Native name	''Imperium Romanum Sacrum''''Heiliges Römisches Reich''''Sacro Romano Impero''
Conventional long name	Holy Roman Empire{{nobold|}}

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}} The Holy Roman Empire (HRE; , , ) was a realm (''Reich'') that existed from 962–1806 in Central Europe. It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes. In its last centuries, its character became quite close to a union of territories.

The empire's territory was centered on the Kingdom of Germany, and included neighbouring territories, which at its peak included the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Burgundy. For much of its history, the Empire consisted of hundreds of smaller sub-units, principalities, duchies, counties, Free Imperial Cities and other domains.

Otto I was crowned King of Germany in 962, but he is nevertheless considered to have been the first Holy Roman Emperor () in retrospect. Otto was the first emperor of the realm who was not a member of the earlier Carolingian dynasty. The last Holy Roman Emperor was Francis II, who abdicated and dissolved the Empire in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. In a decree following the 1512 Diet of Cologne, the name was officially changed to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (, ).

The territories and dominion of the Holy Roman Empire in terms of present-day states comprised Germany (except Southern Schleswig), Austria (except Burgenland), the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Slovenia (except Prekmurje), besides significant parts of eastern France (mainly Artois, Alsace, Franche-Comté, Savoy and Lorraine), northern Italy (mainly Lombardy, Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, Trentino and South Tyrol), and western Poland (mainly Silesia, Pomerania and Neumark).

Name

The term ''sacrum'' (i.e. "holy") in connection with the medieval Roman Empire was used from 1157, under Frederick I Barbarossa.

In a decree following the 1512 Diet of Cologne, the name was officially changed to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (, ).

The Holy Roman Empire was named after the Roman Empire and was considered its continuation. This is based in the medieval concept of ''translatio imperii'' and does not mean that the Empire's territory included the city of Rome, any more than did that of the Byzantine Empire, which also understood itself as the continuation of the Roman Empire ().

The French Enlightenment writer Voltaire remarked sardonically that "this agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."

History

Carolingian forerunners

The Holy Roman Empire looked to Charlemagne, King of the Franks, as its founder, who had been crowned Emperor of the Romans in 800 by Pope Leo III. The Roman Empire was thus revived (''renovatio Romanorum imperii'') by transferring it to the Frankish king. This ''Translatio imperii'' remained the basis for the Holy Roman Empire, at least in theory, until its demise in 1806.

The Carolingian imperial crown was initially disputed among the Carolingian rulers of Western Francia (France) and Eastern Francia (Germany), with first the western king (Charles the Bald) and then the eastern (Charles the Fat) attaining the prize. However, after the death of Charles the Fat in 888 the Carolingian Empire broke asunder, never to be restored. According to Regino of Prüm, each part of the realm elected a "kinglet" from its own "bowels." After the death of Charles the Fat those crowned Emperor by the Pope controlled only territories in Italy. The last such Emperor was Berengar I of Italy who died in 924.

Formation

Around 900, East Francia saw the reemergence of autonomous stem duchies (Franconia, Bavaria, Alemannia and Saxony). After the Carolingian king Louis the Child died without issue in 911, East Francia did not turn to the Carolingian ruler of West Francia to take over the realm but elected one of the dukes, Conrad of Franconia as ''Rex Francorum Orientalum'' . On his deathbed, Conrad yielded the crown to his main rival, Henry of Saxony (r. 919–36), who was elected king at the Diet of Fritzlar in 919. Henry reached a truce with the raiding Magyars and in 933 won a first victory against them in the Battle of Riade.

Henry died in 936 but his family, the Liudolfing (or Ottonian) dynasty would continue to rule the Eastern kingdom for roughly a century. Henry's designated successor, Otto, was elected King in Aachen in 936. He overcame a series of revolts - both from an elder brother and from several dukes. After that, the king managed to control the appointment of dukes and often also employed bishops in administrative affairs.

The Kingdom had no permanent capital city and the kings travelled from residence to residence (called Kaiserpfalz) to discharge affairs. However, each king preferred certain places, in Otto's case, the city of Magdeburg. Kingship continued to be transferred by election, but Kings often had their sons elected during their lifetime, enabling them to keep the crown for their families. This only changed after the end of the Salian dynasty in the 12th century.

In 955, Otto won a decisive victory over the Magyars in the Battle of Lechfeld. In 951, Otto came to the aid of Adelaide, the widowed queen of Italy, defeated her enemies. He then married her and took control over Italy. In 962, Otto was crowned Emperor by the Pope. From then on, the affairs of the German kingdom were intertwined with that of Italy and the Papacy. Otto's coronation as Emperor made the German kings successors to the Empire of Charlemagne, which through ''translatio imperii'' also made them successors to Ancient Rome.

This also renewed the conflict with the Eastern Emperor in Constantinople, especially after Otto's son Otto II (r. 967–83) adopted the designation ''imperator Romanorum''. Still, Otto formed marital ties with the east, when he married the Byzantine princess Theophanu. Their son, Otto III, focused his attention on Italy and Rome and employed widespread diplomacy but died young in 1002, to be succeeded by his cousin Henry II, who focused on Germany.

When Henry II died in 1024, Conrad II, first of the Salian Dynasty, was then elected king in 1024 only after some debate among dukes and nobles, which would eventually develop into the collegiate of Electors.

Investiture Controversy

Kings often employed bishops in administrative affairs and often determined who would be appointed to ecclesiastical offices. In the wake of the Cluniac Reforms, this involvement was increasingly seen as inappropriate by the Papacy. The reform-minded Pope Gregory VII was determined to oppose such practices, leading to the Investiture Controversy with king Henry IV (r. 1056–1106), who repudiated the Pope's interference and persuaded his bishops to excommunicate the Pope, whom he famously addressed as "Hildebrand... Not Pope but false monk!" The Pope, in turn, excommunicated the king, declared him deposed and dissolved the oaths of loyalty made to Henry. The king found himself with almost no political support and was forced to make the famous Walk to Canossa in 1077, by which he achieved a lifting of the excommunication at the price of humiliation. Meanwhile, the German princes had elected another king, Rudolf of Swabia. Henry managed to defeat him but was subsequently confronted with more uprisings, renewed excommunication and even the rebellion of his sons. It was his second son, Henry V, who managed to reach an agreement with both the Pope and the bishops in the 1122 Concordat of Worms. The political power of the Empire was maintained but the conflict had demonstrated the limits of any ruler's power, especially in regard to the church, and robbed the king of the sacral status he had previously enjoyed. Both the Pope and the German princes had surfaced as major players in the political system of the Empire.

Hohenstaufen dynasty

When the Salian dynasty ended with Henry V's death in 1125, the princes chose not to elect the next of kin, but rather Lothair, the moderately powerful but already old Duke of Saxony. When he died in 1138, the princes again aimed at checking royal power; accordingly they did not elect Lothair's favoured heir, his son-in-law Henry the Proud of the Welf family, but Conrad III of the Hohenstaufen family, close relatives of the Salians, leading to over a century of strife between the two houses. Conrad ousted the Welfs from the possessions, but after his death in 1152, his nephew Frederick I "Barbarossa" succeeded and made peace with the Welfs, restoring his cousin Henry the Lion to his — albeit diminished — possessions.

