Talk:Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire

message: The link redirects to this very article and should probably be removed. Someone who can edit the article please consider looking into this. 91.19.168.10 (talk) 19:51, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Internal link to "Roman decadence"

message: The article states that the decline occured over a period of 320 years. This means the decline already started around 150 AD. Isn't that a little early? --24.132.210.98 (talk) 00:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: When did the decline started

message: The first quotation belongs to Momigliano (see ...). Cheers from italy!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.41.27.180 (talk) 21:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I told myself I would stop participating in conversations that are composed by what I regard as irrational arguments stemming from personal opinions, i.e. what wikipedia largely tells editors not to do and yet they keep doing it. Hiberniantears' logic is very flawed because it is only based on one side of the story and completely ignores another side of the story which regards the Holy Roman Empire as the authentic continuation of the ancient (western) R. E. This may mean nothing to us now but at the time, in the entire Latin-catholic world, including the Pope, the Vatican and the city of Rome, in other words the undisputed essence of the original R. E. viewed and officially recognised the Holy Roman Empire as the one and only Roman Empire. This is why they started calling Byzantium "Empire of the Greeks" and ended up hating it so much that they even went to war against it. So things are not so black and white as some people have set them up in their minds, and the scholars who coined the term "fall of the Roman Empire" were well aware of that. In the middle ages we have two imperial states, both claiming heritage to Rome, one of them is officially recognised by its contemporaries and the original Roman institutions in the city of Rome itself as the Imperium Romanorum, and the other, though the direct unbroken political successor of the Roman Empire, is only recognised as Imperium by itself. Which one of them really deserves the title I don't know and I don't care, but if the Holy Roman Empire is regarded as the R. E. then we would have to state that the "fall of the Roman Empire" is an achievement Napoleon Bonaparte. If we regard Byzantium as the undisputed successor of the R.E. then we would have to acknowledge that the "fall of the Roman Empire" was achieved by Western Europe itself, the so called "Latin Catholics", ironically enough those who claimed (and still do) to be the direct offspring of the Roman Empire. They are the offspring of what they conquered and destroyed and looted? That doesn't make any sense. I think you would agree that both interpretations I gave are absurd, and yet these are the only possible scenarios implied to the reader if we don't acknowledge that the "Fall of the Roman Empire" and the "Fall of the Western Roman Empire" is the exact same thing and that the "Roman Empire" is a concept of antiquity not the middle ages, the view which is generally established in the scholarly world. If we stick to Hiberniantears's logic and don't name this article "Fall of the Roman Empire" then it is implied that the Roman Empire never fell, something which is plainly stupid per se. So unless you somehow go against all policies and rename Fall of Constantinople to "Fall of the Roman Empire", then a bunch of stupid and abstract things will be implied in wikipedia. Excuse my french but I like to be blunt about how I feel. Miskin (talk) 13:24, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't seen it around for a while, so I conclude that it falled. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 18:31, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  So did the Roman Empire actually ever fall?? 

message: why no contents directory, list? Dogru144 (talk) 18:34, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Why is their no table of contents that goes with this page?

message: I believe his name is Arther Ferrill, not Arthur Ferrill. Spiekier (talk) 22:59, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ferrill 

message: I have heard that Edward Gibbon retracted his theory of Christianity causing the fall of the Roman Empire. If this is true, does anyone have a reputable source?
Of course not. That's simply not true. 186.81.127.206 (talk) 03:59, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Edward Gibbon

message: Why is this article semi-protected? The icon claims that it's due to a high risk of vandalism (which is a very good joke, if it is one), but there has been no discussion whatsoever on this page or in either of the archives. Presumably it's quite difficult to tell how high the risk of vandalism is if an article is indefinitely protected, so I wonder how the conclusion was reached that this page still needs it. 86.8.176.85 (talk) 11:15, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I protected it because the page was being constantly vandalized. So the high risk was backed up by a high prevalence rate. Hiberniantears (talk) 15:43, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That is a very good joke though!  At one point the physics page was said to have declined in content.  Maybe that will happen here too?  David R. Ingham (talk) 17:35, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

