The text R. A. Lafferty, The Fall of Rome (Doubleday, 1971). The selected passages retain Lafferty’s wording, with scanning errors and line-end hyphenation corrected. Each gives a chapter and page reference. Explanations accompanying the quotations are labeled Map note or Reading note.
Reading the maps Dates and movements follow Lafferty’s account. Trails connect named places; the intervening routes are approximate. Dotted lines indicate connections or intended journeys. Open circles locate uncertain areas. Provincial names indicate broad regions, and modern place names appear in the place notes.
Play a stage or choose a numbered moment. Earlier trails can be kept in view. Playback allows time to read each passage; symbol size and movement speed do not measure troop strength or historical duration. Select an underlined place or river name to locate it. Opening a reference pauses playback. Back returns to the previous reading view; Return to this moment restores the map. Drag to pan and use the zoom buttons to change scale.
Geographical sources Ancient World Mapping Center : the general Roman-period shoreline, from its open-water dataset labeled c. 200 CE. Local coastlines and marsh boundaries in 410 remain uncertain.
Natural Earth : relief at 1:50 million, generalized rivers at 1:10 million, and Iceland and nearby islands beyond the historical shoreline’s coverage. Relief is hidden at close scales. Rivers follow present courses; ancient channels may differ.
OpenStreetMap contributors : the present Busento and Crati near Cosenza and the Peneus (Pineios) at Larissa, for the local detail views. The adapted data is available under the Open Database License.
Pleiades : ancient place identifications and representative positions. Place notes link to the records used.
Detail maps The Frigidus battle, Ravenna’s defenses, and Rome’s supply routes are schematic diagrams based on Lafferty. The Frigidus sequence follows the five stages of chapter 8. Reduced-motion settings show still stages.
For the Frigidus comparison: Vesna Tratnik and Janka Istenič, “Late Roman Conflict Near Ajdovščina (Castra, Slovenia),” in In Memory of Jaroslav Šašel , Razprave 45 (2025), 219–236, especially 235. Read the study .
Credits and reuse AWMC geographical data, including work by Ryan Horne and Gabe Moss and contributions derived from OpenStreetMap and the Barrington Atlas, is offered under the Open Database License . The adapted AWMC geographical database embedded in this atlas is available under that license. Pleiades data is credited to the Pleiades contributors under CC BY 3.0 . Natural Earth map data is public domain. Sources consulted September 2026.
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