The Hohenstaufen rulers increasingly lent land to ''ministerialia,'' formerly non-free service men, which Frederick hoped would be more reliable than dukes. Initially used mainly for war services, this new class of people would form the basis for the later knights, another basis of imperial power. Another important constitutional move at Roncaglia was the establishment of a new peace (Landfrieden) for all of the Empire, an attempt to (on the one hand) abolish private feuds not only between the many dukes, but on the other hand a means to tie the Emperor's subordinates to a legal system of jurisdiction and public prosecution of criminal acts — a predecessor of the modern concept of "rule of law". Another new concept of the time was the systematic foundation of new cities, both by the emperor and the local dukes. These were partly caused by the explosion in population, but also to concentrate economic power at strategic locations, while formerly cities only existed in the shape of either old Roman foundations or older bishoprics. Cities that were founded in the 12th century include Freiburg, possibly the economic model for many later cities, and Munich.

Frederick was crowned Emperor in 1155 and emphasised the Empire's "Romanness", partly in an attempt to justify the Emperor's power independently of the (now strengthened) Pope. An imperial assembly at the fields of Roncaglia in 1158 reclaimed imperial rights in reference to Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis. Imperial rights had been referred to as ''regalia'' since the Investiture Controversy, but were enumerated for the first time at Roncaglia as well. This comprehensive list included public roads, tariffs, coining, collecting punitive fees and the investiture, the seating and unseating of office holders. These rights were now explicitly rooted in Roman Law, a far-reaching constitutional act.

Frederick's policies were mainly aimed at Italy, where he clashed with the increasingly wealthy and free-minded cities of the north, especially Milan. He also embroiled himself in another conflict with the Papacy by supporting a candidate elected by a minority against Pope Alexander III (1159–81). Frederick supported a succession of antipopes before finally making peace with Alexander in 1177. In Germany, the Emperor had repeatedly protected Henry the Lion against complaints by rival princes or cities (especially in the cases of Munich and Lübeck). Henry's support of Frederick's policies was only lackluster and in a critical situation during the Italian wars, Henry refused the Emperor's plea for military support. After his return to Germany, an embittered Frederick opened proceedings against the Duke, resulting in a public ban and the confiscation of all territories.

During the Hohenstaufen period, German princes facilitated a successful, peaceful eastward settlement of lands previously sparsely inhabited by West Slavs or uninhabited, by German speaking farmers, traders and craftsmen from the western part of the empire, both Christians and Jews. The gradual germanization of these lands was a complex phenomenon which should not be interpreted in terms of 19th century nationalism's bias. By the eastward settlement the empire's influence increased to eventually include Pomerania and Silesia – also due to intermarriage of the local, still mostly Slavic, rulers with German spouses. Also, the Teutonic Knights were invited to Prussia by Duke Konrad of Masovia to Christianise the Prussians in 1226. The monastic state of the Teutonic Order () and its later German successor states of Prussia however never were part of the Holy Roman Empire.

In 1190, Barbarossa participated in the Third Crusade and died in Asia Minor. Under his son and successor, Henry VI, the Hohenstaufen dynasty reached its apex. Henry added the Norman kingdom of Sicily to his domains, held English king Richard Lionheart captive and aimed to establishing a hereditary monarchy, when he died in 1197. As his son, Frederick II, though already elected king, was still a small child and living in Sicily, German princes chose to elect an adult king, which resulted in the dual election of Barbarossa's second son Philip of Swabia and Henry the Lion's son Otto of Brunswick, who competed for the crown. Otto prevailed for a while after Philip was murdered in a private squabble in 1208 until he began to also claim Sicily. Pope Innocent III, who feared the threat posed by a union of the Empire and Sicily, now supported Sicily's king Frederick II, who marched to Germany and defeated Otto. After his victory, Frederick did not act upon his promise to keep the two realms separate - though he had made his son Henry king of Sicily before marching on Germany, he still reserved real political power for himself. This continued after Frederick was crowned Emperor in 1220. Fearing Frederick's concentration of power, the Pope finally excommunicated the Emperor. Another point was the crusade, which Frederick had promised but repeatedly postponed. Now, though excommunicated, Frederick led the crusade in 1228, which however ended in negotiations and a temporary restoration of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The conflict with the Pope endured who later supported the election of an anti-king in Germany.

Despite his imperial claims, Frederick's rule was a major turning point towards the disintegration of a central rule in the Empire. While concentrated on establishing a modern, centralised state in Sicily, he was mostly absent from Germany and issued far-reaching privileges to Germany's secular and ecclesiastical princes: In the 1220 ''Confoederatio cum principibus ecclesiasticis,'' Frederick gave up a number of ''regalia'' in favour of the bishops, among them tariffs, coining, and fortification. The 1232 ''Statutum in favorem principum'' mostly extended these privileges to secular territories. Although many of these privileges had existed earlier, they were now granted globally, and once and for all, to allow the German princes to maintain order north of the Alps while Frederick wanted to concentrate on Italy. The 1232 document marked the first time that the German dukes were called ''domini terræ,'' owners of their lands, a remarkable change in terminology as well.

Interregnum

After the death of Frederick II in 1250, the German kingdom was divided among his son Conrad IV (died 1254) and the anti-king, William of Holland (died 1256). Conrad's death was followed by the Interregnum, during which no king could achieve universal recognition and the princes managed to consolidate their holdings and became even more independent rulers. After 1257, the crown was contested between Richard of Cornwall, who was supported by the Guelph party, and Alfonso X of Castile, who was recognised by the Hohenstaufen party but never set foot on German soil. After Richard's death in 1273, the Interregnum ended with unanimous election of Rudolph I of Habsburg, a minor pro-Staufen count.

Changes in political structure

The 13th century also saw a general structural change in how land was administered, preparing the shift of political power towards the rising bourgeoisie at the expense of aristocratic feudalism that would characterize the Late Middle Ages.

Instead of personal duties, money increasingly became the common means to represent economic value in agriculture. Peasants were increasingly required to pay tribute for their lands. The concept of "property" began to replace more ancient forms of jurisdiction, although they were still very much tied together. In the territories (not at the level of the Empire), power became increasingly bundled: Whoever owned the land had jurisdiction, from which other powers derived. It is important to note, however, that jurisdiction at this time did not include legislation, which virtually did not exist until well into the 15th century. Court practice heavily relied on traditional customs or rules described as customary.

It is during this time that the territories began to transform themselves into predecessors of modern states. The process varied greatly among the various lands and was most advanced in those territories that were most identical to the lands of the old Germanic tribes, ''e.g.'' Bavaria. It was slower in those scattered territories that were founded through imperial privileges.