text: I think the protection is wise.  I have been amazed at the number of people who engage in what I would call "historical advocacy:" trying to spin wikipedia's history entries in order to support slender and sometimes strange off-stage arguments.  It is very distressing to those many who are just trying to make it as complete, balanced, objective, and readable as possible.  This article is well written and handsomely sourced, so people spend a lot of time venting their suspicious levels of spleen over the title.  (Really?  Because it doesn't directly track a guy who died more than 200 years ago and whose scholarship has been way superseded?)  Protection is quite wise.  (And yes, good pun too.)TheCormac (talk) 22:13, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protection 

message: The following sentence in the article "Decline of the Roman Empire" is grammatically incorrect:
Throughout the fifth century, western emperors were usually figureheads, while in the eastern emperors managed to secure their independence from influential military leaders.
It should read "...while in the east the emperors managed..."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.75.188.247 (talk) 17:41, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammatical correction 

message: Please add an interwiki link for the Macedonian version. Thank you. 
: —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Macedonian version 

message: After reading through the article, I noticed there are no date suffixes. The dates in the article are all Gregorian from what I can tell, shouldn't they be marked "AD"? Caleb Gray (talk) 17:34, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dates 

message: In the second paragraph of the introduction, Odoacer is referred to as "the Visigoth king". This is the only time I have seen him referred to as such, and it contradicts the Odoacer article, which reads: 
"There is a good chance that Odoacer was the son of the Scirii chieftain, Edeko, a vassal of the Huns under Attila. ...Odoacer's mother may have been Germanic herself, but her name and nationality are left unmentioned throughout history. That Odoacer was a Scirian is taken from John of Antioch, that he was a Rugian is from Jordanes, though Jordanes also affirms him as king of the Turcilingi (Torcilingorum rex). The Consularia Italica calls him king of the Heruli, while Theophanes appears to be guessing when he calls him a Goth."
Please strike from this article (Decline of the Roman Empire) the the phrase "the Visigoth king", and possibly replace it with "the Germanic king", if deemed necessary. Thank You. --SaaHc2B (talk) 20:56, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Set Sail For The Seven Seas  330° 41' 45" NET   22:02, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Odoacer Reference 

message: Has anyone ever done that? Or jokenly tried to make it fit?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.238.184.168 (talk) 20:14, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, Edward Gibbon did it in the 1700's. It's the third item on the list. EverGreg (talk) 16:21, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: However, the full context of what he has to say needs to be read, otherwise a simplistic knee-jerk reaction to "Christianity caused the fall" will be left with the reader. HammerFilmFan (talk) 23:49, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

text: "Knee-jerk" (though perhaps not "simplistic") is an accurate description of Gibbon's stance -- which wouldn't necessarily make it wrong either, mind you... FilipeS (talk) 12:03, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, a lot of ancient pagans believed this; that was one cause for the 2nd century persecutions. (The other was a lot of proto-orthodox Christians believed they had to die for their beliefs, just like Jesus Christ. The surviving transcripts of trials of these early Christians make that very evident.) The best known intellectual of that time who argued this was Porphyry. -- llywrch (talk) 22:36, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blaming Christianity of Rome's Decline 

message: The following sentence, "An empire at maximum stretch due to the Sassanids, then, encountered, due to the Hunnic expansion, unprecedented immigration in 376 and 406 by barbarian groupings who had become significantly more politically and militarily capable than in previous eras." needs to be edited. Two commas I can understand, but four is ridiculous.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomasse (talk • contribs) 20:58, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Errors/Corrections 

