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Late Antiquity

Further Calamities at Rome

The fifth century was a hard one for the city. After the sack by the Ostrogoths, there were a few good years, then hard times again. The Goths were active up and down Italy. Worse, the Vandals had entered into North Africa, cutting Rome off from its supply of grain.

Then came the Huns, and Rome was saved only by the timely death of Attila. But so weak was the city that the Vandals easily crossed the Mediterranean and put Rome to a worse sack than in 410. The sack of 455 was malicious and destructive; the word vandalism stems from this tribe of people.

For the next 20 years, Rome was ruled by Goths who chose men from the local Roman nobility and installed them as Emperor (always getting approval from Constantinople, however). This practice lasted until 476, when Romulus Augustulus was simply not replaced.

The city itself persisted. The Goths generally left the local population alone, and the old ways continued. True government of the city was increasingly in the hands of the bishop. Leo I, in the 5th century, and Gregory I, in the 6th century, were especially effective and influential.

The sixth century was even worse for Italy and for Rome. The population of Rome dropped below 100,000 (it had once exceeded one million). In the sixth century we lose track of the Senate, which had met regularly since the 8th century BC. The last known public games in the Colosseum were held in 549.

Emperor Justinian invaded Italy and after a long struggle drove out or destroyed the Goths. Italy was back within the rule of the Empire, but the peninsula paid a heavy price with 20 years of war. In 542 bubonic plague ravaged Italy. In 568 the Lombards invaded, a people even more wantonly destructive than the Vandals.

Rome had entered long centuries of decline and neglect.