The Fall of Rome

​1.18 The Fall of the Roman Empire

​Objectives​

•Summarize the decline of the Roman Empire.​

•Describe the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine.​

•Trace the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Open Ended

If you were the Ruler of a Dying Empire what would you do to fix it?

​Setting  the Stage

Historians generally agree that the end of the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius (a.d. 161–180) marked the end of two centuries of peace and prosperity known as the Pax Romana. The rulers that followed in the next century had little or no idea of how to deal with the giant empire and its growing problems. As a result, Rome began to decline.

​Rome’s Economy Weakens

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During the third century a.d., several factors prompted the weakening of Rome’s economy. Hostile tribes outside the boundaries of the empire and pirates on the Mediterranean Sea disrupted trade. Desperate for revenue, the government raised taxes. It also started minting coins that contained less and less silver. The economy soon suffered from inflation, a drastic drop in the value of money coupled with a rise in prices.

Multiple Choice

What is Inflation?

• A drastic drop in the value of money coupled with a rise in prices

• The cost of war increased

• Decreasing Interest Rates

• Increasing Rate of Currency

Multiple Choice

What Emperor marked the end of the Pax Romana?

• Julius Caesar

• Hannibal

• Marcus Aurelius

• Caesar Augustus

​Emperors Attempt Reform

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Remarkably, Rome survived intact for another 200 years. This was due largely to reform-minded emperors and the empire’s division into two parts. In a.d. 284, Diocletian, a strong-willed army leader, became the new emperor. He doubled the size of the Roman army and sought to control inflation by setting fixed prices for goods.

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Diocletian believed that the empire had grown too large and too complex for one ruler. In perhaps his most significant reform, he divided the empire into the Greek-speaking East (Greece, Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt) and the Latin-speaking West (Italy, Gaul, Britain, and Spain). He took the eastern half for himself and appointed a co-ruler for the West.

​Diocletian retired in a.d. 305. However, his plans for orderly succession failed. Civil war broke out immediately. By 311, four rivals were competing for power. Among them was an ambitious young commander named Constantine, the same Constantine who would later end the persecution of Christians.

​In a.d. 330, Constantine took a step that would have great consequence for the empire. He moved the capital from Rome to the Greek city of Byzantium, in what is now Turkey. The new capital stood on the Bosporus Strait, strategically located for trade and defense purposes on a crossroads between West and East.​

With Byzantium as its capital, the center of power in the empire shifted from Rome to the east. The city eventually took a new name—Constantinople, or the city of Constantine.

​The decline of the Western Roman Empire took place over many years. Its final collapse was the result of worsening internal problems, the separation of the Western Empire from the wealthier Eastern part, and outside invasions.

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Around a.d. 370, the relative peace that Rome had with the Germanic tribes that lived mostly along the northeastern frontier of the Empire fell apart when a fierce group of Mongol nomads from central Asia, the Huns, moved into the region and began destroying all in their path.

​In 444, the Huns united for the first time under a powerful chieftain named Attila. They then swept into the West. In a.d. 452, Attila’s forces advanced against Rome, but bouts of famine and disease kept them from conquering the city.

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Although the Huns were no longer a threat to the empire after Attila’s death in 453, the Germanic invasions continued.

​The last Roman emperor, a 14-year-old boy named Romulus Augustulus, was ousted by German forces in 476. After that, no emperor even pretended to rule Rome and its western provinces. Roman power in the western half of the empire had disappeared.

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The eastern half of the empire, which came to be called the Byzantine Empire, not only survived but flourished. It preserved the great heritage of Greek and Roman culture for another 1,000 years. The Byzantine emperors ruled from Constantinople and saw themselves as heirs to the power of Augustus Caesar. The empire endured until 1453, when it fell to the Ottoman Turks.​