message: There must be a better phrase for it, but I wanted to make it clear that this is distinct from deforestation which is already covered.  The idea is that the soil was depleted of essential minerals by centuries of cultivation, leading the Romans to have to forage further afield for food (Hispania, Britannia and Egypt), making them more vulnerable.  I heard some figures once, which I can't locate anymore, that the Italian mainland agricultural yields declined by a factor of 10 or a 100 over the course of the Republic and Empire.
This would tie in with areas around volcanoes being highly prized and heavily populated (e.g. Vesuvius), since the surrounding soil is re-mineralised from magma outflows.  Any sources for the theory?
--Michael C. Price talk 22:08, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Soil demineralisation

message: the name of my father, François Masai, is quoted in red in the article. Thanks a lot for this.
I just want to bring to your knowledge that there are already a number of articles on him in different languages, the longest being the one in the french wikipedia, but also on the italian wikipedia, as his 1956 book over Pletho has just been translated into italian language in 2010. Is it possible to put a reference to the french wikipedia like fr:françois masai,
that would at the same time notify the wish for an article, and give the material for a potential translator?
Thanks a lot, Pierre Masai (talk) 21:19, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: François Masai

message: I have to wonder if I'm missing something big and obvious here. If so, I apologize. 
Quote article: "The...author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776) made this concept part of the framework of the English language."  Yup, "Roman Empire," is a cute buzzword from 1776 and the movies that we all grew up with. However as used here, the term "Roman Empire," seems to be a misnomer. In fact, here in the United States that term is so widely misused to mean the "Western Roman Empire," that it's almost never used correctly.  
Like so many papacy-oriented and Western- Europe-centered historians, (perhaps most historians?) this article talks about the fall of Rome, when actually it seems to be  talking about the fall of the Western Roman Empire (according to the dates and so forth). It then gets really smudgy and confusing by rather than correcting these errors; adding patches and patches.  (The end of the Western Roman Empire approximately coincides with the power transfer to, or rise of the Eastern Roman Empire (who naturally thought of themselves simply as Roman citizens.)) These misnomers are understandable (but not excusable) considering that most (say) Americans, the victims of our often Cold War, always Western-European-centered, schools never heard of the "Eastern Roman Empire," but rather learned that the funny-sounding "Byzantine Empire" was a new, highly foreign, and mostly unconnected thing.  (That's what I mislearned in high school anyway.)
But worse than confusing, this leads to factual misstatements in the text, for example when Rome, Roman Empire, Holy Roman Empire, or Western Roman Empire are seemingly used interchangeably and certainly in error. For example: 
:"Justinian I, the last Roman Emperor who"
...was actually an Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Emperor from 527 to 565 EXCLUDED by the article's dates: "This slow decline...culminating on September 4, 476" ... Or: "The decline of the Roman Empire is one of the events traditionally marking the end of Classical Antiquity," is clearly talking about the the decline of the Western Roman Empire.... ...Yes I could easily be wrong...like I say, because it's confusing it's hard to be certain about much.  But in any case these terms need more than silent (lazy) hyperlinks to be clear to the average reader (who, good chance, is also unaware of his own misnomers that excludes the Eastern Roman Empire as the foreign, backward funny-dressing priests using the "Russian" alphabet).
It seems to me that either this article might be 1) misnamed, or 2) needs a full rewrite. If it were me, I'd just lose the snappy, cool, catchy, and Western-oriented title in favor of accuracy. <BR> --68.127.87.182 (talk) 14:05, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I do see your point. However, to call the fifth century a period of decline for the empire as a whole seems unarguable. This article is quite carefully named the "decline" of the Roman Empire, and the lede and overview point out (perhaps rather clumsily) that this includes the events in the Eastern empire which carried on for a millennium. Taking your point, I'd suggest a rewrite, incorporating much of the Overview into the lede, and correcting the issues that you rightly identify. Richard Keatinge (talk) 09:19, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

