The Legacy of Rome: When Did the Roman Empire End?

Tom Holland

11/03/2014

Recording from Tom Holland’s talk, ‘The Legacy of Rome: When Did the Roman Empire End?’ for CVHF, Wednesday, 26th June 2013.

In AD 476, Romulus Augustulus, emperor in line to Augustus, Trajan and Constantine, was deposed by a German chieftain. It is an event that in most history books is identified as marking the end of the Roman Empire. But did it? Tom Holland explores whether the Romans themselves had any comprehension that their empire could possibly fall, traces the surprisingly obdurate survival of a Roman imperial identity across the centuries, and identifies the moment in history when the Roman Empire definitively came to an end. Told with his enormous knowledge and wide-ranging understanding of history, this was a hugely entertaining, provocative and utterly absorbing talk, proving why Tom Holland has become one of our foremost authorities and scholars of the Roman Empire.

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