Rome

===Empire===
{{Main|Roman Empire}}
[[File:Palatine_Hill_from_across_the_Circus_Maximus_April_2019.jpg|thumb|The Ancient-Imperial-Roman palaces of the Palatine, a series of palaces located in the [[Palatine Hill]], express power and wealth of emperors from Augustus until the 4th century.]]
[[File:Trajan's Market, Rome, Italy.jpg|thumb|The [[Imperial fora]] belong to a series of ''monumental fora'' (public squares) constructed in Rome by the emperors. Also seen in the image is [[Trajan's Market]].]]
[[File:Détail de la maquette de Rome à lépoque de Constantin (5840455090).jpg|thumb|right|Model of Imperial Rome at the [[Museum of Roman Civilization|Museo della civiltà romana in Rome]]. The [[Temple of Claudius]] is situated to the south (left) of the [[Colosseum]].]]

In 27 BC, Octavian became ''[[princeps|princeps civitatis]]'' and took the title of [[Augustus]], founding the [[principate]], a [[diarchy]] between the ''princeps'' and the senate.{{sfn | Kinder | Hilgemann | 1964 | p=93}} During the reign of [[Nero]], two thirds of the city was ruined after the [[Great Fire of Rome]], and the [[Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire|persecution of Christians]] commenced.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/great-fire-rome-background/1446/ |title=The Great Fire of Rome {{!}} Background {{!}} Secrets of the Dead {{!}} PBS|date=29 May 2014|website=Secrets of the Dead|language=en-US |access-date=7 April 2019 |archive-date=4 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190404105016/http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/great-fire-rome-background/1446/ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/jul19/great-fire-rome/ |title=Great Fire of Rome |last=Society |first=National Geographic |date=18 June 2014 |website=National Geographic Society |language=en |access-date=7 April 2019 |archive-date=30 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330173019/https://www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/jul19/great-fire-rome/ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Egypt, Greece, and Rome : Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean |last=Freeman |first=Charles |isbn=978-0-19-965191-7 |edition=Third |publisher=Oxford University Press |oclc=868077503 |date=March 2014}}</ref> Rome was established as a [[de facto]] empire, which reached its greatest expansion in the second century under the Emperor [[Trajan]]. Rome was confirmed as [[caput Mundi]], i.e. the capital of the known world, an expression which had already been used in the Republican period. During its first two centuries, the empire was ruled by emperors of the [[Julio-Claudian dynasty|Julio-Claudian]],{{sfn | Kinder | Hilgemann | 1964 | p=97}} [[Flavian dynasty|Flavian]] (who also built an eponymous amphitheatre, known as the [[Colosseum]]),{{sfn | Kinder | Hilgemann | 1964 | p=97}} and [[Antonine dynasty|Antonine]] dynasties.{{sfn | Kinder | Hilgemann | 1964 | p=99}} This time was also characterised by the spread of the Christian religion, preached by [[Jesus Christ]] in [[Judea]] in the first half of the first century (under [[Tiberius]]) and popularised by his [[Apostles in the New Testament|apostle]]s through the empire and beyond.{{sfn | Kinder | Hilgemann | 1964 | p=107}} The Antonine age is considered the zenith of the Empire, whose territory ranged from the [[Atlantic Ocean]] to the [[Euphrates]] and from [[Great Britain|Britain]] to [[Egypt]].{{sfn | Kinder | Hilgemann | 1964 | p=99}}

[[File:Colosseum at night - wide angle.JPG|thumb|[[Colosseum]] at night]]

After the end of the Severan Dynasty in 235, the Empire entered into a 50-year period known as the [[Crisis of the Third Century]] during which there were numerous putsches by generals, who sought to secure the region of the empire they were entrusted with due to the weakness of central authority in Rome. There was the so-called Gallic Empire from 260 to 274 and the revolts of Zenobia and her father from the mid-260s which sought to fend off Persian incursions. Some regions – Britain, Spain, and North Africa – were hardly affected. Instability caused economic deterioration, and there was a rapid rise in inflation as the government debased the currency in order to meet expenses. The [[Germanic tribes]] along the Rhine and north of the Balkans made serious, uncoordinated incursions from the 250s–280s that were more like giant raiding parties rather than attempts to settle. The [[Sasanian Empire|Persian Empire]] invaded from the east several times during the 230s to 260s but were eventually defeated.{{sfn | Kinder | Hilgemann | 1964 | p=101}} Emperor [[Diocletian]] (284) undertook the restoration of the State. He ended the Principate and introduced the [[Tetrarchy]] which sought to increase state power. The most marked feature was the unprecedented intervention of the State down to the city level: whereas the State had submitted a tax demand to a city and allowed it to allocate the charges, from his reign the State did this down to the village level. In a vain attempt to control inflation, he imposed [[price controls]] which did not last. He or Constantine regionalised the administration of the empire which fundamentally changed the way it was governed by creating regional dioceses (the consensus seems to have shifted from 297 to 313/14 as the date of creation due to the argument of [[Constantin Zuckerman]] in 2002 "Sur la liste de Vérone et la province de Grande-Arménie, Mélanges Gilber Dagron). The existence of regional fiscal units from 286 served as the model for this unprecedented innovation. The emperor quickened the process of removing military command from governors. Henceforth, civilian administration and military command would be separate. He gave governors more fiscal duties and placed them in charge of the army logistical support system as an attempt to control it by removing the support system from its control. Diocletian ruled the eastern half, residing in [[Nicomedia]]. In 296, he elevated [[Maximian]] to ''Augustus'' of the western half, where he ruled mostly from [[Mediolanum]] when not on the move.{{sfn | Kinder | Hilgemann | 1964 | p=101}} In 292, he created two 'junior' emperors, the Caesars, one for each Augustus, Constantius for Britain, Gaul, and Spain whose seat of power was in [[Trier]] and Galerius in [[Sirmium]] in the [[Balkans]]. The appointment of a Caesar was not unknown: Diocletian tried to turn into a system of non-dynastic succession. Upon abdication in 305, the Caesars succeeded and they, in turn, appointed two colleagues for themselves.{{sfn | Kinder | Hilgemann | 1964 | p=101}}

