Barbarian Flood
On August 24th, 410 CE, Rome was sacked by a Visigoth tribe under Alaric I. One year earlier, Angels and Saxons had already taken hold of Roman Britain. One year later, Roman Spain was plundered by Vandals, Suevi, and Alani tribes. In 429, Vandals under Gaiseric began their conquest of Roman Africa and later sacked Rome in 455. In 451, The Huns under Atilla ravaged through Roman Gaul. Spain was recovered and lost again to the Visigoths in 466. By 480, Italy was deserted; Rome's population had dropped from 1 million to 300,000 in a century. All the great cities of the empire were now in the East. In the West, the great empire was no more.
Source: Durant, Will. The Age of Faith: A History of Medieval Civilization, Christian, Islamic, and Judaic, From Constantine to Dante, A.D. 325-1300. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950.
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!