Late Middle Ages

Rise of the territories after the Hohenstaufen

The difficulties in electing the king eventually led to the emergence of a fixed college of Prince-electors (''Kurfürsten''), whose composition and procedures were set forth in the Golden Bull of 1356. This development probably best symbolises the emerging duality between emperor and realm (''Kaiser und Reich''), which were no longer considered identical. This is also revealed in the way the post-Hohenstaufen kings attempted to sustain their power. Earlier, the Empire's strength (and finances) greatly relied on the Empire's own lands, the so-called ''Reichsgut'', which always belonged to the king of the day and included many Imperial Cities. After the 13th century, the relevance of the ''Reichsgut'' faded, even though some parts of it did remain until the Empire's end in 1806. Instead, the ''Reichsgut'' was increasingly pawned to local dukes, sometimes to raise money for the Empire, but more frequently to reward faithful duty or as an attempt to civilize stubborn dukes. The direct governance of the ''Reichsgut'' no longer matched the needs of either the king or the dukes.

Instead, the kings, beginning with Rudolph I of Habsburg, increasingly relied on the lands of their respective dynasties to support their power. In contrast with the ''Reichsgut'', which was mostly scattered and difficult to administer, these territories were relatively compact and thus easier to control. In 1282, Rudolph I thus lent Austria and Styria to his own sons.

With Henry VII, the House of Luxembourg entered the stage. In 1312, Henry was crowned as the first Holy Roman Emperor since Frederick II. After him all kings and emperors relied on the lands of their own family (''Hausmacht''): Louis IV of Wittelsbach (king 1314, emperor 1328–47) relied on his lands in Bavaria; Charles IV of Luxembourg, the grandson of Henry VII, drew strength from his own lands in Bohemia. Interestingly, it was thus increasingly in the king's own interest to strengthen the power of the territories, since the king profited from such a benefit in his own lands as well.

Imperial reform

The "constitution" of the Empire was still largely unsettled at the beginning of the 15th century. Although some procedures and institutions had been fixed, for example by the Golden Bull of 1356, the rules of how the king, the electors, and the other dukes should cooperate in the Empire much depended on the personality of the respective king. It therefore proved somewhat damaging that Sigismund of Luxemburg (king 1410, emperor 1433–37) and Frederick III of Habsburg (king 1440, emperor 1452–93) neglected the old core lands of the empire and mostly resided in their own lands. Without the presence of the king, the old institution of the ''Hoftag'', the assembly of the realm's leading men, deteriorated. The ''Imperial Diet'' as a legislative organ of the Empire did not exist yet. Even worse, dukes often went into feuds against each other that, more often than not, escalated into local wars.

Simultaneously, the Church was in a state of crisis too, with wide-reaching effects in the Empire. The conflict between several papal claimants (two anti-popes and the legitimate Pope) was only resolved at the Council of Constance (1414–18); after 1419, much energy was spent on fighting the Hussites. The medieval idea of unifying all Christendom into a single political entity, of which the Church and the Empire were the leading institutions, began to decline.

With these drastic changes, much discussion emerged in the 15th century about the Empire itself. Rules from the past no longer adequately described the structure of the time, and a reinforcement of earlier ''Landfrieden'' was urgently called for. During this time, the concept of "reform" emerged, in the original sense of the Latin verb ''re-formare'', to regain an earlier shape that had been lost.

When Frederick III needed the dukes to finance war against Hungary in 1486 and at the same time had his son, later Maximilian I elected king, he was presented with the dukes' united demand to participate in an Imperial Court. For the first time, the assembly of the electors and other dukes was now called the Imperial Diet (German ''Reichstag'') (to be joined by the Imperial Free Cities later). While Frederick refused, his more conciliatory son finally convened the Diet at Worms in 1495, after his father's death in 1493. Here, the king and the dukes agreed on four bills, commonly referred to as the ''Reichsreform'' (Imperial Reform): a set of legal acts to give the disintegrating Empire back some structure. Among others, this act produced the Imperial Circle Estates and the ''Reichskammergericht'' (Imperial Chamber Court); structures that would—to a degree—persist until the end of the Empire in 1806.

However, it took a few more decades until the new regulation was universally accepted and the new court actually began to function; only in 1512 would the Imperial Circles be finalised. The King also made sure that his own court, the ''Reichshofrat'', continued to function in parallel to the ''Reichskammergericht''. In this year, the Empire also received its new title, the ''Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation'' ("Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation").

Reformation and Renaissance

In 1516, Ferdinand II of Aragon, grandfather of the future Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, died. Due to a combination of (1) the traditions of dynastic succession in Aragon, which permitted maternal inheritance with no precedence for female rule; (2) the insanity of Charles's mother, Joanna of Castile; and (3) the insistence by his remaining grandfather, Maximilian I, that he take up his royal titles, Charles initiated his reign in Castile and Aragon, a union which evolved into Spain, in conjunction with his mother. This ensured for the first time that all the realms of the Iberian peninsula (save for Portugal) would be united by one monarch under one nascent Spanish crown, with the founding territories retaining their separate governance codes and laws. In 1519, already reigning as ''Carlos I'' in Spain, Charles took up the imperial title as ''Karl V''. The balance (and imbalance) between these separate inheritances would be defining elements of his reign, and would ensure that personal union between the Spanish and German crowns would be short-lived. The latter would end up going to a more junior branch of the Habsburgs in the person of Charles's brother Ferdinand, while the senior branch continued rule in Spain and in the Burgundian inheritance in the person of Charles's son, Philip II of Spain.

In addition to conflicts between his Spanish and German inheritances, conflicts of religion would be another source of tension during the reign of Charles V. Before Charles even began his reign in the Holy Roman Empire, in 1517, Martin Luther initiated what would later be known as the Reformation. At this time, many local dukes saw it as a chance to oppose the hegemony of Emperor Charles V. The empire then became fatally divided along religious lines, with the North, the East, and many of the major cities—Strasbourg, Frankfurt and Nuremberg—becoming Protestant while the southern and western regions largely remained Catholic.

From 1515 to 1523, the Habsburg government in the Netherlands also had to contend with the Frisian peasant rebellion, led first by Pier Gerlofs Donia and then by his nephew Wijerd Jelckama. The rebels were initially successful, but after a series of defeats, the remaining leaders were taken and decapitated in 1523. This was a blow for the Holy Roman Empire since many major cities were sacked and as many as 132 ships sunk (once even 28 in a single battle).

