The Roman Empire would not have fallen if these decisions were made differently. 

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Stilicho Made the correct choice by pulling troops to Italy because if he had lost that battle the Empire would have been most likely overthrown had they lost

Totally agree with the Battle of Frigidus! During the last 250 years of western Romes existence, the Romans seemed incapable of understand that civil war is bad for everyone in the long run

Baron Zemo: "An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumbles from within? That's dead. Forever."

I think main problem was corruption, greed and that Rome forgot its roots. Selfishness of individuals defeated the empire

10:16 I think that despite the battle of the Frigidus River, this would have been very possible if Britannia was abandoned earlier. That was arguably the 2nd best thing done under Honorius's reign, the 1st being his death obviously. This would have possibly prevented the rebellion of Constantine III, the man who deposed the local governor and took the legions south to press his "claim", this would save a lot of time and manpower for the empire and definitely leave Gaul in a better state. And maybe King Arthur wouldn't be betrayed by Mordred since he wouldn't have to campaign in Gaul, thus leaving Britannia safe for re-incorporation later on. The statement about Arthur is a joke, and realistically, it would rid Rome of a province, but Britannia was arguably more trouble than it was worth, and it was going to be lost anyway if its link to Rome was separated due to the 406 crossing, not only was it an economic and geographic liability, it was also a political weight too because it served as a stepping stone for usurpers like Magnus Maximus, Constantine III and so on. In summary, the crossing of the Rhine could have been prevented if Britannia was abandoned earlier without a glory-hound doing it to start a civil war and negate all the benefits of this action doing so.

The political boundaries of the Empire are one thing. But if there's one person to blame for the collapse of classical Roman civilization in Italy, I feel like the blame has to go on Justinian and his gothic wars, which is really ironic because it seems like he really wanted to be the next Aurelian.

I cannot even express how much I love your videos. Keep them coming. Tremendous concept.

Maybe the beginning of the end lay with the first emperor, Augustus. His settlement, while it had many strong points, never adequately adressed the problem of imperial succession and continuity of government. The seeds of collapse were there at the beginning.

5:57 or possibly if Valentinian I did not die from his own anger in 375 and lived long enough to help Valens would things be different. Another event that could have saved the empire from falling could be if Anthemius in 472 got the letter from Leo I before Ricimer got his hands on it, thus he would immediately kill of Ricimer and no longer be a puppet. Or if Justinian I really had a succession plan, or if his cousin Germanus who was supposed to succeed him lived rather than having an untrained successor (Justin II) take the throne. Great video and anyway and interesting points you have!

Im enjoying your content! I do hope you touch on Germanus's random death(Justinians heir who was married to the Ostrogothic princess). He was deployed west and would be seen as legitimate having married into the Amal line. Preventing the Ostrogoths from siding the Lombards when they threatened invasion and this also could allow for the complete reconquest of Hispania seeing as Theoderic the Great was also ruler of Visigothic spain. Italy, Africa and all of hispania and you see we're 75% there with resurrecting Western Rome. Then there's Phocas Usurpation which altered the course of not only Roman, but world history. Maurice had finally relocated the bulk of his army to the western territories of the empire, now having concluded a peace with Persia, He then successfully re-established the danubian border- I believe that had Phocas not revolted- these armies would have pushed westwards, into Italy and likely further on. I always found the above what ifs very interesting.

What I will never understand is how an Empire like Rome, with it's superior logistics and hugh population, was barely able to muster an army that could withstand ONE barbaric tribe at best. Germanic countries must have been insanely populated and in a way centralized if they could bring ten thousands of men to the battlefield?!

Glad YT recommended ur channel, great video and overall great stuff. It's ironic, how Theodosius "the Great" after saving the eastern part of the empire, de facto sentenced the western part to death by initiating another civil war and naming Honorius his succesor in the west.

I love your videos, the fall of Rome is a topic that always interested me, and it seems to be more complex than what most historians tell us.

Another big problem is climate change. The Danube river had froze over which led many Barbarians over run its borders. Also north Africa increased in becoming a desert.

