Analyze the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 CE) per MULTIPLE modern scholarly perspectives — refusing the single-cause Gibbon 'decline-and-fall' narrative — including Peter Heather's barbarian-migration thesis, Bryan Ward-Perkins's material-decline thesis, Walter Goffart's barbarian-accommodation thesis, and Patrick Geary's continuity-of-Late-Antiquity thesis
Exercise Difficulty 3 ~5 min hist.g6.f.ex_42

Short Response

Prompt

Did the Eastern Roman / Byzantine Empire fall in 476 CE? If not, when did it fall? Why does this matter for how we understand 'the fall of Rome'?

How it's presented
mode text
Answer criteria
type rubric scored writing
rubric
3 stars: Eastern Empire did NOT fall 476 + continued until 1453 CE when Constantinople fell to Ottomans + critical implication ('the fall of Rome' is specifically Western; Eastern continuity for ~1,000 more years). 2 stars: 2 of 3. 1 star: 1. 0: 0.
Hints
  1. 476 CE was specifically WESTERN.
  2. Eastern continued ~1,000 more years.
Misconceptions to watch
  • Treating 476 CE as 'the fall of Rome' simpliciter
  • Forgetting Byzantine continuity until 1453
Used in lessons