Text 1: Historian Caine argues that the Roman Empire fell in 476 CE, when the last western emperor was deposed. This date marks the political end of imperial authority in the west and provides a meaningful boundary between antiquity and the medieval period.
Text 2: Historian Reza disputes the very framing of "fall." The eastern half of the empire, she notes, continued for nearly a thousand years as the Byzantine state. In the west, Roman law, language, and institutions persisted under new rulers who often saw themselves as Roman. The 476 date, she argues, is a tidy convenience that obscures the messy reality of continuity and gradual transformation.
Based on the texts, how would Reza (Text 2) most likely respond to Caine's argument?
- A
She would deny that an empire ever existed in the western Mediterranean.
- B
She would propose 410 CE as the correct alternative date.
- C
She would agree that 476 CE marks a clean political endpoint for the empire.
- Dcheck_circle
She would argue that the very concept of a single date for the empire's collapse misrepresents historical continuity.
Explanation
Reza challenges the framing of "fall" itself, citing eastern continuity and western persistence of Roman institutions. B captures this. A contradicts her; C is absurd; D is not her position.