Interesting analyses. If only.... but then we would all be italians wouldn't we? Would that be an improvement? or just an alternative reality? Empires fail when the citizens/leaders take for granted what they have inherited. This is in the nature of humans and cannot be avoided. The strength of humans is their ability to adapt to their environment. The weakness of humans is their inability to understand what went into creating that environment. We witness the same in current events.

Awesome breakdowns. I don't know much about the late Roman Empire but these are super interesting you're doing an amazing job here. Keep it up!

We’ve been to Rome 30 times ! I am passionately obsessed about your Roman topics. Love your 476

These videos are Amazing, please don't stop making them

Great stuff boss! Loving your content. Keep up the good work

Nice content man!! I've watched all your videos so far and everyone of them are perfect!! Good luck with your channel these videos deserve the views!!

GREATs like AURELIAN and MAJORIAN were true, heroic reformer warriors. What happened to them was such a morally evil betrayal

Great Video! I am glad that I discovered your channel.

These topics that you bring to life are invaluable to us ! The condition of the circus Maximus and colosseum etc after 476 and beyond the centuries fascinates me. Hence 30 trips to Rome

Your videos are brillant! Thank you so much, may this channel grow like Rome under Caesar

Great video!

Very good video. Can't wait for the next video!

Fantastic video!

These videos are great the content/images you use for them are perfect! keep it up bro

4:02 I didn't know they had cameras back then?

Thank you!

Nice job Maior! Part 2 soon?

The early death of Julian the Apostate did not help matters.

Please keep making these videos!

I always wonder why Theodosius is given the title "the great". the man shut down the pagan temples, ordered roman citizens massacred to appease barbarian's, gave a barbarian king the funerary rites of a emperor.. Worst of all in such troubled times he divided the empire between his two awfully inept sons at a time when it needed to stand unified with a strong leader.

Didn't Odoacer and the Ostrogoths in fact stabilize "The ***** Empire"? The period between 476 and the roman invasion was actualy one of stability and reconstruction. Unfortunaly did the invasion coincide withthe Justinian pleague and abrupt climate change due to the Krakatoa eruption in 536.

At the 10 minute mark I thought that was the end of the video, I was so happy to see I had another 12 minutes go watch!

While watching this and hearing you refer to the possibility of the survival of the Roman Empire for an indefinite amount of time, it made me think of the many states that wouldn’t exist in such a case. Do you think eventually states like france etc would come about? How would this affect world events to come? A video about this would be, as this one is, very interesting! Keep up the great work!

I must respect your extensive knowledge on the subject. However after watching some of your videos regarding this time period I feel their is one Roman emperor you consistently underrate. Claudius Gothicus Claudius II laid the foundation so Aurelian could focus on 'restitut de orbis'. So massive was his victory that it can be argued the victory pushed the Goths back for a century. Until Adrianople.

Nice, I’m crying on a Wednesday morning, lovely

I think it was more than just a few critical military defeats. The military defeats were merely a symptom of deeper problems in the Empire. I think first and foremost: there was a fundamental defect in the Roman government. And that was that there was no certain method for succession to the Imperial throne. This led to a situation where various generals and politicians would have themselves declared Emperor. Chaos was the inevitable result. In some ways, the Romans spent more energy fighting each other, than they did the barbarians. Another, deeper aspect to the critical defeats you mention. And that was the Roman military thinking (and society in general) was extremely conservative. Afraid of innovation. I've read that even 200 years after Julius Caesar, that the basic Roman battle tactics were still basically the same as Julius used. This caused such things as failure to fully develop cavalry. Which the barbarians had done, such as the Goths at Adrianople. And was a major factor in the defeat of the Romans. Who still continued to rely on the foot soldier.

I had a very hard time finding your site because of the difficult spelling (in english but, it's done in english). Unless the spelling is exact- this site will not appear on RU-vid search. That's a shame- the content is great!

Boniface was a real disaster. He invited the Vandals to cross from Spain and was responsible for the loss of that province. St Augustine died during the siege in 430.

