The fall of the Roman Empire is traditionally dated to year 476 when the last Western Roman Emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed by Germanic military leader Odoacer despite the fact that the eastern half of empire - the Byzantine Empire has survived for nearly a millennium. The barbarian invasions undoubtedly contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire but some historians believe that the barbarians merely accelerated its collapse.
The first signs of the decline of the Empire can be traced back to the second half of the 2nd century, while the situation in the empire reached its critical point in 235 when emperor Alexander Severus was murdered and the empire broke up into three competing states. The civil war that lasted until the ascension of Diocletian to the throne in 284 and raids of Germanic peoples in the Roman provinces severely hit the Roman economy, in first place the long-distance trade because traveling and transport were no longer safe.
