The fall of the Roman Empire might not exactly be breaking news, but it can be a relief to take a break from following the US presidential debates and consider history for a while. Everyone knows that the Western Roman Empire formally ended in 476 and that the Eastern Roman Empire was finally conquered in 1453. Or was it?

While Constantinople duly fell to Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II in 1453, the Empire of Tebizond lasted for eight more years. Trebizond was one of the successor states of the Byzantine Empire after the previous fall of Constantinople to crusaders in 1204. It was founded by Alexios Komnenos, last male descendant of deposed Byzantine Emperor  Andronikos I Komnenos. It’s rulers claimed to be the rightful heirs of Rome and had as their symbol the two-headed eagle.

Situated on both the northern and southern shores of the Black sea, Tebizond was finally subdued by Mehmet II in 1461. The month long siege can se seen as the final stand of the Romans. Nevertheless, a final holdout, the Principality of Theodoro on the Crimean Peninsula, lasted until 1475. Perhaps the Eastern Roman Empire, much like its western counterpart, can be said to have gone out with more of a whimper than a bang. The fate of modern day empires remains to be seen.