Like the old saying , ‘ it’s not what you do, it’s what you set in motion.’

It would be good to see a deep dive on the barbarian tribes such as the Visigoths and the Vandals

Nice video.

Excellent

A special place in Hades is set for Honorious...

Rome fell because it's key institutions decayed below an acceptable level of efficacy.

This issue with some of these, such as what if they won this battle or what if this civil war didn't happen, is that they don't solve the underlying issues. After the Crisis of the Third Century things never really improved. Civil Wars got worse and more frequent, the position of Magister Militum became a power to compete with and often control the Emperor. The denarius continued to decline in value. That last one was the most important, as it was the true culprit on why the Western Army couldn't recover from Frigidus, they couldn't get new recruits because there was no incentive. A legionaire would get shit pay, no land, and no priveleges. The declining value of the Denarius was a self reinforcing downward spiral. As it became worth less, the financial situation became worse, so the currency was devalued futherer so that more could be minted and the people were straddled with worse taxes, which caused widespread unrest and peasant rebellions, which made the financial situation worse, etc etc. The only way it could survive at all would be to reclaim Africa and then abandon everything except Italy and Africa. The deeper issues the Empire faced were to great for them to solve while having to face many external enemies as well

One overlooked key point was the regency of Galla Placidia. In the 420s and 430s, when Rome was collapsing, it was "ruled" by a 5 year old child and governed by a woman.

History is doomed to repeat itself from the inside!

Nice, could you do a vid on Gallienus

Every time I read about or see something about Magister Militum, then Emperor, Maiorianus I cry evry time. He was so great. The people that killed him and helped his downfall are still being tortured in hell for all time.

When are you doing a video on the Gothic wars of the mid 6th century?

I would like to present my own reasons for the fall, which shouldve been prevented, although not as precise as yours as most of them dont oin down a specific event. Also its up to the date you have made the video 1) Christianity declared as the only religion 2) Split of the empire 3) Barbarian migrations 1) Pretty much destroyed its culture, prevented barbarian integrations and destroyed fabric of society 2) Economic and military collapse 3) Acceleration of previous collapse, due to loss of land, economy, recruits and so on, due to mercenary payments being land itself, as well as many other factors. I have made other 3 points of collapse, but i will present them in the next video.

I tend to have a more Spenglerian take on this. Civilizations have a natural life cycle. A period of gestation followed by a period of conquest and trade, afterwards it reaches a period of civil war and consolidation. An age of prosperity follows. After that comes an age of decadence and slow decline. Towards the end, there is collapse. Rome followed this natural life cycle, twice. Its best to look at the Roman Empire as two civilizations due to biological makeup of the population. The Roman Republic was largely a Latin affair, whereas the Roman Empire was a multiracial state. The Republic gestated during the period of the Kingdom and early republic. Expanded greatly during the Punic wars. Had massive civil wars in the late republican era followed by the sexual degeneracy and low birth rates characteristic of late Empires. The Republic collapsed with Augustus's victory over Antony. The original stock of Rome had largely been replaced by foreigners by the time of Augustus. The old Patrician families had been extinguished by civil wars and purges while the population had been replaced by slaves and foreigners. The Empire started off as an Italian affair but became multicultural as time went on. There were great conquests during the early principate era followed by a period of great prosperity during the 5 good emperors. Then began a period of civil war after the death of commodus and then a period of consolidation under Constantine. But from there on, the Romans started an inexorable decline. Sexual degeneracy was rampant, slaves and foreigners overran the Italian peninsula and Italians themselves were largely absent from the army. The fatal blows were struck by the Rhine crossing of 406 and the sack of Rome in 410.

Rome never died, it lives in our hearts. Roma invicta ⚔️

Reading the video description, I see you've read your Gibbon. No matter what modern, pc busybody academics say, he is one of the greatest historians. The objectivity, stringent language, depth of wise analysis, are just brilliant. Also, if more people read his work, they would hear the warning trumpets blaring over the West.

Aurelian is so underrated.

