[cgbg]

Obscure fact:

Philip K. Dick (science fiction writer) claimed the exact opposite of the title of this thread.

He claimed the Roman Empire never ended in his very strange book “Valis”.

[Dr. Sivana]

He claimed the Roman Empire never ended in his very strange book “Valis”.

He agrees with Hilaire Belloc, an historian/writer, who claimed the same thing earlier. It's not like Gibbons' date was recognized as such by the people living there at the time.

[Fai Mao]

I had a History professor who claimed the Roman empire never fell but simply changed forms.

His position was that (Rightly so) the Byzantines were the Eastern 1/2 of the empire. He p[pointed out that many European provinces and National borders today are, in fact, ancient Roman ones. Our months, days of the week and many other things are of Latin origin. English is, in a lot of ways, Latin with a German accent

He said it was no coincidence that Washington DC, like Rome, was built on 7 hills.

What was wild was he had a whole Biblical apocalyptic eschatology built around the fact that the US is the revived Roman empire. (The guy was a lapsed Lutheran)

Honestly, it made some sense/

[SunkenCiv]

PKD’s novel (1981)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valis_(novel)

ST:TNG (1968)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708421/

:^)