Roman Empire Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==History== {{Main|History of the Roman Empire}} {{For timeline|Timeline of Roman history}} {{see also|Campaign history of the Roman military|Roman Kingdom}} [[File:Roman Empire map.ogv|thumb|Animated overview of the Roman territorial history from the [[Roman Republic]] until the fall of its last remnant (the [[Byzantine Empire]]) in 1453]] ===Transition from Republic to Empire=== {{Further|Roman Republic}} [[File:Augustus of Prima Porta (inv. 2290).jpg|thumb|upright|''[[Augustus of Prima Porta]]'']] Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the [[Roman Republic]] in the 6th century BC, though not outside the Italian peninsula until the 3rd century BC. Thus, it was an "empire" (a great power) long before it had an emperor.<ref>{{Harvp|Kelly|2007|pp=4ff}}; {{Harvp|Nicolet|1991|pp=1, 15}}; {{Cite book |last=Brennan |first=T. Corey |title=The Praetorship in the Roman Republic |date=2000 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=605 |author-link=T. Corey Brennan}} {{Harvp|Peachin|2011|pp=39–40}}</ref> The Republic was not a nation-state in the modern sense, but a network of self-ruled towns (with varying degrees of independence from the [[Roman Senate|Senate]]) and provinces administered by military commanders. It was governed by annually elected [[Roman magistrate|magistrates]] ([[Roman consul]]s above all) in conjunction with the Senate.{{Sfnp|Potter|2009|p=179}} The 1st century BC was a time of political and military upheaval, which ultimately led to rule by emperors.{{Sfnp|Nicolet|1991|pp=1, 15}}<ref name=Hekster/><ref>{{Cite book |last=Lintott |first=Andrew |title=The Constitution of the Roman Republic |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=114 |author-link=Andrew Lintott}}; {{Cite book |last=Eder |first=W. |chapter=The Augustan Principate as Binding Link |date=1993 |title=Between Republic and Empire |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=0-520-08447-0 |page=98}}</ref> The consuls' military power rested in the Roman legal concept of ''[[imperium]]'', meaning "command" (though typically in a military sense).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Richardson |first=John |chapter=Fines provincial |date=2011 |title=Frontiers in the Roman World |publisher=Brill |page=10}}</ref> Occasionally, successful consuls were given the honorary title ''[[imperator]]'' (commander); this is the origin of the word ''emperor'', since this title was always bestowed to the early emperors.{{Sfnp|Richardson|2011|pp=1–2}} Rome suffered a long series of internal conflicts, conspiracies, and [[Roman civil wars|civil wars]] from the late second century BC (see [[Crisis of the Roman Republic]]) while greatly extending its power beyond Italy. In 44 BC [[Julius Caesar]] was briefly ''[[Roman dictator|dictator]]'' before being [[Assassination of Julius Caesar|assassinated]]. The faction of his assassins was driven from Rome and defeated at the [[Battle of Philippi]] in 42 BC by [[Mark Antony]] and Caesar's adopted son [[Augustus|Octavian]]. Antony and Octavian's division of the Roman world did not last and Octavian's forces defeated those of Mark Antony and [[Cleopatra]] at the [[Battle of Actium]] in 31 BC. In 27 BC the [[Roman Senate|Senate]] made Octavian ''[[princeps]]'' ("first citizen") with [[proconsul]]ar ''[[imperium]]'', thus beginning the [[Principate]] (the first epoch of Roman imperial history, usually dated from 27 BC to 284 AD), and gave him the title ''[[Augustus (title)|Augustus]]'' ("the venerated"). Although the republic stood in name, Augustus had all meaningful authority.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Syme |first=Ronald |title=The Roman Revolution |date=1939 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=3–4 |author-link=Ronald Syme}}</ref> Since his rule began an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity, he was so loved that he came to hold the power of a monarch ''[[de facto]]'' if not ''[[de jure]]''. During the years of his rule, a new constitutional order emerged (in part organically and in part by design), so that, upon his death, this new constitutional order operated as before when [[Tiberius]] was accepted as the new emperor.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}} ===''Pax Romana''=== {{Main|Pax Romana}} {{Multiple image |total_width=500 |header=The so-called "[[Five Good Emperors]]" of 96–180 AD |image1=Nerva Tivoli Massimo.jpg |caption1=[[Nerva]] ({{R.|96|98}}) |image2=Traianus Glyptothek Munich 72.jpg |caption2=[[Trajan]] ({{R.|98|117}}) |image3=Bust Hadrian Musei Capitolini MC817.jpg |caption3=[[Hadrian]] ({{R.|117|138}}) |image4=Antoninus Pius (Museo del Prado) 01.jpg |caption4=[[Antoninus Pius]] ({{R.|138|161}}) |image5=(Toulouse) Buste cuirassé de Marc Aurèle agè - Musée Saint-Raymond Ra 61 b (cropped).jpg |caption5=[[Marcus Aurelius]] ({{R.|161|180}}) }} The 200 years that began with Augustus's rule is traditionally regarded as the ''[[Pax Romana]]'' ("Roman Peace"). The cohesion of the empire was furthered by a degree of social stability and economic prosperity that Rome had never before experienced. Uprisings in the provinces were infrequent and put down "mercilessly and swiftly".