t used to be the fashion of historians, looking superficially at the facts pre-
sented in chronicles and tables of dates, without analyzing and compar-
ing vast groups of facts distributed through centuries, or even suspecting
the need for such analysis and comparison, to assign the date 476 A.D. as the
moment at which the Roman Empire came to an end. It was in that year that
the soldier of fortune, Odovakar, commander of the Herulian mercenaries
in Italy, sent the handsome boy Romulus, son of Orestes, better known as
"little Augustus," from his imperial throne to the splendid villa of Lucullus
near Naples, and gave him a yearly pension of $35,000 [6,000 solidi] to con-
sole him for the loss of a world. As 324 years elapsed before another emperor
was crowned at Rome, and as the political headship of Europe after that
happy restoration remained upon the German soil to which the events of
the eighth century had shifted it, nothing could seem more natural than the
habit which historians once had, of saying that the mighty career of Rome
had ended, as it had begun, with a Romulus. Sometimes the date 476 was
even set up as a great landmark dividing modern from ancient history. For
those, however, who took such a view, it was impossible to see the events ofthe Middle Ages in their true relations to what went before and what came
after. It was impossible to understand what went on in Italy in the sixth
century, or to explain the position of that great Roman power which had its
centre on the Bosphorus, which in the code of Justinian left us our grandest
monument of Roman law, and which for a thousand years was the staunch
bulwark of Europe against the successive aggressions of Persian, Saracen, and
Turk. It was equally impossible to understand the rise of the Papal power,
the all-important politics of the great Saxon and Swabian emperors, the rela-
tions of mediaeval England to the Continental powers, or the marvellously
interesting growth of the modern European system of nationalities. [Side-
note: When did the Roman Empire come to an end?]
Since the middle of the nineteenth century the study of history has under-
gone changes no less sweeping than those which have in the same time af-
fected the study of the physical sciences. Vast groups of facts distributed
through various ages and countries have been subjected to comparison and
analysis, with the result that they have not only thrown fresh light upon one
another, but have in many cases enabled us to recover historic points of view
that had long been buried in oblivion. Such an instance was furnished about
twenty-five years ago by Dr. Bryce's epoch-making work on the Holy Ro-
man Empire. Since then historians still recognize the importance of the date
476 as that which left the Bishop of Rome the dominant personage in Italy,
and marked the shifting of the political centre of gravity from the Palatine to
the Lateran. This was one of those subtle changes which escape notice until
after some of their effects have attracted attention. The most important ef-
fect, in this instance, realized after three centuries, was not the overthrow of
Roman power in the West, but its indefinite extension and expansion. The
men of 476 not only had no idea that they were entering upon a new era,
but least of all did they dream that the Roman Empire had come to an end,
or was ever likely to. Its cities might be pillaged, its provinces overrun, but
the supreme imperial power itself was something without which the men of
