Roman unity under Constantine proved illusory, and 30 years after his death the eastern and western empires were again divided. Despite its continuing battle against Persian forces, the eastern Roman Empire—later known as the Byzantine Empire —would remain largely intact for centuries to come.
Rome eventually collapsed under the weight of its own bloated empire, losing its provinces one by one: Britain around ; Spain and northern Africa by Attila and his brutal Huns invaded Gaul and Italy around , further shaking the foundations of the empire. The fall of the Roman Empire was complete.
Roman architecture and engineering innovations have had a lasting impact on the modern world. Roman aqueducts, first developed in B. Some Roman aqueducts transported water up to 60 miles from its source and the Fountain of Trevi in Rome still relies on an updated version of an original Roman aqueduct.
Roman cement and concrete are part of the reason ancient buildings like the Colosseum and Roman Forum are still standing strong today. Roman arches, or segmented arches, improved upon earlier arches to build strong bridges and buildings, evenly distributing weight throughout the structure. Roman roads, the most advanced roads in the ancient world, enabled the Roman Empire—which was over 1. They included such modern-seeming innovations as mile markers and drainage.
Over 50, miles of road were built by B. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Over the next eight and a half centuries, it grew from a small town of pig farmers into a vast empire that stretched from England to Egypt and completely The most influential empire in all of ancient times, Rome, at its peak, encompassed most of continental Europe, Britain, much of western Asia, northern Africa and the Mediterranean islands.
In addition to many external battles, numerous civil wars befell the Ancient Roman empire. For almost 30 centuries—from its unification around B. From the great pyramids of the Old Kingdom through the military conquests of the New Aqueducts The Romans enjoyed many amenities for their day, including public toilets, underground sewage systems, fountains and ornate public baths. None of these aquatic innovations would have been possible without the Roman aqueduct.
First developed around B. Ushered in by the ascension of A teenager when he took the imperial throne, he ruled for just over ten months before being deposed by the Germanic leader Odoacer. Again, this is a heavily debated question. There are several contributing factors, some of which were taking place within the empire itself. Severe financial crisis caused by wars and overspending had led to over-taxation and inflation. This in turn saw Romans fleeing to the countryside as a way of avoiding the taxman.
Agricultural and commercial production declined as a result, which in turn affected trade. A series of weak emperors from the second century had seen more than 20 men on the imperial throne in just 75 years, thanks in part to the Praetorian Guard — bodyguards to the emperor — which was using its power to decide to promote, or kill off, would-be emperors. Before the Empire, the Roman Republic existed, governing the land for years.
The Republic, first situated in Rome expanded out to the rest of Italy and then to North Africa and the Mediterranean. With the overwhelming difference between the rich and the poor, a new practice took place where the army was paid with gold. This resulted in soldiers no longer fighting for the republic, but rather for their generals.
Julius Caesar, a military leader, took this opportunity and seized control, becoming dictator of Rome that dismantled the government. This is what initiated the beginning of the Roman Empire. The early Christians, like the Jews, faced suspicion from Roman officials.
To the Christian, this act was one of pagan worship; to the imperial bureaucrat, simply a profession of patriotism toward the figure who embodied the state. Throughout the classical period, Britain was at the fringes of civilization. Conquest of Britain began in earnest under the emperor Claudius in 43 AD.
Over the next four decades, Roman troops explored the entire island, including the northernmost parts of Scotland. But the Romans only conquered an area roughly corresponding to modern-day England and Wales. The Romans would govern this territory until , when the declining Western Roman Empire was forced to abandon the remote province. Most of his predecessors had sought glory by conquering new territory, steadily expanding the size of the empire.
Hadrian had a different vision. He believed the empire was becoming overextended militarily, and immediately upon taking office he focused on consolidating Roman control of the territories that had already been conquered.