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Boatwright |first=Mary T. |title=Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire |date=2000 |publisher=Princeton University Press |page=4 |author-link=Mary T. Boatwright}}</ref> The success of Augustus in establishing principles of dynastic succession was limited by his outliving a number of talented potential heirs. The [[Julio-Claudian dynasty]] lasted for four more emperors—[[Tiberius]], [[Caligula]], [[Claudius]], and [[Nero]]—before it yielded in 69 AD to the strife-torn [[Year of the Four Emperors]], from which [[Vespasian]] emerged as victor. Vespasian became the founder of the brief [[Flavian dynasty]], followed by the [[Nerva–Antonine dynasty]] which produced the "[[Five Good Emperors]]": [[Nerva]], [[Trajan]], [[Hadrian]], [[Antoninus Pius]], and [[Marcus Aurelius]].{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}} ===Transition from Classical to Late Antiquity=== {{Main|Later Roman Empire|Fall of the Western Roman Empire}} {{See also|Barbarian kingdoms|Byzantine Empire}} [[File:Invasions of the Roman Empire 1.png|upright=1.35|thumb|The [[Migration Period|Barbarian Invasions]] consisted of the movement of (mainly) ancient [[Germanic peoples]] into Roman territory. Historically, this event marked the transition between [[classical antiquity]] and the [[Middle Ages]].]] In the view of contemporary Greek historian [[Cassius Dio]], the accession of [[Commodus]] in 180 marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron",<ref>{{Citation |last=[[Dio Cassius]] |title=Roman History |edition=Loeb Classical Library edition, 1927 |translator-last=Cary |translator-first=E. |page=[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/72*.html#36 72.36.4]}}</ref> a comment which has led some historians, notably [[Edward Gibbon]], to take Commodus' reign as the beginning of the [[Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire|Empire's decline]].<ref name="Commodus-Gibbon">{{Citation |last=Gibbon |first=Edward |title=The History of the Decline And Fall of the Roman Empire |date=1776 |chapter=The Decline And Fall in the West – Chapter 4 |chapter-url=https://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/volume1/chap4.htm |author-link=Edward Gibbon |access-date=27 June 2017 |archive-date=24 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170824100850/http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/volume1/chap4.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Sfnp|Goldsworthy|2009|p=50}} In 212, during the reign of [[Caracalla]], [[Roman citizenship]] was granted to all freeborn inhabitants of the empire. The [[Severan dynasty]] was tumultuous; an emperor's reign was ended routinely by his murder or execution and, following its collapse, the Empire was engulfed by the [[Crisis of the Third Century]], a period of [[invasion]]s, [[civil strife]], [[Economic collapse|economic disorder]], and [[Plague of Cyprian|plague]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brown |first=Peter |title=The World of Late Antiquity |date=1971 |publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanovich |isbn=978-0-151-98885-3 |page=22 |author-link=Peter Brown (historian)}}</ref> In defining [[periodization|historical epochs]], this crisis sometimes marks the transition from [[Classical Antiquity|Classical]] to [[Late Antiquity]]. [[Aurelian]] ({{R.|270|275}}) stabilised the empire militarily and [[Diocletian]] reorganised and restored much of it in 285.{{Sfnp|Goldsworthy|2009|pp=405–415}} Diocletian's reign brought the empire's most concerted effort against the perceived threat of [[early Christianity|Christianity]], the "[[Diocletianic Persecution|Great Persecution]]".{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}} Diocletian divided the empire into four regions, each ruled by a separate [[Tetrarchy|tetrarch]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Potter |first=David |title=The Roman Empire at Bay |date=2004 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-10057-1 |pages=296–298 |author-link=David Stone Potter}}</ref> Confident that he fixed the disorder plaguing Rome, he abdicated along with his co-emperor, but the Tetrarchy [[Civil wars of the Tetrarchy|collapsed shortly after]]. Order was eventually restored by [[Constantine the Great]], who became the first emperor to [[Constantine the Great and Christianity|convert to Christianity]], and who established [[Constantinople]] as the new capital of the Eastern Empire. During the decades of the [[Constantinian dynasty|Constantinian]] and [[Valentinian dynasty|Valentinian]] dynasties, the empire was divided along an east–west axis, with dual power centres in Constantinople and Rome. [[Julian (emperor)|Julian]], who under the influence of his adviser [[Mardonius (philosopher)|Mardonius]] attempted to restore [[Religion in ancient Rome|Classical Roman]] and [[Hellenistic religion]], only briefly interrupted the succession of Christian emperors. [[Theodosius I]], the last emperor to rule over both East and West, died in 395 after making Christianity the [[State church of the Roman Empire|state religion]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Starr |first=Chester G. |title=A History of the Ancient World |date=1974 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-195-01814-1 |edition=2nd |pages=670–678 |author-link=Chester G. Starr |orig-date=1965}}</ref> [[File:628px-Western and Eastern Roman Empires 476AD(3).PNG|thumb|The Roman Empire by 476, noting western and eastern divisions]] [[File:The_Roman_Empire,_AD_395.png|right|thumb|upright=1.15|The administrative divisions of the Roman Empire in 395 AD]] ===Fall in the West and survival in the East=== The [[Western Roman Empire]] began to [[Fall of the Western Roman Empire|disintegrate]] in the early 5th century. The Romans were successful in fighting off all invaders, most famously [[Attila]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bury |first=John Bagnall |url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/BURLAT/9*.html#4 |title=History of the Later Roman Empire |date=1923 |publisher=Dover Books |pages=295–297 |author-link=J. B. Bury |access-date=19 February 2021 |archive-date=13 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210713102254/https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/BURLAT/9%2A.html#4 |url-status=live }}</ref> but the empire had [[Migration Period|assimilated so many Germanic peoples]] of dubious loyalty to Rome that the empire started to dismember itself.