text: It was not only one empire until the "fall" of Italy, but thereafter as well.  The trouble, it seems to me, is in definition.  As a legal entity (under Roman law) there was only ever one empire, which was divided for administrative purposes between co-emperors at times.  This was true right down to 1453.  On the other hand, it is hard not to see that the co-emperor's administrations often acted as separate - ad not always friendly - states in terms of policy.  It is likewise hard not to notice that the culture of the medieval, Constantinople based empire has as many differences with the empire of antiquity as it does similarities (hence the often convenient but always arbitrary labeling of the "Byzantine Empire.")  It is hard to take in or get your intellectual arms around a sprawling 1,500 year long entity spreading onto three continents.  Different people give different aspects of the thing different weights, or even just slice off a piece for ease of assimilation.  Depending on your perspective, the division of the empire in time or space is either deeply significant or completely meaningless.  If I had to take a stab at it, I'd say the best way to say it might be something like "The ebbing of Roman rule in Western Europe."  Not exactly pithy, but pretty accurate, I think.TheCormac (talk) 22:36, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Three Terms confused: Eastern Empire, Western Empire, & Rome  

message: Nobody here seems to recognize that the decline of intellectual life in Rome coincides with the deterioration of Classical Latin as a means of communication without replacement by something else. To be sure, Classical Latin was the language of the educated elite of the late Republican era as well as the official language of the bureaucracy.  The spoken language of the masses of the Roman Empire became increasingly unlike Classical Latin through phonetic changes (loss of h and most final consonants, disappearance of weak vowels, confusion of intervocalic b and v, and the destruction of some vowel distinctions) that gutted the meaning of noun declensions and confused some verb tenses and even persons in verbs. For example, the verb forms cantabit (he shall sing), cantavit  (he has sung), and cantavi (I have sung) became homophones in practice. Such would make verbal anarchy out of such critical communications as military dispatches when the distinction between the present perfect to denote what has been done and the future which suggests what is to be done as well as whether one relates what one has done himself or what someone else has done whenever the verb is in the commonplace first declension. 
The commonplace popular Latin was already making transformations that prevented such confusion, as demonstrated by the ability of the early Christian Church to get its message across to multitudes who surely did not speak or read Classical Latin. The Common Latin (or proto-Romance) may have never been written, and it might not have been uniform, but it would have been fully adequate for mass communications and, no less significantly, official use. It just never became a literary or bureaucratic language. Once the linguistic descendants of the Romans quite pretending that they were speaking Latin and started using vernaculars that would become French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Italian, and Romanian and started writing the vernacular and using it in official communications they could resurrect the sophistication of Roman life even if such sophistication was no longer Roman. But by then nobody could revive the Roman Empire. Pbrower2a (talk) 02:07, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Linguistic "decline" 

message: I have posted a comment on this page, this section.
I am interested in creating a comprehensive article that would discuss the fall - or collapse, or dissolution - of the Western Roman Empire.  I have been involved in two similar discussions, and understand that there are multiple opinions on the topic.  However, I think we can all agree that the Western Empire ceased to exist at some point, probably around 480.  This was the last time someone (Emperor Julius) actually claimed to rule the Western Empire.  The proposed article would talk about the collapse of the western entity, from about 390-500, and would not delve into lead poisoning and other (qualified, but non-political) theories.
Are there any ideas?  DCItalk 17:14, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm afraid I don't understand.  Are you saying you want another article that would deal solely with the end of the final incarnation of the on-again/off-again political/legal sub-division that people today call the Western Roman Empire, or an article on the loss of effective Imperial control over the Western provinces at the end of the fifth century?  I think the first one would be interesting to some of us but pretty dry to the lay user and pretty deep.  The later would run-up on some of the same kinds of problems that all these articles seem to (in this instance the fact that Imperial control continued in same parts of the West, and waxed and waned in others for another few centuries.)TheCormac (talk) 22:49, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Falling, declining, collapsing, on and on... 

