HIST 315 The Fall of Rome
When the last Roman emperor in the West was deposed in 476, the centuries-long political dominance of Rome came to an end. This course explores the fall of Rome: what happened to the Roman Empire in the West? What caused political turmoil and economic collapse at the same time that religion and culture flourished? How did life change in the new circumstances of the post-Roman west? Using a range of written and material sources, this class will explore what scholars call the transformation of the Roman world: how the Roman Empire as a political entity ended, while Romanitas, the essence of being Roman, continued.