The Fall of Rome

The Fall of Rome was one of the most traumatic and consequential events in the history of Western Civilization. It brought to an end centuries of peace, stability, and prosperity in the Mediterranean world and ushered in the Dark Ages, a period of enormous upheaval, conflict, and civilizational collapse in Western Europe. The “fall” of Rome was not a single, short term event, but rather a long-drawn out series of events, the two most important being the fall of the Roman Republic in the course of the last century B.C.E., and the fall of the Roman Empire itself in the 5th Century C.E. America’s Founding Fathers intently studied the collapse of the Roman Republic as they formed and prepared the foundation of the United States of America nearly 250 years ago. This two part lecture examines the fall of the Roman Republic (Part 1) and the fall of the Roman Empire (Part 2), their causes, their impact on the history of Western Civilization, and most importantly, their implications for America today.

Richard Callas is a retired, 30-year career naval officer and former executive director of the Navy’s Surface Warfare Schools Command as a government civil servant, responsible for the training of 80,000 service members annually. He has an undergraduate degree from Boston College in Political Science and a master’s degree from Salve Regina University in International Relations. During his time in the Navy, he commanded two ships, USS AUSTIN (LPD-4) and USS IWO JIMA (LHD-7). In retirement, as an amateur historian, he has been researching and authoring a study in 16^th century geopolitics.