Death by a Thousand Cuts

There's no single reason Rome fell. Historians have proposed over 200 different explanations — from lead poisoning to moral decay to Christianity. The truth is messier: Rome died from a combination of crises that fed into each other over two centuries.

The traditional date for the fall of the Western Roman Empire is 476 CE, when the Germanic king Odoacer deposed the last emperor, Romulus Augustulus. But the real collapse was slower — economic decline, plague, failed tax systems, and waves of migration from central Asia all played a part.