The Roman Empire Didn't End in 476

The entire history of Rome on one living map, from a few huts on a hill above the Tiber in 753 BC to an empire that ruled from Britain to Egypt. Then the half that kept going: the Eastern Roman Empire, which lasted until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Twenty-two centuries, border by border: how Rome swallowed Italy, survived Cannae and peaked around AD 117, why 476 was not widely seen as the end at the time, and the real secret of how Rome lasted so long. Out of respect, the film shows no casualties: battles appear as marks where they were fought, and no place is marked where anyone was assassinated or executed. CHAPTERS 0:00 Twenty-Two Centuries, One Map 0:34 753 BC: Huts on a Hill 2:48 338 BC: How Rome Swallowed Italy 5:21 216 BC: How to Survive Cannae 8:30 146 BC: Two Cities Burn 11:08 49 BC: Caesar Crosses the Line 13:18 AD 117: Peak Rome 15:56 AD 271: Three Romes at Once 18:10 AD 476: The Fall Nobody Noticed 20:44 AD 533: The Romans Who Spoke Greek 23:49 1453: The Last Roman SOURCES Borders: drawn by Thousand Year Map from W. R. Shepherd, Historical Atlas (1911 and 1923, public domain), eleven plates from Roman Italy to the Byzantine Empire about 1355; checked against the Ancient World Mapping Center's maps and Cliopatria (Seshat). All borders approximate. Places: Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places (Bagnall, Talbert et al., eds.), https://pleiades.stoa.org, CC BY 3.0 US. Roman roads: Itiner-e (de Soto et al., Scientific Data 12, 1731 (2025); doi:10.5281/zenodo.17122148), CC BY 4.0, simplified and restyled. Base map: Natural Earth (public domain; coasts and rivers are modern). Relief on Hannibal's march (height x15): produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-90 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved. Constantinople, 1453: © OpenStreetMap contributors (modern coastline); walls and chain: Wikidata (CC0). Areas: Beloch (via T. J. Cornell), Taagepera, Eurostat, U.S. Census Bureau. Texts, in translation (LacusCurtius, Perseus, Internet History Sourcebooks): Livy, Polybius, Plutarch, Appian, Velleius, Caesar, Suetonius, Tacitus, Cassius Dio, Historia Augusta, Res Gestae, Shapur I, Ammianus, Jerome, Marcellinus Comes, Procopius, Choniates, Sphrantzes; Gibbon. Reference: Encyclopaedia Britannica. PHOTOS AND VIDEO Public domain: The Met (CC0), portraits of Augustus 07.286.115, Caracalla 40.11.1a, Constantine I 26.229. American Numismatic Society, solidi of Romulus Augustulus 1944.100.54897 and Zeno 1948.19.1942. Psalter of Basil II, Marciana, Venice. Madrid Skylitzes, BNE. Gentile Bellini (attr.), Mehmed II, National Gallery, London. G. Berggren, Silivri Gate (late 1800s), Univ. of Strasbourg. Licensed (cropped and framed): "Veduta degli scavi coi fori neolitici di capanne sul palatino, 02" by Sailko, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=... "Appian Way, Rome" by Larry, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=... "Ab urbe condita. Tit Livi (ca. 1479) 01" by Dorieo, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=... "Carthage Byrsa 2" by Noomen9, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=... "Korinth BW 2017-10-10 10-50-32" by Berthold Werner, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=... "The Temple of Augustus and Rome with the Res Gestae Divi Augusti ("Deeds of the Divine Augustus") inscribed on the walls of the cella, Ancyra, Ankara (Turkey)" by Carole Raddato, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=... "Tabula Claudiana Lugdunum AD12 n1" (the Lyon Tablet) by Marie-Lan Nguyen, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=... "Hadrian's Wall on Housesteads Crags - 06" by Benjamin Smith, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=... "L06 877 Aurelianische Mauer" by Falk2, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=... "0 Venise, les Tétrarques de la basilique San Marco (1)" by Jean-Pol Grandmont, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=... "Sanvitale03" by Roger Culos, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=... "Santa Sofía, Estambul, Turquía, 2024-09-30, DD 04-06 HDR" by Diego Delso, delso.photo, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=... "St Mark's Horses" by Nan Palmero, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=... Licences: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ (by/2.0, by/3.0, by/3.0/us, by/4.0, by-sa/2.0, by-sa/3.0, by-sa/4.0). Our edits of CC BY-SA photos are shared under the same licence. Music and sound effects: Epidemic Sound. Pen and paper sounds: Freesound (CC0). WATCH NEXT 250 Years of American History in 25 Minutes:    • How 13 States on One Coast Became 50   Corrections: none yet. If you spot an error, tell us in the comments; we correct it here and pin the fix. Thousand Year Map: whole histories of countries and empires, told on one living map. #history #romanempire