message: I have been thinking about this, and I feel like some changes should me made in regard to this topic.  Below are my proposals:
* This article should remain intact, but still be restricted to coverage of theories and opinions on the empire's collapse.
* Currently, this says that descriptions of historical events are found on Roman Empire.  I do not believe that this should be the case, as the events merit their own article.  So:
* There should be an article titled Fall of the Western Roman Empire. 
** That article would cover events in the western empire from about 390 to 480.  
** Coverage of the western empire's fall on Roman Empire should be reduced slightly, as the new article would have the details.  
** The new article would not delve in to theories, such as lead poisoning and the like.  It would be restricted to proven-factual coverage of the actual events.
** The new article could be a moved and expanded Deposition of Romulus Augustulus.  If necessary, this article could be merged or deleted.
I am willing to open an RfC on this topic, but I think that my concerns and ideas could be addressed here.  DCItalk 16:39, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: But it wasn't just the western empire that fell. The eastern empire also lost most of its provinces few centuries afterward. The "two falls" are arguably part of the same process. To single out the fall of the western empire separates them artificially. That said, your proposed rewrite has the potential to improve the article a great deal. You've put a lot of work into this! FilipeS (talk) 21:30, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand why the events of circa 390-480 would be surgically removed from the full history of the empire for a special article.  It seems to me that there is an agenda and embedded POV in that that leaves me deeply suspicious.  The entire tendency to treat the Western Empire as a separate topic or entity is something that needs to be watched by all of us with vigilance.  While such parceling out of the subject in to more manageable pieces is necessary and allows us more depth, we have to make sure that we remember that it is essentially artificial.  The "Western Empire" wasn't something distinct from the "Eastern Empire" in a very real sense - it is primarily a political subdivision, which is not the most profound level of a civilization's attributes.  It might be more legitimately distinct than, say, a history of the Western US from the Eastern US, but it is still a piece of a larger whole and we need to have a good rationale for putting the end of lens there.  It seems to me that any meaningful examination of the decline of Roman authority in the Western provinces needs to start earlier than 390, for instance.  And once again, you have the issue of the name.  "Fall of the Roman Empire" is just too laden a term to used in an encyclopedia - unless it is (or encompasses) a discussion of the term itself and the controversy over its usage.  (I know that distresses fans of the term - but wiki needs to provide information, not taken sides implicitly.)TheCormac (talk) 23:07, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time for a restructure 

message: Please replace the wrong link in note 8 to Ludwig von Mises' "The Rise and Decline of Civilization": http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/index.php?news=3015 by the correct one: http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/economics/classics/3015-politics-ideas-the-rise-and-decline-of-civilization-lecture-6-part-3-of-4.html   
Atiwara (talk) 17:17, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Done — Bility (talk) 22:28, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request on 30 December 2011 

message: Could someone kindly remove the section entitled "Linguistic change"? It is entirely original research added quite recently by one user. It is also unspeakably perverse and inexcusably idiotic from a linguistic standpoint. 60.242.48.18 (talk) 06:32, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, it is deleted. Rjensen (talk) 08:45, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

text: In view of the economic failure and the degeneration of the political structure, any small factor that could contribute to military disasters or other failures of public administration could accelerate the political, economic, and military decline.Pbrower2a (talk) 06:52, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request (April 13, 2012) 

message: I have reverted user David R. Ingham's recent edit
:Although the eastern half still survived with varying borders for another millennium (until taken by the Turks), the Empire as a whole had initiated major cultural and political transformations since the Crisis of the Third Century, with the shift towards a more openly autocratic and ritualized form of government, the adoption of Christianity as the state religion, and a general rejection of the traditions and values of Classical Antiquity.
back to
:Although the eastern half still survived with borders essentially intact for several centuries (until the Muslim conquests), the Empire as a whole had initiated major cultural and political transformations since the Crisis of the Third Century, with the shift towards a more openly autocratic and ritualized form of government, the adoption of Christianity as the state religion, and a general rejection of the traditions and values of Classical Antiquity.
I regard this as a minor revert because the fall of the Byzantine Empire is already mentioned elsewhere in the article. The reason why  did it is that this article on the Decline of the Roman Empire focuses on the process by which the Roman Empire went from its classical extension/structure to its medieval/Byzantine extension/structure, in other words how it lost its western provinces, or more broadly if we wish, how it came to lose most of its provinces (if we include Egypt and the middle eastern provinces, which were lost within few centuries of Italy) and be confined mostly to Greece and Anatolia. This only goes so far as the first few centuries of the Byzantine period. The decline of the Byzantine Empire per se is a different, and much later story, best addressed in the article Byzantine Empire. After all, the Byzantines did eventually recover after the original debacles of the 3rd - 8th centuries. FilipeS (talk) 12:30, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor revert 

