00:00Ah, the Roman Empire!
00:02Historians have debated for centuries when exactly the Roman Empire ended and who its
00:09final emperor was, and as you'll soon see, the list isn't as short as you'd imagine.
00:15Theodosius I is our earliest candidate.
00:18He was the last emperor to rule the Roman Empire in its entirety before its permanent
00:23split into eastern and western halves.
00:26The problem here is that, to the citizens of the empire at the time, this would have
00:30seemed like business as usual.
00:32The empire had been split between multiple emperors quite a few times in the preceding
00:37centuries, so in 395 nothing would have seemed out of the ordinary.
00:42It is only with the benefit of hindsight that we know that no future emperor would ever
00:48succeed in reuniting the empire.
00:51The empire must be reunited.
00:54Now, as we all know, the western part of the empire collapsed not long after this split.
01:00The last western Roman emperor who held any real power in Italy was supposed in 476 by
01:06the Germans, and that is where the story is usually said to end.
01:13However, the eastern half of the empire carried along just fine after the west fell, and sure,
01:20the people there spoke predominantly Greek rather than Latin, but they still considered themselves
01:24Romans and called their polity the Roman Empire.
01:28The emperors in the east continued speaking Latin as their native tongue for another century,
01:33and for a brief time they even reclaimed Rome from the barbarians.
01:37Nevertheless, the Greekness of the eastern empire put off historians enough for them
01:43to give it a different name.
01:44The Byzantine empire, a term that is popular today, but which its contemporary inhabitants
01:49never used.
01:51From their point of view, they lived in the Roman empire, which had continuously existed
01:56through an unbroken chain of emperors stretching all the way back to Augustus.
02:01The eastern empire would survive various calamities over the next thousand years, including the
02:07rise of Islam, only, in a great twist of irony, to be brutally dismembered by the crusaders, who
02:13decided that fighting the Muslims wouldn't be as profitable as sacking Constantinople.
02:19You can argue that the Roman emperor at the time, Alexius V, was the last real Roman emperor.
02:25The empire virtually ceased to exist for close to 60 years, with only three fractured polities
02:31remaining under Greek control during this time. One of them did manage to reclaim Constantinople in 1261,
02:39and historians tend to consider this a restoration of the eastern Roman empire,
02:43even though it never fully recovered the lands of the other two.
02:47Overall, it was all downhill from the fourth crusade onwards. The Turks would continue eating up
02:54the empire, and in 1453 they finally succeeded in capturing Constantinople.
03:00The reigning emperor, Constantine XI, was slain defending the city and, conveniently, he had no
03:06children, so he's the one historians generally consider to be the last Roman emperor.
03:11He did, however, have a brother, Thomas, who continued ruling territory in Greece for another
03:18seven years, until the Ottomans got around to conquering it. He and his family fled to Rome,
03:23and for the rest of his life, which amounted to only five years, sadly, Thomas tried to convince the
03:29pope to organize a crusade to restore the eastern empire. Quite the irony, I know. He even married his
03:36daughter to the despot of Serbia, hoping to recruit him for the upcoming crusade. But then the Ottomans
03:42conquered Serbia, and the whole idea fell apart. When he died in 1465, his claim of being Roman
03:49emperor went to his eldest son, Andreas, who continued trying to organize a campaign against the Ottomans.
03:56By 1475, however, Andreas had run out of money, and so he resorted to selling his title to the
04:03highest bidder. Indeed, he shopped it around to anyone who would listen, including but not limited to
04:09the King of Naples, the Duke of Milan , the Duke of Burgundy ,
04:15the King of France and, of course, the King of England. Unfortunately, no one took Andreas up on
04:23his offer, and in the end, he died childless and penniless. In his will, he granted his title of Roman
04:31emperor to the monarchs of Spain, who were completely unaware of this, and never bothered to make any use
04:37of this generous donation. Perhaps the most amusing part of this story is that Andreas's younger brother,
04:43who, mind you, had no titles to sell, lived out a much more successful life. He went back to
04:49Constantinople, offered to fight for the Sultan, and ended up with an estate, a pension, and two wives,
04:55if you don't mind. One can only imagine Augustus rolling in his crypt. In any case, since we here at
05:03SideQuest are not fond of dying miserable and broke on the streets of Rome like Andreas, I humbly ask you
05:09to
05:09consider supporting us on Patreon. While I can't guarantee that we'll launch the reconquest of
05:15Constantinople any time soon, I can promise you that we'll continue exploring the wonderful side
05:21quests of world history. In the meantime, you can, of course, also like and share this video with your
05:27friends and loved ones, and any potential claimants to the imperial title. We'll handle them quietly and
05:33discreetly, don't worry. And don't forget to return here in a couple of weeks for the next triumphantly
05:39hegemonic episode of SideQuest. Because when in Rome, darling, do what the Romans do.
Comments