He withdrew from a few Eastern territories conquered by his predecessor, Trajan, and he negotiated peace agreements with rivals such as the Parthians. Over time, similar fortifications would be built all around the edges of the empire, transforming what had been a fluid frontier into a clearly defined border. The new wall was only manned for a few years before the Romans were forced to abandon the new territory and retreat to the border Hadrian had chosen.
The Roman empire provided its subjects with a reliable and standardized system of currency. Uniform money brings major economic benefits because cash transactions are a lot more efficient than those done by barter. This map, drawn from a database of amateur archeological finds, shows where Roman coins were found between and As Rome was rising in the West, the Han dynasty was consolidating power in China. These two great empires were too far apart to have a direct relationship.
But they became linked together indirectly through trade networks. This map, based on geographical data recorded by a Greek writer in the early years of the Roman Empire, shows the trade route from Rome to India. Elites in India and China prized Roman-made glass and rugs, while Roman aristocrats enjoyed purchasing silks made in the Far East.
For the first two centuries after Augustus became emperor in 27 BC, the Roman Empire experienced a period of unprecedented political stability and economic prosperity. But the situation deteriorated rapidly in the third century AD. Between and , Rome had more than 20 emperors, and as this map shows, most died violent deaths. Some were murdered by their own armies. Others died in civil wars against rival claimants to the throne.
One died in battle against foreign foe; another was captured in battle and died in captivity. But in , Emperor Diocletian took power and managed to get the empire out of its tailspin. In a year reign, he temporarily ended the cycle of bloodshed and instituted reforms that allowed the empire to endure until the late s.
He wanted to provide more localized leadership for an empire that had become too sprawling and complex for any one man to manage. He created a new imperial capital at Byzantium and renamed it Constantinople, laying the foundations for an Eastern Roman Empire that would endure long after the West fell.
When he took the throne, he began the transformation of Rome into a Christian empire. While some of his subjects resisted Christianity, the change ultimately stuck. As a result, Christianity became the dominant religion of Europe for the next 1, years. Constantine ruled over a unified Roman empire, but this would be increasingly rare.
This cycle would repeat itself several times over the next half-century. It became clear that the empire was too big for any one man to rule.
The last emperor to rule a united empire, Theodosius, died in This map shows the result: an empire permanently divided between east and west.
Why had the empire become too big to govern? The empire never fully recovered from the political crisis of the third century, or from a plague that began in and killed millions of people. As its financial health deteriorated, the empire became increasingly vulnerable to invasion. That started a vicious cycle. Frustrated provincials began fortifying their towns and organizing their own local militias for self-defense.
People were increasingly forced to stay close to fortified towns for safety, making them less productive and more dependent on local lords. And so the Roman army grew weaker, and the empire as a whole became more vulnerable to barbarian attack.
A symbolic turning point came in , when Aleric, king of the barbarian Visigoth tribe, sacked Rome for the first time in years. It was a psychological blow from which the Western Empire would never really recover. Probably the most famous of the barbarian invaders was Attila the Hun, who built an empire in Eastern Europe between and Their style of warfare centered on mounted archers, who could fire arrows with deadly accuracy while on horseback.
They prized speed and the advantage of surprise. The Romans proved unable to defeat Attila on the battlefield, and the Huns even forced the Romans to pay them tribute for several years. However, the Huns were unable to sustain prolonged sieges, which made them incapable of taking large cities such as Constantinople or Rome. Nor could they consolidate their gains and build a long-lived empire.
When Attila died in , his sons squabbled over how to divide his empire, which quickly disintegrated. Historians generally date the end of the Western Empire to AD. The last few emperors before Romulus Augustulus were increasingly emperors in name only. Starved of the tax revenues they needed to raise a serious military, their control over nominally Roman territory was increasingly tenuous.
When Odoacer and other barbarian generals carved the Roman Empire up into kingdoms, they were largely just formalizing the de facto reality that the emperors had little actual power over their distant domains. This map looks dramatically different from the map of the Western Roman Empire as it existed a few decades earlier. Western Europe was populated by largely the same ethnic groups in as they had been a century earlier.
0コメント