Theodoro

While we usually think of 1453 as the date of the final demise of Rome with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, it was on this date in 1475 the last remnant of the Roman world was extinguished.  Strangely enough it was on the Crimean Peninsula on the north side of the Black Sea.

Starting in the Sixth Century BC, Greek settlements were established on the south side of the Crimea.  The Roman Republic came into contact with the Greek city-states in the First Century BC, and from that time until the mid-4th Century AD, Rome either occupied or treated the Crimean cities as allies.  After a two century interruption when nomadic warriors from the steppes overran the peninsula, the Byzantines reestablished Roman authority in the late Sixth Century AD.  Over the next six centuries the Eastern Roman Empire indirectly or directly, as a province, ruled the area. 

When the Fourth Crusade was diverted from the Holy Land and instead captured Constantinople in 1204, the Byzantine remnants splintered in three; the Empire of Nicea on the eastern shore of the Sea of Marmara, which recaptured Constantinople in 1261, the Despotate of Epirus in northern Greece, and the Empire of Trebizond, on the southeastern shore of the Black Sea.  Trebizond extended its rule to the Crimea.

(Empire of Trebizond at its maximum extent)

During the 14th and early 15th centuries the Eastern Roman Empire with its capital of Constantinople was steadily squeezed by the rising power of the Ottomans until finally, in 1453, Constantinople fell.  By 1461 the last surviving parts of the Empire, located in Greece, had also fallen.  That same year, Trebizond also surrendered to the Ottomans.  All that was left of the Roman world was the tiny principality of Theodoro on the Crimea, adjacent to the Crimean colonies of Genoa.

The principality was also known as Gothia, because of the presence of a large Hellenized Gothic population.  Wikipedia describes the principality as, "a mixture of Greeks, Crimean Goths, Alans, Circassians, Bulgars, Cumans, Kipchaks, and other ethnic groups, most of whom were adherents to Orthodox Christianity and Hellenized. The principality's official language was Greek."  It goes on to tell us:

Various cultural influences can be traced in Gothia: its architecture and Christian wall paintings were essentially Byzantine, although some of its fortresses also display a local as well as Genoese character. Inscribed marble slabs found in the region were decorated with a mixture of Byzantine, Italian, and Tatar decorative elements.

In 1475, the Ottomans decided it was time to put an end to the principality and reduced the territory, capturing its capitol, Theodoro (modern Mangup) on December 5.

1,145 years after the founding of Constantinople, Rome was no more.