It didn't matter that Rome was hundreds of miles from where you lived. Its citizens, soldiers and magistrates would have been everywhere. He would have been required to pay taxes or tributes to the Romans, speak some version of Latin, and may even have been required to enlist in a Roman army and travel to a distant province to fight for the city and its empire. You may have gone your entire life without setting foot in the city itself, but it didn't matter. His power and influence would have been enough to make you a Roman. However, this did not last forever.

The map of Europe from the year 500 would have been unrecognizable to anyone who had lived a hundred years earlier. Gone was the solid border line that separated Roman civilization from what had been perceived as “barbarism.” The family institutions of almost half a millennium were left behind. And a ruler who could consider the entire West as his domain disappeared. Instead, the West fragmented into a mosaic of shifting "barbarian" kingdoms, while the shrinking East continued under an emperor in thrall to a dominant Church and arrogant chamberlains.

#history #documentary #rome

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