ABSTRACT
In this chapter we will present a mystery that runs counter to what most teachers teach their students about the Roman Empire: that it fell-wham! We strongly believe that most people have a “mental map” of Rome that includes a great many inaccurate and false ideas. One of the primary ideas is that the empire fell with a heavy thud somewhere in the vague and distant past between the classical age and the medieval period. We might argue that Rome and its empire never really fell at all. We could argue that Rome lived on as the Byzantine Empire for a while and then as the Holy Roman Empire almost to modern times. Many Roman symbols and ideas are part of the United States, for example the eagle, government architecture, diplomacy, and warfare.
