Why did Rome fall?

Gotta go with Skiguy on this one.  Socialism is alive and well in the EU.

Socialism is alive and well in the EU.

Hence the contemporary argument that the global warming issue - which seems to be headed by Europeans - is really Marxist in nature.

Roman governance collapsed in 476, but it's institutions survived via the church...

I see you subscribe to the traditional date of the fall of Rome.  Roman governance did not cease with the death and overthrow of Romulus Augustulus at Adrianople.  The forms of Roman government survived in a diminished reform through to today.  Roman Law lived on in civil society as well as in church law.  Local Roman governments throughout the empire continued until they succumbed to invasion or were rendered unrecognizable by time and change.As to why Rome fell, certainly the barbarization of the empire played a part.  I would argue that a bigger reason was the moral decay at the center of the empire.  It was this decay that made barbarization palatable to the emperors.  The needed soldiers and the average Roman was uninterested in defending the empire so the emperors had to get them from somewhere.  In the end, it was expediency, compounded by moral decay,  which allowed the enemy within the empire and then ate it alive from the inside out.

I meant in terms of the western empire. By the fall in 476, Constantinople had exceded Rome in terms "Roman culture and governance for 150 years. Thus the transition from Latin to Greek. Without a connecting force to Rome itself, it's provinces broke away Britain in 410 on the withdrawal of the Legions, Africa under the Vandals, Spain under the Goths. "Byzantine Rome" survived and thrived for another thousand years, completely separate political identity.

fair enough, I do concede that, but nevertheless, the chaos of the century prior to the fall, made it difficult for much to continue on… especially long term.

I was speaking of the Western Empire.  Rome did not collapse overnight is the point I was trying to make.  I have not mentioned Byzantium as that is a separate animal entirely.

I agree with your point about the gradual decline of Rome, rather than a sudden end.  But I do think that any "separation" between East and West needs to be qualified.  Byzantium was still very much a part of Rome in the sense that they considered themselves to be Romans and because of this belief they even came to the rescue of the (former) Western Empire in Justinian's battles of the 6th century in Italy, North Africa, and further west.  I don't even think they referred to them as "Byzantines" until perhaps the 7th or 8th century.  Indeed, there was without a doubt a "split" between East and West that existed and increased in severity over time....but it needs to be qualified in my opinion.

I would add to the other reasons people have already stated in this thread that Roman arrogance/corruption also contributed to Rome's fall.  I point to the attempt to renege on promises to the Visigoths after they had crossed the Danube (which provoked them and led to the defeat of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople) as such an example of this.  I point also to the assassination of Stilicho by the Roman Senators as another poor move on the Romans' part, and then not giving in to Alaric's demands when his army besieged Rome in 410. 

The Byzantines considered themselves Roman when Constaninople fell in 1453 that does not mean that they were, only that they thought so.  Byzantium ceased to be Roman in thought and habit shortly after the split.  Mainly because of their understandable preoccupation with all things Eastern.  This is not to denigrate the Byzantines, I think that in some ways the Byzantine continuation of the Empire for a further 1000 years is a greater accomplishment than Romes original founding.  Byzantium had to be Eastern in its outlook because that was its backyard, not the Latin areas to the west.

I would say that a group/culture's perception of what it is is probably as important as what it is in reality, so the perception that the Eastern half was still "Roman" would have been significant.  I'm not arguing that these halves of the Empire were the same - just that they shared common Roman cultural practices which united them despite their divisions.  When Diocletian split the kingdom around 300 A.D., he chose to rule in the East, rather than in Rome - thereby suggesting the East wasn't all that different from West at that point.  The legal code, engineering knowledge, administrative structures, architecture and art - all these and more would likely have been brought to (what would become) Constantinople from the Roman model, thereby bridging the differences between the areas.  Going against such a bridge would have been language, religious practices, pre-existing cultural traditions, and so forth.Also, the Eastern and Western Empires were rejoined under Constantine, and continued this way until perhaps the end of the 4th century.  This would have preserved the common culture among them for some additional time.My thinking here is that the significant breaks between East and West would have probably occurred over time and in stages, such as with the iconoclastic controversy of the 8th century and the Great Schism of the 11th century.  Before then, I doubt there would have been a significant division between the two Empires while there was still a sitting augustus in Rome, the last of which was of course in 476 A.D.  I do agree on the other point that the continuation of Constantinople until 1453 was a most remarkable feat in Rome's legacy.

That's an interesting question.  In terms of the continuation for everyday people, probably not much difference at all.  The commoner would not have noticed any changed from Republic to Empire, nor from Empire to Odoacer's rule.