What attracts you to Late Rome?

[Frank]

I am intrigued by the idea that the Roman system itself was doomed from the inception of its foreign, territorial empire (international conquests and provinces), as the system itself was inadequate in its ability to effectively rule such large areas in perpetuam.

If you believe that, than you should read Peter Heathers "The Fall of the Roman Empire". It is a good start to get familiar with the late empire (just 500 pages :grin: ). He focusses on late empire and will describe a fully different late empire, than you imagined.

Heather is a representative of the so called "Shock-Theory", and these historians will disagree with your view. The opposite school, I would call it the "Structure-Theory", would perhaps agree with your point but remark, that this is just one point of many and the reasons why size was an issue are very complex.

I believe in the meantime, that both shock and longterm processes are just 2 sides of the same medal. One without the other does'nt work and is not sufficient to explain the Fall of Rome.