message: In the section Catastrophic Collapse, subsection Peter Heather
"Contact with the Empire had increased their material wealth, and that in turn had led to disparities of wealth sufficient to create a ruling class capable of maintaining control over far larger groupings than had previously been possible."
I feel this would be an excellent point to mention how the Romans used German mercenaries extensively, since this would later be their downfall when they denied the Germans citizenship and the benefits thereof. 
"Contact with the Empire had increased their material wealth, including through employment as mercenaries. This led to disparities of wealth sufficient to create a ruling class capable of maintaining control over far larger societies than had previously been possible, precluding the development of an organized Germanic military using Roman technology and tactics."
Of course, I do recognize this section details one scholar's view on the subject, and it may not be appropriate to add details.
PotatoSamurai (talk) 15:31, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Catastrophic Collapse: Peter Heather addition suggestion 

message: In the quote:
"At first a haphazard form of power sharing, this eventually settled on an East-West administrative division between the Western Roman Empire (centered on Rome, but now usually presided from other seats of power such as Trier, Milan, and especially Ravenna)"
I can't believe that Trier is correct, simply on geographical grounds: it's near Luxembourg, far from the late Roman frontier.  Anyone with expertise want to offer a better list?   Mordecai-Mark Mac Low (talk) 21:23, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correct Trier as Roman Capital? 

message: The lead and the bulk of the article that it is the Western Empire that is in scope. The lead makes it clear that the Eastern Empire endured for a further millennium. So should the name not reflect this scope. For example, Decline of the Western Roman Empire. Laurel Lodged (talk) 22:02, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think so. The Western empire did most of the falling, but the whole Empire in some sense declined. Both halves lost military dominance and while barbarians managed to take over almost all of the West they made quite a mess of large parts of the East too, most of the Balkans and anyone living near Isauria for example. Most of the ideas about internal weakness as cause of the fall apply to both West and East. Richard Keatinge (talk) 18:10, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Decline of the Western Roman Empire could be a sub-article of the main article: Decline of the Roman Empire. Following Gibbon, presumably 476 is a key date in the Decline of the West while the Empire as a whole didn't end till the 1453 Fall of Constantinople. The Empire had its largest extent under Trajan, so presumably on a size basis its decline started then. 75.0.10.162 (talk) 19:52, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name change (again) 

message: Adding a section wholly dedicated to contemporary or near-contemporary views on the decline of the Roman Empire would be very useful to this article. St Augustine's Christian somberness (mentioned but not expounded); how the barbarians viewed their own actions, if known; Jerome's and Pelagius' horror. I don't know many contemporary reactions, particularly after Romulus Augustulus' deposing, so I don't know what else is out there or how much of it there is. But it seems to me that such a section would be very insightful for the reader. Running From Zombies (talk) 14:07, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The very point of this article is to be the contemporary view on the decline.  —Sowlos  16:09, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I apologise if I wasn't clear, but I'm speaking of the views the Romans themselves had at the time. Running From Zombies (talk) 09:48, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh; I see. As long as it's limited to major figures, I think it's a good idea. (Actually, if their's enough material on the subject, there could even be a full article on the subject with no such limit.)As always, RSes dictates what we can reasonably add.  —Sowlos  11:51, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contemporary views 

message: " Historian Michael Rostovtzeff and economist Ludwig von Mises both argued that unsound economic policies played a key role in the impoverishment and decay of the Roman Empire. "
I understand that there are a lot of for pay bloggers trying to re-write Wikipedia to reflect the ideology of neoliberal economics, but what the heck is Ludwig von Mises doing on a page about the decline of the Roman empire? Is he a historian? An archaeologist? Exactly what *research* has Ludwig von Mises done on the fall of the Roman Empire?MrSativa (talk) 03:06, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ludwig von Mises 