The visigoths didn't really become a separate entity for a generation, by that time many were of roman descent. It resembles a civil war by that time rather than a barbarian invasion.

I thinks that the One of the best what if underrated : what if Alexander severus survived/start the second offensive campaign against ardashir/had a more loyal army to exploit the Alliance with hatra parthians an Armenia against sassanids?

Seems like some history might repeat itself in Western Europe soon

Guys will see this and think "Hell yeah!"

This video makes me mad and sad 😭😭 I wish it wouldn't have happened.

There were a lot of problems, but a huge one was never figuring out a peaceful transfer of power from emperor to emperor. Seriously thats some basic shit Augustus should've figured out in the early 1st century CE.

Majorian could have, no, should have. God bless.

The other factors were the plagues which destroyed the Roman Base population to raise troops. There were droughts which displaced some of these Tribal Nationals and cause a decrease in food production In the Roman Territory. Also, the Roman population had there national pride and spirit broken by the corruption of the Roman Leaders add the tension between Christianity And Paganism. All examples of a divisive underlining factors in the society

The definition of "saved," gets looser as time goes on.

There are many issues in this shallow analysis (and that's a problem of non-materialist history: "it's the economy, stupid!"). The most important issue is the economy: devaluation was not caused by the political-military crisis but by deep issues that were never solved: the early Empire (late Republic and most of the Principate) basically exploited vast gold and silver reserves in Hispania, Dacia, etc. and wasted them buying oriental luxuries, mostly via the Ptolemaic sea route to India (but also via Parthia/Persia, which pocketed a large profit as middle man). This caused scarcity of silver and thus devaluation of the currency. The Diocletian austericidal and ill-thought reforms only aggravated the problem, destroying the internal and northern trade networks and thus impoverishing the Empire (and probably also the Germanics beyond the limes). This is something that persisted after the fall of Rome: Europe in general, in spite of new mine discoveries that allowed the some recovery in the middle-late Middle Ages, was deficitary in silver (and, barring Greece, lacked also gold). Being oligarchic it was always thirsting for luxuries like silk or spices (which are unncessary but were much desired by the rich), this would eventually produce the European colonialist expansion since the 15th century, first in search of the gold of Sudan, then of exotic spices, etc. I was hoping for a comparison with China, the only empire that compared with Rome (or vice versa) but nope. It could be interesting (succession system, populist "mandate of Heaven" favoring reformist new rulers, no adoption of any totalitarian state religion, etc.) but anyhow it is interesting here that China was also deficitary in silver but what they did was trying to promote their exports and limit their imports (what eventually lead to the opium wars but has been reinstated again recently). Rome did not export almost anything however: it had no industry other than domestic and military (which was state-owned and meant to serve only the Roman Army), it may have been "an empire of cities" but the cities were not really well developed, the overall model was agrarian and of services and focused on luxuries for the all-powerful oligarchs almost exclusively. In short: Rome was not economically sustainable and the only hope to prevent the fall was to make it sustainable, what was never done. Instead the oligarchy favored ruralization and basically sleepwalked to the Dark Ages, to Feudalism. The only "mandata of Heaven" it got was destructive and reformed in the wrong direction, maybe because of lack of large peasant revolts, which were always fragmented and localized and not Empire-wide, which may have been caused by the ethno-geographical complexity of the Empire (in comparison China was somewhat simpler and more homogenously "ethno-national"). Without addressing all this: the root economic causes, it's impossible to understand why Rome collapsed. Add the Hunnic migration to the mix, which was the trigger rather than the deep cause and also has to do with China, which expelled the Huns or Xiongnu, precursors of the Turkic peoples, and accidentally set the chain of events that destroyed the Roman Empire (or its Western half if you prefer). But this was only the strong kick that threw down a very rotten door.

9:38 if Thedosius acceoted Eugenius there is a possibilty Eugenius attack the eastern oart

To be honest these arguments seem pretty silly, we must ask why the empire found itself in such a position to begin with.

Bro when is the US going to break into three parts?

Quando Deus determina um tempo, para tudo esse tempo termina.

