Rome

Rome

The end

212 CE Caracalla extends citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire.


285 Diocletian is sole emperor.


285 Diocletian is sole emperor.324 Constantine becomes sole emperor.


285 Diocletian is sole emperor.324 Constantine becomes sole emperor.330 Constantinople becomes the capital of the

empire.



empire.395 The emperor Theodosius dies, leaving the

East to Arcadius and the West to Honorius.




East to Arcadius and the West to Honorius.410 Goths led by Alaric sack Rome.




East to Arcadius and the West to Honorius.410 Goths led by Alaric sack Rome.476 The Germanic general Odoacer deposes

Romulus Augustulus.

The crisis of the third century and the rise of Diocletian.

The causes of the crisis are a matter of great controversy, but it’s likely that there were a number of causes which could have been dealt with individually, but together were overwhelming.


1. The increased power of the army, especially after the reforms of Septimius Severus.



2. The plague of the late second century and the resulting decrease in population.




3. The Sasanid conquest of Parthia in the 220s.




3. The Sasanid conquest of Parthia in the 220s.

4. The collapse of the currency.

The assassination of Aurelian in 275 was followed by almost ten years of civil war. In 284 Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus rose to power. The accession of Diocletian marks the end of the crisis of the third century.

In 284, Numerian was killed. Diocles was acclaimed by the army and took the name Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus.

Recognizing that the problems of succession were crucial, in 285 Diocletian adopted his old friend and fellow Illyrian Maximian (now Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus) and gave him the title “Caesar”.

Also in 286, Diocletian promoted Maximian to “Augustus”. From this point on, Maximian would campaign in the west and north, while Diocletian would campaign in the east and along the Danube.

In 293, the two Augusti further secured the succession by appointing Flavius Valerius Constantius I (Constantius) as Caesar to Maximian and Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus (Galerius) as Caesar to Diocletian. The “tetrarchy” was now complete.

For the first five years, the tetrarchy concentrated on securing the borders. Constantius campaigned in Britain, Maximian on the Rhine, Diocletian on the Danube, and Galerius on the Euphrates. By 298, they had secured all four fronts.

With the borders finally secure, Diocletian was free to tackle the problems of internal organization and administration, as well as advance his social and economic agendas. Some major reforms include:


1. He increased the size of the army, although it’s not clear by how much. He also reorganized the units of the army.



2. He divided the existing provinces and created a new administrative chain of command.




3. He reorganized the tax structure of the empire.





4. He attempted to reform the currency.





4. He attempted to reform the currency.

5. He promoted conservative social and religious policy, advocating paganism and persecuting Christians.

Diocletian also attempted to reform the currency. In 301 he issued the “Currency Edict” which doubled the value of some coins, but most people lacked confidence in the new values. Later in 301 he issued the famous “Price Edict” which also failed.

The final category of reform under Diocletian is his religious policy. It is a sign of the completeness of Romanization that an Illyrian was so committed to the promotion of traditional Roman gods.

Conclusions about Diocletian’s reforms:

1. Many of Diocletian’s reforms, including the tetrarchy, the economic reforms, and the persecutions, did not last.

2. It is not clear how much his more lasting reforms, including the reforms in provincial administration and military structure, were actually his ideas.

3. The fact that he was able to attempt long term solutions to the problems of the third century means that in some way he was successful.

4. The mere fact that Diocletian ruled from 284 to 305 (21 years) helped to relieve the problems caused by constant civil war.

Early accounts of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge say that Constantius sent a divine army to aid his son. Later sources say that Constantine had a dream the night before the battle telling him to use the chi-rho sign, or that he had a vision of a cross in the sky.

It seems clear that after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge Constantine favored Christians. The Edict of Milan in 313 and the vague religious wording (“by the inspiration of divinity”) on the Arch of Constantine dedicated in 315 indicate him moving in that direction.

Another measure Constantine took in favor of Christianity was his confiscation of treasures from some pagan temples. Constantine, however, never outlawed paganism, and he dedicated Constantinople in 330 with both Christian and pagan ceremonies.

A stronger indicator of Constantine’s own Christianity is his involvement as early as 313 in the Donatist schism. He organized a council in Rome in 313, one at Arles in 314, and the important ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325.

Constantine’s involvement with the Donatist schism also shows both how little he understood the organization of the Church and how much his own Christianity affected that organization.

The Donatist schism began in 307 when the Carthaginians chose Caecilian as their bishop. Caecilius supported forgiveness for those who had handed over scriptures during the persecutions under Diocletian and Maximian.