message: The costs of elections eventually became so out of hand that for example; Julius Cesaer had invested so much of his own money that he would have had nothing if had not be elected.  This is also common in the United States today.  The last election costs close to $3 Billion, which is more than enough money that could have been invested into the economy.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Osnap0207 (talk • contribs) 18:49, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cost of Elections 

message: This article is, as it correctly points out in the first sentence, about historiography. We have a  separate page about the events. 
I suggest that a move is long overdue, to either Historiography of the decline of the Roman Empire or Historiography of the fall of the Roman Empire, both of which I have just created as redirects to here. This page should then redirect to Fall of the Western Roman Empire. Richard Keatinge (talk) 15:49, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move suggested  

message: 'Transformation' would look better as '3.4' rather than '4'  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.244.106.107 (talk) 18:41, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Formatting 

message: There are a couple of points this article doesn't cover which I'm going to list here. 
* Chester G. Starr makes a good point in the Introduction of his The Roman Empire 27 BC - AD 476 that the most interesting thing about the Roman Empire was not that it declined & fell (although he admits it is a "well-known fact"), but that its Western form survived for over 500 years. Consider other pre-industrial empires: the Persian Empire lasted for a little more than 2 centuries (550 BC - 330 BC); the empire of Genghis Khan, as vast as it was, lasted little more than 3 generations; other Empires barely lasted longer than their founder. (NB, I'm not going to include the Chinese Empire, since that has too many differences from the Roman Empire to be a valid comparison.) Compared to these, that it lasted half a millennium is a noteworthy achievement; so it should not be a surprise that the Roman Empire came to an end eventually.
* Another point Starr makes in his Introduction is that the Roman Empire covered an immense area that "was larger than the whole earth today, if measured in terms of communications and transportation." Couriers could travel 50 miles a day, swapping horses periodically, & going without rest or sleep; ships could travel half that. And from one end to the other, the Roman Empire stretched a thousand miles. It would take a determined traveller months, if not years, to see it all.
So the Roman Empire had advantages over its rivals that permitted it to exist so long. I don't think it would be original research to say those advantages included a better military (not only in terms of numbers & equipment, but also in terms of support & training). Its financial system (i.e. taxation & revenue) was more efficient than its rivals -- although by modern standards it was very primitive. And the Romans could draw on a better-educated populace, as well as a more developed infrastructure (they had roads, & water/sewer systems where their rivals had neither). The problem was that these advantages eventually were lost: a standing army is an expensive part of a pre-Industrial government (Starr provides examples showing that a country would spend 50-70% of its income on its military); roads & buildings wear out & require maintenance (AFAICS, the ancients weren't all that good at maintaining their infrastructure -- the Romans just built things to last better than anyone else); & without the ability to borrow funds & support deficit spending -- something that only invented in the 18th century -- the Romans were always just one bad harvest away from a crisis.
Of course, it didn't help that in the 5th century the Western Empire had a run of Emperors without any skill at ruling (Honorius is commonly considered the worst Emperor the Romans ever had, & while I think Valentinian III was better than commonly considered, he still wasn't the ruler the Romans needed), & lost major chunks of its territory -- both setbacks that any polity would be hard pressed to recover from. But the WRE's strengths weren't as deep & overwhelming as they had been even during the previous century. -- llywrch (talk) 00:51, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments 

message: This is on the page: "Although defrutum and sapaprepared", sapa and prepared should have a space between them.
fREW (talk) 13:04, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Thanks for pointing that out! —Granger (talk · contribs) 13:22, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 23 May 2015 

