I'm surprised I wasn't able to find someone asking this question before, but I wasn't able to. I'm curious, why was the Eastern Roman Empire able to stay together, while the Western half fell? Is it because the Eastern part contained the capital? Presumably, the Romans would have tried harder to protect it. Or was only the Western half ever under threat? I've looked around the web a bit and really can't find much information on this, so I'm hoping someone here can help me out!