What role did the Eastern Roman Empire play in the fall of the Western Roman Empire?
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The drifting apart of the East and West empires did contribute to the decline of the West, but it isn't true that the East did not try and help the West during this time.
1) The courts of the two young emperors Arcadius and Honorius did become more 'insular' in their thinking than in the good old days when Constantine would march all over the map. One problem was the West wanting to reacquire its provinces in Illyria loaned to the East in the 380s, as these were a good source of recruits.
2) The East sent troops several times to aid the West - in the 410 period after the sack of Rome, in the 420s. Even some emperors were sent, with troops, to the West. Often this did not help, just becoming another player in the current civil war.
3) The largest intervention was the East's attempt to retake Africa from the Vandals with a 1000 ship expedition in the 468. It was a disaster, and an expensive one for the East. After this failure, the East was tapped out for some time.
Without the full and free use of the entire resources of both halves, Rome could no longer sustain its position as a great power in the region. The East Empire could defend its half better, due to short borders and the defenses of the Capital. The West Empire, with much less wealth and more areas to guard, could not hold. Together, they might have been able to win out, if they had removed the Vandals in 468. Without that, the likely result would have been a somewhat larger East Empire, kind of like what resulted after the Lombards invaded Italy a century later.
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