Rome split. The Eastern Roman Empire, e.g. Byzantium, lasted much longer than the Western Roman Empire. Although towards the end it was quite pathetic. It's decline was long and thorough.

Incidentally some people count the Roman Republic when talking about how long the Roman Empire lasted, which is technically incorrect, but in a sense maybe it's not. Most of the expansionism was during the Republic period, and the demotion of the Roman Senate is an example of how collapse of centralized power isn't so immediately inevitable, don't you think?

> Rome split. The Eastern Roman Empire, e.g. Byzantium, lasted much longer than the Western Roman Empire. Although towards the end it was quite pathetic. [Its] decline was long and thorough.

In that case it crumbled after ~1500 years.

> Incidentally some people count the Roman Republic when talking about how long the Roman Empire lasted, which is technically incorrect, but in a sense maybe it's not. Most of the expansionism was during the Republic period, and the demotion of the Roman Senate is an example of how collapse of centralized power isn't so immediately inevitable, don't you think?

Now we're at 1700, 1800 years.

Well crispyambulance said ~1000 years. That squiggly line means approximately, you can nitpick with him how approximate you want to be and which start and crumble dates you want to pick. Although he might point out that from the start of the Roman Republic to the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire gets you quite close to 1000 years (the overthrow of the 7th legendary king in 509BC; and Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor of Western Rome, up until 476 AD.)

Honestly this is a silly thing to nitpick, particularly when we all seem to agree that power structures can be virtually immortal on human timescales.

Not saying this is true of the previous commenter, but I also think that some people confuse the couple of hundred years of Pax Romana as being the entirety of the Roman Empire instead of a relatively small part.