Baroque period

Charles V continued to battle the French and the Protestant princes in Germany for much of his reign. After his son Philip married Queen Mary of England, it appeared that France would be completely surrounded by Habsburg domains, but this hope proved unfounded when the marriage produced no children. In 1555, Paul IV was elected pope and took the side of France, whereupon an exhausted Charles finally gave up his hopes of a world Christian empire. He abdicated and divided his territories between Philip and Ferdinand of Austria. The Peace of Augsburg ended the war in Germany and accepted the existence of the Protestant princes, although not Calvinism, Anabaptism, or Zwingliism. Although the Holy Roman Empire would nominally exist until 1806, it lost any effective power 1555. Germany would enjoy relative peace for the next six decades. On the eastern front, the Turks continued to loom large as a threat, although war would mean further compromises with the Protestant princes, and so the emperor sought to avoid that. In the west, the Rhineland increasingly fell under French influence. After the Dutch revolt against Spain erupted, the Empire remained neutral. A side effect was the Cologne War, which ravaged much of the upper Rhine. After Ferdinand died in 1564, his son Maximilian II became emperor, and like his father, accepted the existence of Protestantism and the need for occasional compromise with it. Maximilian was succeeded in 1576 by Rudolf II, a strange man who preferred classical Greek philosophy to Christianity and lived an isolated existence in Bohemia. He became afraid to act when the Catholic Church was forcibly reasserting control in Austria and Hungary and the Protestant princes became upset over this. Imperial power sharply deteriorated by the time of Rudolf's death in 1612. When Bohemians rebelled against the emperor, the immediate result was the series of conflicts known as the Thirty Years' War (1618–48), which devastated the Empire. Foreign powers, including France and Sweden, intervened in the conflict and strengthened those fighting Imperial power, but also seized considerable territory for themselves. The long conflict so bled the Empire that it never recovered its strength.

At the Battle of Vienna (1683), the Army of the Holy Roman Empire, led by the Polish King John III Sobieski, decisively defeated a large Turkish army, ending the western colonial Ottoman advance and leading to the eventual dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. The HRE army was half Polish/Lithuanian Commonwealth forces, mostly cavalry, and half Holy Roman Empire forces (German/Austrian), mostly infantry. The cavalry charge was the largest in the history of warfare.

The actual end of the empire came in several steps. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War, gave the territories almost complete sovereignty. The Swiss Confederation, which had already established quasi-independence in 1499, as well as the Northern Netherlands, left the empire. Although its constituent states still had some restrictions—in particular, they could not form alliances against the Emperor—the Empire from this point was a powerless entity, existing in name only. The Habsburg Emperors instead focused on consolidating their own estates in Austria and elsewhere.

Modern period

Prussia and Austria

By the rise of Louis XIV, the Habsburgs were dependent on the position as Archdukes of Austria to counter the rise of Prussia, some of whose territories lay inside the Empire. Throughout the 18th century, the Habsburgs were embroiled in various European conflicts, such as the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Polish Succession and the War of the Austrian Succession. The German dualism between Austria and Prussia dominated the empire's history after 1740.

French Revolutionary Wars and final dissolution

From 1792 onwards, revolutionary France was at war with various parts of the Empire intermittently. The German Mediatisation was the series of mediatisations and secularisations that occurred in 1795–1814, during the latter part of the era of the French Revolution and then the Napoleonic Era.

''Mediatisation'' was the process of annexing the lands of one sovereign monarchy to another, often leaving the annexed some rights. ''Secularisation'' was the redistribution to secular states of the secular lands held by an ecclesiastical ruler such as a bishop or an abbot.

The Empire was formally dissolved on 6 August 1806 when the last Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (from 1804, Emperor Francis I of Austria) abdicated, following a military defeat by the French under Napoleon (see Treaty of Pressburg). Napoleon reorganised much of the empire into the Confederation of the Rhine, a French satellite. Francis' House of Habsburg-Lorraine survived the demise of the Empire, continuing to reign as Emperors of Austria and Kings of Hungary until the Habsburg empire's final dissolution in 1918 in the aftermath of World War I.

The Napoleonic Confederation of the Rhine was replaced by a new union, the German Confederation, in 1815, following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. It lasted until 1866 when Prussia founded the North German Confederation, a forerunner of the German Empire which united the German-speaking territories outside of Austria and Switzerland under Prussian leadership in 1871. This later served as the predecessor-state of modern Germany.

Institutions

The Holy Roman Empire was not a highly centralized state like most countries today. Instead, it was divided into dozens—eventually hundreds—of individual entities governed by kings, dukes, counts, bishops, abbots or other rulers, collectively known as princes. There were also some areas ruled directly by the Emperor. At no time could the Emperor simply issue decrees and govern autonomously over the Empire. His power was severely restricted by the various local leaders.

From the High Middle Ages onwards, the Holy Roman Empire was marked by an uneasy coexistence of the princes of the local territories who were struggling to take power away from it. To a greater extent than in other medieval kingdoms such as France and England, the Emperors were unable to gain much control over the lands that they formally owned. Instead, to secure their own position from the threat of being deposed, Emperors were forced to grant more and more autonomy to local rulers, both nobles and bishops. This process began in the 11th century with the Investiture Controversy and was more or less concluded with the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. Several Emperors attempted to reverse this steady dissemination of their authority, but were thwarted both by the papacy and by the princes of the Empire.

Imperial estates

The number of territories in the Empire was considerable, rising to approximately 300 at the time of the Peace of Westphalia. Many of these ''Kleinstaaten'' ("little states") covered no more than a few square miles, or included several non-contiguous pieces, so the Empire was often called a ''Flickenteppich'' ("patchwork carpet").

An entity was considered a ''Reichsstand'' (imperial estate) if, according to feudal law, it had no authority above it except the Holy Roman Emperor himself. The imperial estates comprised:

Territories ruled by a hereditary nobleman, such as a prince, archduke, duke, or count.

Territories in which secular authority was held by a clerical dignitary, such as an archbishop, bishop, or abbot. Such a cleric was a prince of the church. In the common case of a prince-bishop, this temporal territory (called a prince-bishopric) frequently overlapped with his often-larger ecclesiastical diocese, giving the bishop both civil and clerical powers. Examples include the three prince-archbishoprics: Cologne, Trier, and Mainz.

Free imperial cities, which were subject only to the jurisdiction of the emperor.

For a list of ''Reichsstände'' in 1792, see List of Reichstag participants (1792).

King of the Romans

A prospective Emperor had first to be elected King of the Romans (Latin: ''Rex romanorum''; German: ''römischer König''). German kings had been elected since the 9th century; at that point they were chosen by the leaders of the five most important tribes (the Salian Franks of Lorraine, Ripuarian Franks of Franconia, Saxons, Bavarians and Swabians). In the Holy Roman Empire, the main dukes and bishops of the kingdom elected the King of the Romans. In 1356, Emperor Charles IV issued the Golden Bull, which limited the electors to seven: the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg and the archbishops of Cologne, Mainz, and Trier. During the Thirty Years' War, the Duke of Bavaria was given the right to vote as the eighth elector. A candidate for election would be expected to offer concessions of land or money to the electors in order to secure their vote.

