Fall of the Western Roman Empire

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2020

⏱️ 63 minutes

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Summary

In the late 4th century and early 5th centuries two massive largely-Germanic confederations arrived on Roman borders, having been uprooted from their homelands by the Huns. These were the Goths and the Vandals. Both peoples would become prime enemies of the Roman Empires in the East and West. Both would sack Rome; both played significant roles in the decline of the Western Roman Empire, inflicting terrible defeats and seizing some of the most lucrative territory in the Western Mediterranean. To talk through this ‘barbarian’ impact on the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, I’m chatting with Peter Heather, Professor of Medieval History at King’s College London and the author of ‘The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians’.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Ancients, a new podcast dedicated to all things, well, ancient.
0:08.0	I'm Tristan Hughes and in each episode I'll be chatting with a world-leading historian
0:12.6	or archaeologist about our distant past.
0:16.4	The art, the architecture, the battles, the larger-than-life personalities, events that
0:21.7	have helped shape the world we live in today.
0:24.6	I'm nearly thick Britain to the full of Rome, from the Assyrians to Alexander the Great.
0:34.6	Today I'm being joined by Peter Heather.
0:37.3	He is a historian and a professor at King's College London and we're talking about the
0:42.8	full of the Western Roman Empire.
0:45.9	In particular we're going to look at two key barbarian groups, the Goths and the Vandals.
0:53.1	Peter Heather, thank you so much for coming on the show.
0:57.4	Oh, it's my pleasure.
0:58.9	Extraordinary circumstances, but history goes on.
1:02.4	Exactly, I couldn't have said it better myself.
1:05.2	Now, the full of the Western Roman Empire, this is a huge topic, but you believe a key reason
1:11.2	for its full is not an internal one, but an external one.
1:17.1	I do.
1:18.1	I mean, there's no serious account of the ending of the empire which doesn't actually have
1:23.3	internal and external factors working together because the external factor would not have
1:31.7	brought down just any empire that you can think of.
1:34.3	It brings down this particular empire which depends on the sort of limitations of the
1:39.2	workings of that empire and so on.
	...

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