After the [[abdication]] of [[Diocletian]] and [[Maximian]] in 305 and a series of civil wars between rival claimants to imperial power, during the years 306–313, the [[Tetrarchy]] was abandoned. [[Constantine the Great]] undertook a major reform of the bureaucracy, not by changing the structure but by rationalising the competencies of the several ministries during the years 325–330, after he defeated [[Licinius]], emperor in the East, at the end of 324. The so-called [[Edict of Milan]] of 313, actually a fragment of a letter from Licinius to the governors of the eastern provinces, granted freedom of worship to everyone, including Christians, and ordered the restoration of confiscated church properties upon petition to the newly created vicars of dioceses. He funded the building of several churches and allowed clergy to act as arbitrators in civil suits (a measure that did not outlast him but which was restored in part much later). He transformed the town of [[Byzantium]] into his new residence, which, however, was not officially anything more than an imperial residence like [[Milan]] or [[Trier]] or [[Nicomedia]] until given a city prefect in May 359 by [[Constantius II]]; [[Constantinople]].{{sfn | Kinder | Hilgemann | 1964 | p=103}}

Christianity in the form of the Nicene Creed became the official religion of the empire in 380, via the [[Edict of Thessalonica]] issued in the name of three emperors – Gratian, Valentinian II, and [[Theodosius I]] – with Theodosius clearly the driving force behind it. He was the last emperor of a unified empire: after his death in 395, his sons, [[Arcadius]] and [[Honorius (emperor)|Honorius]] divided the empire into [[Western Roman Empire|a western]] and [[Eastern Roman Empire|an eastern]] part. The seat of government in the Western Roman Empire was transferred to [[Ravenna]] in 408, but from 450 the emperors mostly resided in the capital city, Rome.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gillett|first=Andrew|date=2001|title=Rome, Ravenna and the Last Western Emperors|url=https://www.academia.edu/18189525|journal=Papers of the British School at Rome|volume=69|pages=131–167|doi=10.1017/S0068246200001781|jstor=40311008|s2cid=129373675|issn=0068-2462}}</ref>

[[File:Sack of Rome by the Visigoths on 24 August 410 by JN Sylvestre 1890.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.75|The [[Visigoths]] [[Sack of Rome (410)|sacking Rome in 410]], by [[Joseph-Noël Sylvestre]] (1890), the first time in {{c.}}&nbsp;800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy]]
Rome, which had lost its central role in the administration of the empire, [[Sack of Rome (410)|was sacked in 410]] by the [[Visigoths]] led by [[Alaric I]],{{sfn | Kinder | Hilgemann | 1964 | p=115}} but very little physical damage was done, most of which was repaired. What could not be so easily replaced were portable items such as artwork in precious metals and items for domestic use (loot). The popes embellished the city with large basilicas, such as [[Santa Maria Maggiore]] (with the collaboration of the emperors). The population of the city had fallen from 800,000 to 450–500,000 by the time the city was sacked in 455 by [[Genseric]], king of the [[Vandals]].{{sfn | Kinder | Hilgemann | 1964 | p=117}} The weak emperors of the fifth century could not stop the decay, leading to the deposition of [[Romulus Augustus]] on 22 August 476, which marked the end of the [[Western Roman Empire]] and, for many historians, the beginning of the [[Middle Ages]].{{sfn | Kinder | Hilgemann | 1964 | p=103}}

The decline of the city's population was caused by the loss of grain shipments from North Africa, from 440 onward, and the unwillingness of the senatorial class to maintain donations to support a population that was too large for the resources available. Even so, strenuous efforts were made to maintain the monumental centre, the palatine, and the largest baths, which continued to function until the Gothic siege of 537. The large baths of Constantine on the Quirinale were even repaired in 443, and the extent of the damage exaggerated and dramatised.<ref>''Rome, An Urban History from Antiquity to the Present'', Rabun Taylor, Katherine W. Rinne and Spiro Kostof, 2016 pp.&nbsp;160–179</ref>

However, the city gave an appearance overall of shabbiness and decay because of the large abandoned areas due to population decline. The population declined to 500,000 by 452 and 100,000 by 500 AD (perhaps larger, though no certain figure can be known). After the Gothic siege of 537, the population dropped to 30,000 but had risen to 90,000 by the papacy of [[Pope Gregory I|Gregory the Great]].<ref>''Rome, Profile of a City: 321–1308'', [[Richard Krautheimer]], p.&nbsp;165</ref> The population decline coincided with the general collapse of urban life in the West in the fifth and sixth centuries, with few exceptions. Subsidized state grain distributions to the poorer members of society continued right through the sixth century and probably prevented the population from falling further.<ref>''Rome, Urban History'', pp.&nbsp;184–185</ref> The figure of 450,000–500,000 is based on the amount of pork, 3,629,000 lbs. distributed to poorer Romans during five winter months at the rate of five Roman lbs per person per month, enough for 145,000 persons or 1/4 or 1/3 of the total population.<ref>Novel 36, 2, Emperor Valeninian III</ref> Grain distribution to 80,000 ticket holders at the same time suggests 400,000 (Augustus set the number at 200,000 or one-fifth of the population).