Oh...and the Visigoths (410), the Ostrogoths (586) and the Normans (1084)!
Was Rome really ever much of an empire?
“Was Rome really ever much of an empire?”
Yeah, the hits kept coming.
I seem to remember the Romans themselves weren’t shy about looting Rome everyone in a while. Always remember — PAY your troops!
>Was Rome really ever much of an empire?
Longest lasting major empire history. Very few empires last longer than 250 years and Rome made it for nearly 700 years in the west and nearly 1200 years in the east.
Was Rome really ever much of an empire?!? Pullease. :^)
Rome's first conquest was Ostia, circa 400 BC; the empire was divided by the Emperor Diocletian before 305 AD; the eastern half of the empire reconquered a good bit of the fallen western half of the empire during the reign of Justinian, but regardless, endured with rising and falling territorial fortunes until the Turks finally waltzed on in and took Constantinople in 1453 -- iow, a span of at least 1853 years.
Although Rome never bothered to conquer Hibernia (allegedly modern Ireland) or northern Calendonia (allegedly modern Scotland, the Scots didn't arrive from Ireland until the 7th century AD), in each case because there wasn't anything worth conquering, Roman commerce was always far-reaching, even after the 5th c fall of Rome.
The full extent of Roman conquest is still unknown, but apparently Rome established a base or trading post on the coast of Ireland (there's an FR topic of course), and within the past ten years or so an archaeological rescue dig turned up a Roman cemetery in Copenhagen, Denmark.