After being elected, the King of the Romans could theoretically claim the title of "Emperor" only after being crowned by the Pope. In many cases, this took several years while the King was held up by other tasks: frequently he first had to resolve conflicts in rebellious northern Italy, or was in quarrel with the Pope himself. Later Emperors dispensed with the papal coronation altogether, being content with the styling ''Emperor-Elect'': the last Emperor to be crowned by the Pope was Charles V in 1530.

The Emperor had to be a man of good character over 18 years. All four of his grandparents were expected to be of noble blood. No law required him to be a Catholic, though imperial law assumed that he was. He did not need to be a German (neither Alfonso X of Castile nor Richard of Cornwall, who contested for the crown in the 13th century, were themselves German). By the 17th century candidates generally possessed estates within the Empire.

Imperial Diet (''Reichstag'')

The Imperial Diet (''Reichstag'', or ''Reichsversammlung'') was the legislative body of the Holy Roman Empire and theoretically superior to the emperor himself. It was divided into three classes. The first class, the Council of Electors, consisted of the electors, or the princes who could vote for King of the Romans. The second class, the Council of Princes, consisted of the other princes. The Council of Princes was divided into two "benches," one for secular rulers and one for ecclesiastical ones. Higher-ranking princes had individual votes, while lower-ranking princes were grouped into "colleges" by geography. Each college had one vote.

The third class was the Council of Imperial Cities, which was divided into two colleges: Swabia and the Rhine. Each college had one collective vote. The Council of Imperial Cities was not fully equal to the others; it could not vote on several matters such as the admission of new territories. The representation of the Free Cities at the Diet had become common since the late Middle Ages. Nevertheless, their participation was formally acknowledged only as late as in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia ending the Thirty Years' War.

Imperial courts

The Empire also had two courts: the ''Reichshofrat'' (also known in English as the Aulic Council) at the court of the King/Emperor, and the ''Reichskammergericht'' (Imperial Chamber Court), established with the Imperial Reform of 1495.

Imperial circles

As part of the Imperial Reform, six Imperial Circles were established in 1500; four more were established in 1512. These were regional groupings of most (though not all) of the various states of the Empire for the purposes of defence, imperial taxation, supervision of coining, peace-keeping functions and public security. Each circle had its own parliament, known as a ''Kreistag'' ("Circle Diet"), and one or more directors, who coordinated the affairs of the circle. Not all imperial territories were included within the imperial circles, even after 1512; the Lands of the Bohemian Crown were excluded, as were Switzerland, the imperial fiefs in northern Italy, the lands of the Imperial Knights, and certain other small territories like the Lordship of Jever.

See also

Carolingian Empire

Gothic art

Habsburg Monarchy

History of Germany

Holy Roman Emperor

List of Frankish kings

List of German monarchs

List of states in the Holy Roman Empire

Imperial Army of the Holy Roman Empire

Translatio imperii

Notes

References

Heinz Angermeier, ''Das Alte Reich in der deutschen Geschichte''. Studien über Kontinuitäten und Zäsuren, München 1991

Karl Otmar Freiherr von Aretin, ''Das Alte Reich 1648–1806''. 4 vols. Stuttgart, 1993–2000

Peter Claus Hartmann, ''Kulturgeschichte des Heiligen Römischen Reiches 1648 bis 1806''. Wien, 2001

Georg Schmidt, ''Geschichte des Alten Reiches''. München, 1999

James Bryce, ''The Holy Roman Empire''. ISBN 0-333-03609-3

Jonathan W. Zophy (ed.), ''The Holy Roman Empire: A Dictionary Handbook''. Greenwood Press, 1980

Deutsche Reichstagsakten

George Donaldson, ''Germany: A Complete History''. Gotham Books, New York 1985

Jason Phillip Coy, Benjamin Marschke, David Warren Sabean, ''The Holy Roman Empire, Reconsidered'', Berghahn Books (2010)

External links

The constitutional structure of the Reich

Das Heilige Reich (German Museum of History, Berlin)

List of Wars of the Holy Roman Empire

Deutschland beim Tode Kaiser Karls IV. 1378 (Germany at the death of emperor Charles IV.) taken from "Meyers Kleines Konversationslexikon in sechs Bänden. Bd. 2. Leipzig u. Wien : Bibliogr. Institut 1908", map inserted after page 342

Books and articles on the Reich

The Holy Roman Empire

Maps

The Holy Roman Empire, 1138–1254

The Holy Roman Empire c. 1500

The Holy Roman Empire in 1648

The Holy Roman Empire in 1789 (interactive map)

Category:States and territories established in 962 Category:Holy Roman Empire Category:History of Austria Category:History of Germany Category:History of the Netherlands Category:House of Habsburg Category:Former theocracies Category:Christian terms

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Native name

"The Senate and People of Rome" – ["Dominion (Literally 'kingdom') of the Romans"]) and ''Romania''. ''Res publica'', as a term denoting the Roman "commonwealth" in general, can refer to both the Republican and the Imperial era, while ''Imperium Romanum'' (or, sometimes, ''Romanorum'') is used to refer to the territorial extent of Roman authority. ''Populus Romanus'', "the Roman people", is often used for the Roman state dealing with other nations. The term ''Romania'', initially a colloquial term for the empire's territory as well as the collectivity of its inhabitants, appears in Greek and Latin sources from the fourth century onward and was eventually carried over to the Byzantine Empire. (See Wolff, R.L. "Romania: The Latin Empire of Constantinople". In: ''Speculum'', 23 (1948), pp. 1–34 (pp. 2–3).)|groupnb}}

