LATE ROMAN EMPIRE DECLINE, FALL, & LEGACY

AFTER NERO  Brief period of civil war after Nero’s suicide  Four emperors ruled in quick succession  Galba: lynched by the Praetorian Guard  Otho (he’s Nero’s friend, the one who gave up his wife to Nero)  Vitellius: defeated Otho  Vespasian  Illustrated the problems of imperial succession

VESPASIAN (69 – 79 CE)  Was a general when the first Jewish revolt began in the Roman province of Judea (66-70 CE)Jewish revolt  Started by the Zealots (anti-Roman rebels who believed in freedom from Roman rule at any cost)  Revolt crushed by Vespasian’s son and successor, Titus  Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (the second one they had built, in 516 BCE)  The first Temple (built by King Solomon ca. 960 BCE) had been destroyed in 586 BCE when the Babylonians conquered the Jews and the Jews had been forced into the Babylonian Exile  Began construction of the Colosseum in Rome  Many of the Jewish slaves taken during the crushing of the revolt worked on it  Succeeded by son Titus, then son Domitian  Domitian assassinated  Senate issues a damnatio memoriae, which is why you won’t find too many records of him in historical documents

THE FIVE GOOD EMPERORS  Nerva (96 – 98)  Trajan (98 – 117): reformer; moderate Trajan  Hadrian (117 – 138): wall; named the next two emperors before he died Hadrian  Antoninus Pius (138 – 161): stability Antoninus Pius  Marcus Aurelius (161 – 180): philosopher king Marcus Aurelius  Empire grows to its largest extent  Uniformity of government spread to all of the provinces  “Romanization” of the empire  Latin becomes the common language  Centralization of power in emperor’s hands  Will contribute to the decline of empire

TRAJAN’S MARKET

HADRIAN’S WALL

MARCUS AURELIUS AND HIS SON AND SUCCESSOR, COMMODUS

AFTER MARCUS AURELIUS  The good emperors developed a larger civil service to manage affairs such as correspondence, justice, taxes, and records  Also separated the governing of the empire into military and civil affairs  Rome had a century of chaos following the death of Marcus Aurelius: Crisis of the Third Century  Almost 30 different emperors, most of them generals  Increasing barbarian invasions as Roman generals fought each other instead of the enemy  Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, Alamanni – even the Persians came back  Loss of imperial revenue but rise of imperial expenditures: walls for cities and more soldiers  Plague (smallpox?) halfway through the century  Climate change causing forced migrations of barbarians into Roman territory  Hyperinflation and coinage devaluation  Weakening of government authority as people started valuing land above all once again  Near-cessation of trade, return to the country by many people, and rise of self-sufficient households  Beginning of the drop in status of the free middle and lower classes, and the rise of the landed aristocracy  Coloni: roots of the medieval serf

DIOCLETIAN (284 – 305)  First emperor in 100 years to restore order and end the violence and political in-fighting within the empire  Absolute ruler who ends many personal liberties  Done in response to the mass-ex of people from cities  Made most trades (carpenter, smith, etc.) hereditary  Forbade workers from leaving their jobs  Forbade workers from moving elsewhere to find better pay  Increases the bureaucracy for more effective administration, trade, and managing of currency  286 CE: divides the empire into two administrative realms  First step in the creation of what would become two separate empires  Roman (Western) Empire  Byzantine (Eastern) Empire

DIOCLETIAN’S TETRARCHY  2 augusti  Actual emperors  2 caesares  The emperors’ heirs: emperors-in- training  More manageable in size  Note: Diocletian chooses to rule in the East – not in Rome, but in Nicomedia!

EDICTS REGARDING CHRISTIANITY  260 CE: Emperor Gallienus issues an edict commanding tolerance for Christians  : Diocletian removes religious minorities from the army, high public office, and life  303: under pressure from Galerius (his caesar) and the advice of the Oracle of Delphi, Diocletian issues the first edict against Christians  Demands Christians to follow Roman religious practices, including making sacrifices  Orders the destruction of religious texts and places of worship  Prevents Christians from gathering for religious reasons  Rescinds freedom from some, titles from others, and legal recourse from all  Diocletian asks that there be no bloodshed in the enforcement of the edict: many judges ignore this last part  Burning alive became quite popular in the Eastern empire  Second edict: imprisonment of all bishops, priests, deacons, exorcists…  Prisons, which were kind of a new thing, became so crowded that actual criminals were released in order to make room for the religious prisoners  Third edict: all imprisoned churchmen ordered freed once they had made a sacrifice to the Roman gods  Fourth edict: all Christians in a community ordered to gather in a public place to make a group sacrifice to the Roman gods, or be killed  Augusti after Diocletian continue Christian persecution  313: Edict of Milan ends the persecution of Christians

CONSTANTINE (312 – 337)  Moves his capital from Rome to Byzantium  Renamed the city Constantinople: modern-day Istanbul  His mother was a converted Christian  312: Battle of Milvian Bridge  313: Edict of Milan  Converts to Christianity  On his deathbed

CONSTANTINE’S PATH TO VICTORY

JUSTINIAN (527 – 565)  Powerful emperor of the Byzantine empire  Built the magnificent Hagia Sophia  Managed to reunite the Eastern and Western empires for a time  Did not last  Rewrote Roman law  Corpus Juris Civilis, or the Justinian Code  Still the basis for civil law in several countries  Plague of Justinian ( CE)  Bubonic plague severely hurt the Byzantine empire  Emperor Justinian became sick, but recovered  Recovery for the Byzantine empire took hundreds of years

AN EMPIRE DIVIDED  Diocletian believed that dividing the empire for administrative purposes would strengthen it  He was wrong  Once Constantine set up Constantinople as his new capital city – not Rome – the east/west split deepened  Western (Roman) empire  Ends officially in 476 CE when the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustus, is deposed by Odoacer, the first barbarian king of Rome in almost a millennium  Odoacer is German  Eastern (Byzantine) Empire  Lasts until 1453, when the Ottoman Turks conquer the empire and take Constantinople…through carelessness

THE FALL OF ROME Economic Reasons Gap between rich and poor Impoverished workers became tied to the land as coloni (sold as the land was sold) As fewer members of the lower classes could afford to buy goods (no purchasing power), manufacturing and trade declined Large estates became self-sufficient, further hurting manufacturing and trade Military Reasons Roman Republic Armies were servants of Rome Roman Empire Armies made and unmade emperors Reliance on barbarian troops Not ultimately loyal to Rome Could not be counted on to fight their fellow barbarians Interested in obtaining booty, not defending Rome or furthering Rome’s interests

THE FALL OF ROME Political Reasons Decline in patriotism Democracy did not exist in reality Citizens lost their tie (voting rights) to the state Patriotism became based on loyalty to an emperor, not to Rome Most emperors did not inspire respect or loyalty East/West split Two empires created problems regarding loyalty No orderly succession Murders, forced suicides, and civil wars frequently accompanied the transition from one emperor to the next Social Reasons Population decline Hunger Plagues War Decline in intellectual culture People did not dedicate themselves to public service and intellectual pursuits People instead spent their leisure time watching chariot races and gladiatorial contests Religious divisions Eastern and Egyptian cults took away the popularity and status of traditional Roman religion New faiths like Christianity directly questioned and challenged concepts such as imperial divinity

ROMAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO HUMANITY  What did Romans create that was new and beneficial to humanity?  What did Romans adapt/improve that was beneficial to humanity?  What did Romans contribute to humanity, either positive or negative? Administration of a vast empireChristianity Architecture & engineeringRomance Languages LawScience Jewish DiasporaWriters of history and literature Further spread of Hellenistic culture