History 350 - Fall of Rome: Late Antiquity

When did the Roman empire end and what was ended? The causes and dates you choose say a lot about your assumptions about what the Roman empire essentially was and what the empire essentially wasn?t. If the Roman empire was ?murdered,? as Piganiol put it, who was the murderer, when was the crime committed, and for whose benefit? But what if the empire wasn't murdered, what if the crumbling of an empire doesn't constitute a crime, what if empires never really disappear? Key historical developments examined in this course include: the decline of paganism, the rise of Christianity, the end of the ancient city, the rise of barbarian states, the organization of alternate forms of social and economic relations, and the development of intolerance and the persecution of religious minorities.