The least painful way to learn Roman history is The History of Rome podcast.
Link = The History of Rome (podcast) – Wikipedia
Mike Duncan explains the history of Rome from its founding (753BC) to the collapse of the Western Empire in 476.
There are three main periods of Roman history
Early Period or Pre-Republic 753-509BC – myth and Kings
Republic 509-27BC – Rome starts to establish itself as a major power in the Mediterranean
Empire 27BC – 476AD – I’ve listed all the emperors Here .
Before I started down this path of discovery I had no idea what the fall of the Western Empire meant.
I understood the concept of an empire falling, but what was the Western Empire?
The Western Empire was Rome. The name implies another Empire, and there is also an Eastern empire.
In 324 Constantine decided to move the capital to Byzantium. Byzantium was a Greek city under Roman control. It was selected since it juts out into the sea which made it much more defensible than Rome.
Rome was under constant threat from various barbarian tribes. The Eastern Roman empire is now referred to as the Byzantine empire by historians to prevent confusion with the original Western Empire. The Byzantine Empire lasted almost 1000 years until the Ottoman Turks finally beat them in 1453.
The history of the Romans continues in The History of Byzantium. Link = The History of Byzantium | A podcast telling the story of the Roman Empire from 476 AD to 1453
The craziest story from the podcast was the Greek navy was checking out all the little islands checking for enemies after the war. They ran across some people who said they were Roman. It seems crazy to us on the outside but apparently the Byzantines considered themselves Roman and kept calling themselves and their subjects Roman. Apparently it was not uncommon in the 18th and 19th centuries for people in Greece to call themselves Roman. Its fun history like this that intrigues me. Its also another example of the Romans impacting us (in this case the Greeks) today.
One of the world’s leading authorities on Roman history is Mary Beard. The one book of hers that I started was pretty hard slogging. However she has an excellent show on Prime called Ultimate Rome: Empire Without Limit .