Smooth voice :0

We want to search out the gate where Alaric entered Rome in AD 476

A house divided against itself can not stand

Had the Romans aided the Ostragothic kingdom against the Huns, it would have prevented the flow of Gothic refugees west which eventually resulted in the defeat at Adrianople and probably the Hunnic invasion of the West.

Nietzsche mentioned, that not bad emperors and the barbarians caused the downfall, actually it was a new religion, called Christianity. I guess there was another reason: The Roman nobility practiced a "one heir policy" to avoid troubels among the heirs. So maybe one or the other great Roman citizen never was born.

Like Marcus Aurelius wanting his son Commodus to succeed him was a disaster, Theodosius (the not-so great) wanted his sons Honorius and Arcadius to succeed him. They were both incompetent and useless. Whether, though, anyone could have done anything to make up for the defeat at Adrianople, I do not know. On the surface, Theodosius did well but promoting the interests of Visigoths, as he did, was a long term strategic mistake. Stilicho did his best with limited resources.

Everything is brilliantly done, but you added same video footages in every content 🙈

As a Dane I'm glad my forefathers the Cimbri, never got to sack the Roman empire entirely.. it would have destroyed more than it was good for.

I’m regards to Adrianople agree Valens had people under him that bungled the refugee situation and resulted in a large group of pissed off goths who wrecked havoc. Had they gave them decent land and tried to assimilate them I believe they would have become a bulwark against the Huns. Think another issue is really incompetent emperors and officials in the later empire where the East may not have had great emperor but they were competent. Also killing Stillico seeing he was one of the few generals with a winning record against barbarian tribes. Seemed like everyone was out for themselves as the empire slowly fell apart. Seeing this is late Roman channel I’m currently listening to Power and Thrones by Dan Jones that goes over the late empire in great detail including the empire and barbarian details. Excellent book documenting how Romes fall made the way for the barbarian groups to become prominent and bring forth the Middle Ages.

But is it not true that the population of the Roman empire declined relative to its barbarian counterparts starting in the 300s? If so does that not imply some sort of relative decline and even the fall of the Roman empire was going to take place sooner or later ?

So it wasn’t Honorius but Theodosius that was the worst. He fought Adrianople and placed Honorius in the throne.

There is no chance when an empire loose the favor of gods

If Germanicus lived and continued his conquest, it would not have fallen.

This narrator sounds like Dr. Frankenstein's lab assistant.

would things have been better if it had? is that like lamenting the death of dinosaurs? if they had lived, we could not

No do overs. That is what inevitability is.

I guess they needed a legislative and judicial.branch, congress and a senate,. all apart from a military. And an insane emperor as a scape goat.

SAVE AURELIAN AT ALL COST!

Why should an empire of notorious slaveholders and slave traders survive at all? 😁 BTW I love your series (also if I do not agree with all statements).

Not to rain on your parade so to say but this reminds me of a comment on a nozi alt hist video where someone said "long story short the nozis would have won if they weren't nozis"

This what im saying there we're many times rome couldve survived and been saved

I see it more that Rome was incredibly lucky to of had such a brilliant commander as “Stilicho” at the time that it did. If it wasn’t for him, Rome would of fallen even sooner. If you rerolled the time period 10 times, I think Rome would of fallen 9/10 at best. IMO, Rome’s best chance of a successful revival was the 6th century. Very unlucky century.

Point 3 is nonsensical. The Roman army had organized an in depth defense of the Rhine and other borders since long. Because they were not capable at all of totally preventing all crossings. The simple sad fact is that beginning with Theodosius the Romans were too busy with their numerous civil wars. Wikipedia mentions 9. Some were fought Gallia while invading barbarians were freely looting nearby.

This channel should have been called 'Ricimer was a bastard!' ;-)

I'm skeptical of learning things on RU-vid because you never know who you're learning from.

While it was not inevitable than Rome should have fallen, all empires fall eventually. Every Chinese empire, the Mongols, the British, Spanish, Ottoman, Mughal, Russian, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese, and so on.