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This question depends as much on you as it does on history, because it's about identity: what made Rome Rome?

To say "Rome fell and nobody noticed", you have to have a different definition of Rome - or maybe we should say, assert a different essence of Rome - than the people who lived at the time.

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Yeah, that's a good point. Even though Latin had diverged to the point that reading Cicero required explicit schooling — the post-476 Romans did consider themselves Roman and fully the descendants of the late Republican / early Imperial period.

I'm mostly arguing that people overindex on the political changes and don't see the ground level continuity. Map color changed != they're not Roman any more.

Regardless, I do enjoy asking "what made Rome Rome?" — I like the idea of the Byzantines being Roman in 1453 even though at that point it was tenuous.

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