|conventional_long_name = Roman Empire |conventional_long_name = Roman Empire |common_name = Roman Empire |national_motto = |era = Classical antiquity |status = Empire |continent = Afroeurasia |region = Mediterranean |government_type = Autocracy |p1 = Roman Republic |flag_p1 = Spqrstone.jpg |s1 = Western Roman Empire |flag_s1 = Labarum.svg |s2 = Byzantine Empire |flag_s2 = Flag of Palaeologus Dynasty.svg |event_start = Octavian proclaimed Augustus |year_start = 27 BC |event_end = Deposition of western emperor Romulus Augustus/Fall of Constantinople * |year_end = AD 476/1453 |event_pre = Battle of Actium |date_pre = 2 September 31 BC |event1 = Diocletian splits imperial administration between East and West |date_event1 = 285 |event2 = Constantine the Great establishes Constantinople as a new imperial capital |date_event2 = 330 |event3 = Death of Theodosius the Great, followed by permanent division of the Empire into eastern and western halves |date_event3 = 395 |event_post = |date_post = |image_coat = Vexilloid of the Roman Empire.svg |symbol_type = Vexillum with aquila and Roman state initialism |coa_size = 120px |image_map = Roman Empire 117AD.jpg |image_map_caption = The Roman Empire's maximal extent in AD 117. |capital = Rome was the sole political capital until AD 286There were several political centres during the Tetrarchy while Rome continued to be the nominal, cultural, and ideological capital.Constantine re-founded and established the city of Constantinople as the new capital of the empire in 330.Mediolanum (Milan) was its western counterpart during the increasingly frequent East/West divisions. The western imperial court was later relocated to Ravenna. |common_languages = Latin, Greek |religion = traditional Roman religion, Imperial cult, Hellenistic religions (to 380)Christianity(from 380) |currency = (a) 27 BC – AD 212: 1 gold ''aureus'' (1/40 lb. of gold, devalued to 1/50 lb. by 212) = 25 silver ''denarii'' = 100 bronze ''sesterces'' = 400 copper ''asses''. (b) 294–312: 1 gold ''aureus solidus'' (1/60 lb. of gold) = 10 silver ''argentei'' = 40 bronze ''folles'' = 1,000 debased metal ''denarii''(c) 312 onwards: 1 gold ''solidus'' (1/72 lb.) = 24 silver ''siliquae'' = 180 bronze ''folles'' |leader1 = Augustus |leader2 = Theodosius I |leader3 = Romulus Augustus / Constantine XI |year_leader1 = 27 BC–AD 14 |year_leader2 = 378–395 |year_leader3 = 475–476 / 1449–1453 |title_leader = Emperor |title_representative = Consul |representative1 = |representative2 = |year_representative1 = |year_representative2 = |legislature = Roman Senate ||stat_year1 = 25 BC |stat_area1 = 2750000 |stat_year2 = 50 |stat_pop1 = 56800000 |stat_area2 = 4200000 |stat_year3 = 117 |stat_area3 = 5000000 |stat_pop3 = 88000000 |stat_year4 = 390 |stat_area4 = 4400000 |footnotes = * These events marked the end of the Western Roman Empire (286–476) and of the Eastern Roman Empire (330–1453), respectively. |today = }} The Roman Empire () was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor, Augustus. This includes from about 44 BC to 1453 AD.

The 500-year-old Roman Republic, which preceded it, had been weakened and subverted through several civil wars. Several events are commonly proposed to mark the transition from Republic to Empire, including Julius Caesar's appointment as perpetual dictator (44 BC), the Battle of Actium ( 31 BC), and the Roman Senate's granting to Octavian the honorific ''Augustus'' ( 27 BC).

Roman expansion began in the days of the Republic, but the empire reached its greatest extent under Emperor Trajan: during his reign (98 to 117 AD) the Roman Empire controlled approximately km² of land surface. Because of the Empire's vast extent and long endurance, the institutions and culture of Rome had a profound and lasting influence on the development of language, religion, architecture, philosophy, law, and forms of government in the territory it governed, particularly Europe, and by means of European expansionism throughout the modern world.

In the late 3rd century AD, Diocletian established the practice of dividing authority between four co-emperors, in order to better secure the vast territory, putting an end to the Crisis of the Third Century. During the following decades the empire was often divided along an East/West axis. After the death of Theodosius I in 395 it was divided for the last time.

The Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476 as Romulus Augustus was forced to abdicate to the Germanic warlord Odoacer. The Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire ended in 1453 with the death of Constantine XI and the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks led by Mehmed II.

Government

Emperor

The powers of an emperor (his ''imperium'') existed, in theory at least, by virtue of his "tribunician powers" (''potestas tribunicia'') and his "proconsular powers" (''imperium proconsulare''). In theory, the tribunician powers (which were similar to those of the Plebeian Tribunes under the old republic) made the emperor's person and office sacrosanct, and gave the emperor authority over Rome's civil government, including the power to preside over and to control the Senate.

The proconsular powers (similar to those of military governors, or Proconsuls, under the old republic) gave him authority over the Roman army. He was also given powers that, under the republic, had been reserved for the Senate and the assemblies, including the right to declare war, to ratify treaties, and to negotiate with foreign leaders.

The emperor also had the authority to carry out a range of duties that had been performed by the censors, including the power to control senate membership. In addition, the emperor controlled the religious institutions, since, as emperor, he was always ''Pontifex Maximus'' and a member of each of the four major priesthoods.

Realistically, the main support of an emperor's power and authority was the military. Being paid by the imperial treasury, the legionaries also swore an annual military oath of loyalty towards him, called the Sacramentum.

The death of an emperor led to a crucial period of uncertainty and crisis. In theory the senate was entitled to choose the new emperor, but most emperors chose their own successors, usually a close family member. The new emperor had to seek a swift acknowledgement of his new status and authority in order to stabilize the political landscape. No emperor could hope to survive, much less to reign, without the allegiance and loyalty of the Praetorian Guard and of the legions. To secure their loyalty, several emperors paid the ''donativum'', a monetary reward.

Senate

While the Roman assemblies continued to meet after the founding of the empire, their powers were all transferred to the Roman Senate, and so senatorial decrees (''senatus consulta'') acquired the full force of law.

In theory, the emperor and the senate were two equal branches of government, but the actual authority of the senate was negligible and it was largely a vehicle through which the emperor disguised his autocratic powers under a cloak of republicanism. Although the Senate still commanded much prestige and respect, it was largely a glorified rubber stamp institution. Stripped of most of its powers, the Senate was largely at the emperor's mercy.

Many emperors showed a certain degree of respect towards this ancient institution, while others were notorious for ridiculing it. During senate meetings, the emperor sat between the two consuls, and usually acted as the presiding officer. Higher ranking senators spoke before lower ranking senators, although the emperor could speak at any time. (about 100 kg of gold), a figure which would later be raised with the passing of centuries.

Equestrian order

Below the Senatorial order was the Equestrian order. The requirements and posts reserved for this class, while perhaps not so prestigious, were still very important. Some of the more vital posts, like the governorship of Aegyptus, were even forbidden to the members of the Senatorial order and available only to equestrians.

Military

[[File:Roman Empire 125.png|thumb|300px|The Roman empire under Hadrian (ruled 117–138) showing the location of the Roman legions deployed in AD 125.]]

Legions

During and after the civil war, Octavian reduced the huge number of the legions (over 60) to a much more manageable and affordable size (28). Several legions, particularly those with doubtful loyalties, were simply disbanded. Other legions were amalgamated, a fact suggested by the title ''Gemina'' (Twin).

In AD 9, Germanic tribes wiped out three full legions in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. This disastrous event reduced the number of the legions to 25. The total of the legions would later be increased again and for the next 300 years always be a little above or below 30.

Augustus also created the Praetorian Guard: nine cohorts ostensibly to maintain the public peace which were garrisoned in Italy. Better paid than the legionaries, the Praetorians also served less time; instead of serving the standard 25 years of the legionaries, they retired after 16 years of service.

Auxilia

While the auxilia (Latin: ''auxilia'' = supports) are not as famous as the legionaries, they were of major importance. Unlike the legionaries, the auxilia were recruited from among the non-citizens. Organized in smaller units of roughly cohort strength, they were paid less than the legionaries, and after 25 years of service were rewarded with Roman citizenship, also extended to their sons. According to Tacitus there were roughly as many auxiliaries as there were legionaries. Since at this time there were 25 legions of around 5,000 men each, the auxilia thus amounted to around 125,000 men, implying approximately 250 auxiliary regiments.