The Numidians refused to accept Caecilian and instead elected Majorinus, who thought that the traditores should be excluded from the Church. When Majorinus died, the Numidians chose Donatus to succeed him.

In 313 Constantine asked the bishop of Rome to host a hearing to decide between Caecilian and Donatus. The hearing decided for Caecilius, but the followers of Donatus refused to accept the decision. Constantine then convened the more official Council of Arles in 314.

The Donatist schism endured with periods of violence and periods of peace until the arrival of the Vandals in North Africa in 429. Even after that the schism remained, but the two Churches seem to have coexisted peacefully. By the time of Augustine (354-430) the controversy was less specific to the persecutions and more about the validity of the sacraments.

The Donatist schism was a minor problem in comparison with the Arian heresy. Some time between 318 and 321 a presbyter in Alexandria named Arius began to preach that the person of the Son was different from and subordinate to the person of the Father.

The ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 was meant to settle the controversy. Constantine organized it and attended it with great ceremony, and the bishops sided with Constantine’s position of homoousia. Constantine exiled those who would not accept the decision.

The controversy continued, and Constantine’s successor, Constantius II, along with some later emperors, was sympathetic to the compromise view of homoiousia. It was not until Theodosius I (who became sole emperor in 387) that Arianism was forbidden everywhere.

The main cause of violence was not the persecution of the Arians, but the fact that a radical Arian named Ulfila converted the Goths to Arian Christianity between 340 and 382. This contributed to the war between the Goths and Rome (378-82), a war in which Theodosius was the Roman general.

The visibility of Christianity in politics may give the impression that the Empire was now Christian, but this is not actually the case. Sacrifice was outlawed from the time of Constantine, but paganism itself was not.

The new laws against sacrifice as late as 392 show that such laws were ineffective, and paganism continued throughout the Empire even into the sixth century. Christianization was largely a cultural rather than a political or military process.

In addition to repealing the exemptions for Christian clergy that Constantine had instituted, Julian attempted to create a hierarchy of pagan priesthoods that would take the social place of the Christian clergy.

The most famous of his anti-Christian measures were his attempt to forbid them from teaching in 362 and his attempt to restore the temple in Jerusalem in 363.

Julian ruled for only a brief time. He took power in 361 and almost immediately prepared his Persian expedition. In 363 he was killed while retreating from Persia. His brief reign means that he had little time to institute lasting reforms, but in addition to his religious ideas, he seems to have put a high priority on restoring the local city governments.

Rome: the end

• The decline and fall of the Roman Empire– Cost of government kept rising

• Demands of the army• Keep Roman people happy (panem et circenses = bread and

circuses)• Pay the ever-increasing bureaucracy• Wage expensive wars: the barbarians

– Answers weren’t helpful• Increase taxes• Squeeze labor out of Roman citizens• Inflation through debased coinage

Rome: the end

• Massive pressures on the frontiers– Persians from the East– German tribes from the West and North– Army comprised of slaves, gladiators, barbarians, conscripted

pirates, mercenaries• Unity was a problem– Tetrarchy served a need (succession)– Constantine reunited the empire– Constantinople becomes new center (330 ad)– Solidifies break between East and West (West will fall in the

next century; East survives as Byzantine Empire)

Rome: the end

• The decline and fall of the West– Barbarian invasions continue, become more

frequent, become more intense– Life becomes increasingly rural– A regression toward more primitive life• Villa becomes center of society• Communication breakdown with decentralized

administration (bad roads, unsafe travel)– Only institution providing unity was the Church

Rome: the end

• Christianity reigned in the empire till its fall (with the exception of Julian– 394 Theodosius forbids paganism– State church attracts converts – problems?• Why convert (faith versus political expediency)• What is the relationship between church and state?

• Church becomes stronger as the political structures of the West crumble

Rome: the end• Barbarians migrate into the West through the 4th and 5th

centuries• Germanic tribes: Goths sweep down from Scandinavia, etc.

– Lombards and Burgundians (end up in N. Italy and Gaul)– Ostrogoths (end up in Italy)– Visigoths (end up in Spain)– Franks (end up in northern Gaul and Spain)– Vandals (end up in Africa and the Mediterranean)– Angles and Saxons (end up in England)

• Non-Germanic tribes– Huns: swept through the center of Europe from Asia

Rome: the end

• 378: German tribes defeat Roman forces under emperor Valens at Battle of Adrianople

• Settlements of tribes allowed throughout the remainder of the 4th and into the 5th century

• 410: Visigoths sack Rome• 476: Barbarian Odoacer deposes Romulus

Augustulus and rules as king of the Romans

Rome

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