Rome Fell and Nobody Noticed A barbarian heretic kept the Roman state running for thirty-three years When I first began learning about the Roman Empire in middle school, I was most interested in what everyone else seems to be interested in — the time of Caesar and Augustus. Recently, however, I’ve become far more interested in the decline & fall of the Roman Empire. You always hear the date 476 as the definitive end. As far as dates go, 476 is as good a date as any to mark the end of the...