan Snow]

And in Italy, under the Ostrogoths, Roman

[Co-host or Narrator]

senators still sat round and debated and addressed each other with defunct imperial titles. They still obviously carried some weight, unless not forget.

[Dan Snow]

In the east, the empire endured not as a sort of relic, but as

[Co-host or Narrator]

a thriving state centered on Constantinople that would last in some form or another for another thousand years. So in some places, Rome's fall did look a little bit like Mad Max. But in other places, it's striking to ask what endured. Even the mightiest systems change and evolved. As Shakespeare said, it's all just an insubstantial pageant when viewed from space, viewed from a long, long way in the future.

[Dan Snow]

Anyway, on that cheery note, a huge

[Co-host or Narrator]

thank you to our guests for guiding us through the story of Rome throughout the series.

[Dan Snow]

If you enjoyed it, please leave a review that makes a difference. Sorry to be a bore, but it does. And subscribe to the pod, obviously. And if there are any topics you

[Co-host or Narrator]

want us to cover, you can send

[Dan Snow]

your ideas to the email in the

[Co-host or Narrator]

show notes and your dream episode might become a reality.

[Dan Snow]

See you next

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