History Memes

there was no sack of Rome in 476.

My bad. This discussion has become quite a bit convoluted. Trying to bring some structure back into it, I try to reformulate what I am trying to argue.

The statement "The Roman Realm fell in 476" is false and implies a singular, catastrophic event that caused a significant regression in culture, technology, wealth and infrastructure, as well as it implies everything that is associated with Rome ceased to exist.
However, the regression and decline began centuries earlier and continued after. Also, several roman institutions and titles continued to exist, people kept seeing themselves (and others) as Romans (even in the further provinces) and Rome as a city stayed significant and a seat of power.
What changed in 476 was that with Odoacer, a (very romanized) barbarian became ruler over Italy, though he claimed that rule as a client of the Eastern Roman Emperor.
The connection of the "Destruction" painting by Thomas Cole with the Fall of Rome is further manifesting a picture of a violent event after which the Roman Realm, it's culture, institutions etc suddenly ceased to exist, something that didn't happen.
The reasons I argue that Rome never actually fell are that Rome itself continued to be a seat of power to this day (even being some kind of capital for a long time, if you stretch the term capital you could call it the capital of christiandom during the period of italian city states), and that many a rulers's claim to power were in some way referring to the Emperor of Rome until the end of tsardom in Russia.

I get that the year 476 is imprinted in our collective minds as the end of the Roman Realm, and I see the arguments for it, but I do think we do not need many of the precise cutoffs we try to use and we do not need this specific one.

I hope this could clear up some comfusion and bring the discussion back om track.