message: How is it we have two separate articles called Decline of the Roman Empire and Fall of the Roman Empire? This is very confusing. Then one is a chronological history, the other a historiography. Even more confusing. Worse, the Fall of the Roman Empire doesn't even mention the Decline except buried in a See also at the bottom of the page -- using a different name! -- GreenC 04:36, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: To repeat my comment from above, I suggest that a move is long overdue, to either Historiography of the decline of the Roman Empire or Historiography of the fall of the Roman Empire, both of which presently redirect to here. This page should then redirect to Fall of the Western Roman Empire. Shall I proceed, or does anyone have a better idea? Richard Keatinge (talk) 07:00, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing article names 

message: This is a specific article about HISTORIOGRAPHY, and about the FALL, which is arguably only the last phase of the LRE. The LRE has NO DEFINITION on Wikipedia, let alone a page of its own. Anyone willing to fix this? And to remove the automatic redirect to this page, and to affix it to - at least, until a LRE page is created - Fall of the Western Roman Empire or much rather History of the Roman Empire? Thanks, ArmindenArminden (talk) 11:48, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: "Late Roman Empire" wrongly redirects here

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I think that there is a lack of humility present in this article. It may, in fact be the one attribute I can point to that may help to explain the fact of the “C-Class” rating (all puns aside). I think the entire tone of the article would change dramatically for the better if we would keep in mind that the question many readers are likely to be seeking answers to when their search returns this page is “do we know why Rome fell?”. And regardless of the number of scholars with ever-mounting credentials whose theories we choose to put forth as being the most valid or the most reasonable; the truth is that we have found no text contemporary with the decline and / or whatever “less-insulting” (to whom? The City?) term you wish to apply that cogently explains the fact that the decline is taking place much less postulating any theories. There is so much dancing around the need for a concise, neutral statement that puts forth the truth —- after all, what on EARTH is the point of all this Encyclopedic knowledge if NOT for a single, unbiased repository of as much truth as can be and a whole passel of watchdogs hawk-eying ‘troubled spots’ where people tend  to want history to match their version of it? 
THOUGHTS?
RobbertMacGreighgor (talk) 12:29, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does the lack of the phrase “we do not know” bother anybody else?  

message: i wanted to add some more information to this page JayTheSlayer (talk) 16:26, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone will add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself. ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 17:04, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: What you need to do is to write the information you want to add below this line.-- Toddy1 (talk) 17:07, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 11 September 2020 

message: This article has been almost untouched for more than a decade -- despite a paucity of references and what I believe is poor organization, although a lot of the drafting is good.  I've added a few references. I propose to undertake a reorganization.  The present division of historians into those citing general malaise, monocausal decay, etc. as causes for the fall of Rome is too simplistic.  Few historians cite a single reason for the fall.  Instead I propose to reorganize the article by chronology with the pertinent theories of notable historians listed by date beginning with Gibbon.  That reorganization would seem to me to give the reader a more coherent narrative of the scholarship and describe various theories in the order in which they were presented.  Any objections to a major overhaul -- and update -- of the article? Smallchief (talk) 17:17, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I forgot to mention that much of the present Wikipedia article is nearly word for word identical with a college thesis called "Historiographic Survey of the Decline of the Roman Empire" by Chris Kraus which can be found online. It's unclear to me whether Wikipedia copied Krause or Krause copied Wikipedia. Enlightenment, anyone?  Smallchief (talk) 22:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Major rewrite proposed

message: Prompted by some CE/AD switches today, I looked back in the article history. I haven't tried to find the very first use of either BCE/CE or BC/AD in the body of the article, but 10 years ago we had AD not CE ("1000 AD", "AD 476", "the 2nd century AD", "165 AD", "the first, second, and part of the 3rd centuries AD"), some of which remain in the article now. I think this means that per WP:ERA - which is well worth defending in either direction - we should continue to use AD rather than CE. NebY (talk) 15:16, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Neby. To my embarrassment, it seems that it was myself that introduced the contentious and un-necessary labeling of WP:ERA in this article. As no such labeling is required in this article, I have removed it. I hope this keeps everyone happy. Richard Keatinge (talk) 21:51, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Neat! NebY (talk) 17:52, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Era