{{Sfnp|Bury|1923|pp=312–313}} [[Fall of the Western Roman Empire|Most chronologies]] place the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476, when [[Romulus Augustulus]] was [[Deposition of Romulus Augustulus|forced to abdicate]] to the [[Germanic peoples|Germanic]] warlord [[Odoacer]].<ref name="Peter Lang AG">{{Cite book |last=Scholl |first=Christian |title=Transcultural approaches to the concept of imperial rule in the Middle Ages |date=2017 |publisher=Peter Lang AG |isbn=978-3-653-05232-9 |language=en |quote=Odoacer, who dethroned the last Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus in 476, neither used the imperial insignia nor the colour purple, which was used by the emperor in Byzantium only.}}</ref><ref name="The Fall of Rome">{{Cite web |last=Peter |first=Heather |author-link=Peter Heather |title=The Fall of Rome |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/fallofrome_article_01.shtml |access-date=11 February 2020 |publisher=BBC |archive-date=28 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200328030720/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/fallofrome_article_01.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Gibbons">{{Cite book |last=Gibbon |first=Edward |title=History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire |date=1776 |publisher=Harper & Brothers |editor-last=Widger |editor-first=David |language=en |chapter=Gothic Kingdom of Italy. – Part II. |quote=The patrician Orestes had married the daughter of Count Romulus, of Petovio in Noricum: the name of Augustus, notwithstanding the jealousy of power, was known at Aquileia as a familiar surname; and the appellations of the two great founders, of the city and of the monarchy, were thus strangely united in the last of their successors", "The life of this inoffensive youth was spared by the generous clemency of Odoacer; who dismissed him, with his whole family, from the Imperial palace. |author-link=Edward Gibbon |chapter-url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25717/25717-h/25717-h.htm#Clink362HCH0005 |chapter-format=ebook |via=Project Gutenberg |access-date=11 February 2020 |archive-date=30 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170830175141/https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25717/25717-h/25717-h.htm#Clink362HCH0005 |url-status=live }}</ref> Odoacer ended the Western Empire by declaring [[Zeno (emperor)|Zeno]] sole emperor and placing himself as Zeno's nominal subordinate. In reality, Italy was ruled by Odoacer alone.<ref name="Peter Lang AG"/><ref name="The Fall of Rome"/><ref>{{Cite book |last=Gibbon |first=Edward |title=The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire |date=1776 |via=Project Gutenberg |language=en |chapter=Gothic Kingdom of Italy. – Part II. |quote=The republic (they repeat that name without a blush) might safely confide in the civil and military virtues of Odoacer; and they humbly request, that the emperor would invest him with the title of Patrician, and the administration of the diocese of Italy. ...His vanity was gratified by the title of sole emperor, and by the statues erected to his honor in the several quarters of Rome; ...He entertained a friendly, though ambiguous, correspondence with the patrician Odoacer; and he gratefully accepted the Imperial ensigns. |author-link=Edward Gibbon |access-date=11 February 2020 |chapter-url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25717/25717-h/25717-h.htm#Dlinknoteref-5511 |archive-date=30 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170830175141/https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25717/25717-h/25717-h.htm#Dlinknoteref-5511 |url-status=live }}</ref> The Eastern Roman Empire, called the [[Byzantine Empire]] by later historians, continued until the reign of [[Constantine XI Palaiologos]]. The last Roman emperor died in battle in 1453 against [[Mehmed II]] and his [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] forces during the [[Fall of Constantinople|siege of Constantinople]]. Mehmed II adopted the title of ''[[Kayser-i Rûm|caesar]]'' in an attempt to claim a connection to the Empire.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ozgen |first=Korkut |title=Mehmet II |url=http://www.theottomans.org/english/family/mehmet2.asp |access-date=3 April 2007 |website=TheOttomans.org |archive-date=30 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150430145544/http://www.theottomans.org/english/family/mehmet2.asp |url-status=live }}; {{Cite web |last=Cartwright |first=Mark |date=23 January 2018 |title=1453: The Fall of Constantinople |url=https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1180/1453-the-fall-of-constantinople |access-date=11 February 2020 |website=World History Encyclopedia |archive-date=12 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412192442/https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1180/1453-the-fall-of-constantinople/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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