Navy

The Roman navy (Latin: ''Classis'', lit. "fleet") not only aided in the supply and transport of the legions, but also helped in the protection of the frontiers in the rivers Rhine and Danube. Another of its duties was the protection of the very important maritime trade routes against the threat of pirates. Therefore it patrolled the whole of the Mediterranean, parts of the North Atlantic (coasts of Hispania, Gaul, and Britannia), and had also a naval presence in the Black Sea. Nevertheless the army was considered the senior and more prestigious branch.

Provinces

Until the Tetrarchy (296 AD) Roman provinces (lat. ''provincae'') were administrative and territorial units of the Roman Empire outside of Italy. In the old days of the Republic the governorships of the provinces were traditionally awarded to members of the Senatorial Order. Augustus' reforms changed this policy.

Imperial provinces

Augustus created the Imperial provinces. Most, but not all, of the Imperial provinces were relatively recent conquests and located at the borders. Thereby the overwhelming majority of legions, which were stationed at the frontiers, were under direct Imperial control. Very important was the Imperial province of Aegyptus (modern Egypt), the major breadbasket of the empire, whose grain supply was vital to feed the masses in Rome. It was considered the personal fiefdom of the emperor, and Senators were forbidden to even visit this province. The governor of Aegyptus and the commanders of any legion stationed there were not from the Senatorial Order, but were chosen by the emperor from among the members of the lower Equestrian Order.

Senatorial provinces

The old traditional policy continued largely unchanged in the Senatorial provinces. Due to their location, away from the borders, and to the fact that they were under longer Roman sovereignty and control, these provinces were largely peaceful and stable. Only a single legion was based in a Senatorial province: Legio III Augusta, stationed in the Senatorial province of Africa (modern northern Algeria).

The status of a province was subject to change; it could change from Senatorial towards Imperial, or vice-versa. This happened several times during Augustus' reign. Another trend was to create new provinces, mostly by dividing older ones, or by expanding the empire.

Religion

As the empire expanded, and came to include people from a variety of cultures, the worship of an ever increasing number of deities was tolerated and accepted. The imperial government, and the Romans in general, tended to be very tolerant towards most religions and cults, so long as they did not cause trouble. This could easily be accepted by other faiths as Roman liturgy and ceremonies were frequently tailored to fit local culture and identity.

An individual could attend to both the Roman gods representing his Roman identity and his own personal faith, which was considered part of his personal identity. There were periodic persecutions of various religions at various points in time, most notably that of Christians. As the historian Edward Gibbon noted, however, most of the recorded histories of Christian persecutions come to us through the Christian church, which had an incentive to exaggerate the degree to which the persecutions occurred. The non-Christian contemporary sources only mention the persecutions passingly and without assigning great importance to them.

Imperial cult

In an effort to enhance loyalty, the inhabitants of the empire were called to participate in the Imperial cult to revere (usually deceased) emperors as demigods. Few emperors claimed to be Gods while living, with the few exceptions being emperors who were widely regarded at the time to be insane (such as Caligula). Doing so in the early empire would have risked revealing the shallowness of what the emperor Augustus called the "restored republic" and would have had a decidedly eastern quality to it. Since the tool was mostly one the emperor used to control his subjects, its usefulness would have been greatest in the chaotic later empire, when the emperors were often Christians and unwilling to participate in the practice.

Usually, an emperor was deified after his death by his successor in an attempt by that successor to enhance his own prestige. This practice can be misunderstood, however, since "deification" was to the ancient world what canonization is to the Christian world. Likewise, the term "god" had a different context in the ancient world. This could be seen during the years of the Roman Republic with religio-political practices such as the disbanding of a senate session if it was believed the gods disapproved of the session or wished a particular vote. Deification was one of the many honors a dead emperor was entitled to, as the Romans (more than modern societies) placed great prestige on honors and national recognitions.

The importance of the Imperial cult slowly grew, reaching its peak during the Crisis of the Third Century. Especially in the eastern half of the empire imperial cults grew very popular. As such it was one of the major agents of romanization. The central elements of the cult complex were next to a temple; a theatre or amphitheatre for gladiator displays and other games and a public bath complex. Sometimes the imperial cult was added to the cults of an existing temple or celebrated in a special hall in the bath complex.

The seriousness of this belief is unclear. Some Romans ridiculed the notion that a Roman emperor was to be considered a living god, or would even make fun of the deification of an emperor after his death. Seneca the Younger parodied the notion of apotheosis in his only known satire ''The Pumpkinification of Claudius'', in which the clumsy and ill-spoken Claudius is transformed not into a god, but a pumpkin or gourd. An element of mockery was present even at Claudius's funeral, , and Vespasian's purported last words were ''Væ, puto deus fio'', "Oh dear! I think I'm becoming a god!".

Absorption of foreign cults

Since Roman religion did not have a core belief that excluded other religions, several foreign gods and cults became popular.

The worship of Cybele was the earliest, introduced from around 200 BC. Isis and Osiris were introduced from Egypt a century later. Bacchus and Sol Invictus were quite important and Mithras became very popular with the military. Several of these were Mystery cults. In the 1st century BC Julius Caesar granted Jews the freedom to worship in Rome as a reward for their help in Alexandria.

Controversial religions

Druids

Druids were considered as essentially non-Roman: a prescript of Augustus forbade Roman citizens to practice "druidical" rites. Pliny reports that under Tiberius the druids were suppressed—along with diviners and physicians—by a decree of the Senate, and Claudius forbade their rites completely in AD 54.

Judaism

While Judaism was largely accepted, as long as Jews paid the Jewish Tax after 70 AD, there was anti-Judaism in the pre-Christian Roman Empire and there were several Jewish-Roman wars.

The ''Crisis under Caligula'' (37–41) has been proposed as the "first open break between Rome and the Jews", even though problems were already evident during the Census of Quirinius in 6 and under Sejanus (before 31).

Until the rebellion in Judea in AD 66, Jews were generally protected. To get around Roman laws banning secret societies and to allow their freedom of worship, Julius Caesar declared Synagogues were colleges. Tiberius forbade Judaism in Rome but they quickly returned to their former protected status. Claudius expelled Jews from the city; however, the passage of Suetonius is ambiguous: "Because the Jews at Rome caused continuous disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus he [Claudius] expelled them from the city." ''Chrestus'' has been identified as another form of ''Christus''; the disturbances may have been related to the arrival of the first Christians, and that the Roman authorities, failing to distinguish between the Jews and the early Christians, simply decided to expel them all.

Historians debate whether or not the Roman government distinguished between Christians and Jews prior to Nerva's modification of the Fiscus Judaicus in 96. From then on, practising Jews paid the tax; Christians did not.

