At the same time, though, I can’t but think that homosexuals were more a symptom than a cause.
The best evidence of this is that at its height, there would have been at least some homogeneity (no pun, really), throughout the major centers of the Roman Empire. But it was a thousand years after the collapse of the western empire that the eastern, Byzantine empire folded.
Far more geographic oriented, with the western empire under pressure from the barbarians.
I think the professor is making a bold claim to throw the gauntlet down, but I agree with your assessment; they’re one factor out of many.
The Barbarians were always a factor in Roman history, it’s just that she was always better equipped in terms of manpower to field an effective military and social response, but by the time we’re talking about, owing to the decay of the societies morality, so say Nixon, +Sheen and other historians, they were incapable of keeping the political integrity of the Empire intact as it was before, and the outer borders deteriorated.
It’s like a disease which attacks the structure of the bones, eventually, the mass of the body itself is insupportable because of the decay.