Christianity

Christianity emerged in Roman Judea as a Jewish religious sect in the 1st century AD. The religion gradually spread out of Jerusalem, initially establishing major bases in first Antioch, then Alexandria, and over time throughout the Empire as well as beyond. For the first two centuries of the Christian era, Imperial authorities largely viewed Christianity simply as a Jewish sect rather than a distinct religion. No emperor issued general laws against the faith or its Church, and persecutions, such as they were, were carried out under the authority of local government officials.A surviving letter from Pliny the Younger, governor of Bythinia, to the emperor Trajan describes his persecution and executions of Christians; Trajan notably responded that Pliny should not seek out Christians nor heed anonymous denunciations, but only punish open Christians who refused to recant.

Suetonius mentions in passing that during the reign of Nero "punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition" ''(superstitionis novae ac maleficae)''. He gives no reason for the punishment. Tacitus reports that after the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, some among the population held Nero responsible and that the emperor attempted to deflect blame onto the Christians. The war against the Jews during Nero's reign, which so destabilized the empire that it led to civil war and Nero's suicide, provided an additional rationale for suppression of this 'Jewish' sect.

One of the earliest persecutions occurred in Gaul at Lyon in 177. Persecution was often local and sporadic, and some Christians welcomed martyrdom as a testament of faith. The Decian persecution (246–251) was a serious threat to the Church, but while it potentially undermined the religious hierarchy in urban centers, ultimately it served to strengthen Christian defiance. Diocletian undertook what was to be the most severe and last major persecution of Christians, lasting from 303 to 311. Christianity had become too widespread to suppress, and in 313, the Edict of Milan made tolerance the official policy. Constantine I (sole ruler 324–337) became the first Christian emperor, and in 380 Theodosius I established Christianity as the official religion.

By the 5th century Christian hegemony had rapidly changed the Empire's identity even as the Western provinces collapsed. Those who practiced the traditional polytheistic religions were persecuted, as were Christians regarded as heretics by the authorities in power.

Languages

The language of Rome before its expansion was Latin, and this became the empire's official language. By the time of the imperial period Latin had developed two registers: the "high" written Classical Latin and the "low" spoken Vulgar Latin. While Classical Latin remained relatively stable, even through the Middle Ages, Vulgar Latin as with any spoken language was fluid and evolving. Vulgar Latin became the lingua franca in the western provinces, later evolving into the modern Romance languages: Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, etc. Greek and Classical Latin were the languages of literature, scholarship, and education.

Although Latin remained the most widely spoken language in the West, through to the fall of Rome and for some centuries afterwards, in the East the Greek language was the literary language and the lingua franca. The Romans generally did not attempt to supplant local languages. They generally left established customs in place and only gradually introduced typical Roman cultural elements including the Latin language. Along with Greek, many other languages of different tribes were used but almost without expression in writing.

Greek was already widely spoken in many cities in the east, and as such, the Romans were quite content to retain it as an administrative language there rather than impede bureaucratic efficiency. Hence, two official secretaries served in the Roman Imperial court, one charged with correspondence in Latin and the other with correspondence in Greek for the East. Thus in the Eastern Province, as with all provinces, original languages were retained.

Moreover, the process of hellenisation widened its scope during the Roman period, for the Romans perpetuated "Hellenistic" culture, but with all the trappings of Roman improvements. This further spreading of "Hellenistic" culture (and therefore language) was largely due to the extensive infrastructure (in the form of entertainment, health, and education amenities, and extensive transportation networks, etc.) put in place by the Romans and their tolerance of, and inclusion of, other cultures, a characteristic which set them apart from the xenophobic nature of the Greeks preceding them.

Since the Roman annexation of Greece in 146 BC, the Greek language gradually obtained a unique place in the Roman world, owing initially to the large number of Greek slaves in Roman households. In Rome itself Greek became the second language of the educated elite. It became the common language in the early Church (as its major centers in the early Christian period were in the East), and the language of scholarship and the arts.

However, due to the presence of other widely spoken languages in the densely populated east, such as Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Aramaic and Phoenician (which was also extensively spoken in North Africa), Greek never took as strong a hold beyond Asia Minor (some urban enclaves notwithstanding) as Latin eventually did in the west. This is partly evident in the extent to which the derivative languages are spoken today. Like Latin, the language gained a dual nature with the literary language, an Attic Greek variant, existing alongside spoken language, Koine Greek, which evolved into Medieval or Byzantine Greek (Romaic).

By the 4th century AD, Greek no longer held such dominance over Latin in the arts and sciences as it had previously, resulting to a great extent from the growth of the western provinces. This was true also of Christian literature, reflected, for example, in the publication in the early 5th century AD of the Vulgate Bible, the first officially accepted Latin Bible. As the Western Empire declined, the number of people who spoke both Greek and Latin declined as well, contributing greatly to the future East–West / Orthodox–Catholic cultural divide in Europe.

Important as both languages were, today the descendants of Latin are widely spoken in many parts of the world, while the Greek dialects are limited mostly to Greece, Cyprus, and small enclaves in Turkey and Southern Italy (where the Eastern Empire retained control for several more centuries). To some degree this can be attributed to the fact that the western provinces fell mainly to "Latinised" Christian tribes whereas the eastern provinces fell to Muslim Arabs and Turks for whom Greek held less cultural significance.

Culture

Life in the Roman Empire revolved around the city of Rome, and its famed seven hills. The city also had several theatres, gymnasia, and many taverns, baths and brothels. Throughout the territory under Rome's control, residential architecture ranged from very modest houses to country villas, and in the capital city of Rome, to the residences on the elegant Palatine Hill, from which the word "''palace''" is derived. The vast majority of the population lived in the city centre, packed into apartment blocks.

Most Roman towns and cities had a forum and temples, as did the city of Rome itself. Aqueducts were built to bring water to urban centres and served as an avenue to import wine and oil from abroad. Landlords generally resided in cities and their estates were left in the care of farm managers. To stimulate a higher labour productivity, many landlords freed a large numbers of slaves. By the time of Augustus, cultured Greek household slaves taught the Roman young (sometimes even the girls). Greek sculptures adorned Hellenistic landscape gardening on the Palatine or in the villas.

Many aspects of Roman culture were taken from the Etruscans and the Greeks. In architecture and sculpture, the difference between Greek models and Roman paintings are apparent. The chief Roman contributions to architecture were the arch and the dome.

The centre of the early social structure was the family, which was not only marked by blood relations but also by the legally constructed relation of patria potestas. The Pater familias was the absolute head of the family; he was the master over his wife, his children, the wives of his sons, the nephews, the slaves and the freedmen, disposing of them and of their goods at will, even putting them to death. Originally, only patrician aristocracy enjoyed the privilege of forming familial clans, or ''gens'', as legal entities; later, in the wake of political struggles and warfare, clients were also enlisted. Thus, such plebian ''gentes'' were the first formed, imitating their patrician counterparts.

Slavery and slaves were part of the social order; there were slave markets where they could be bought and sold. Many slaves were freed by the masters for services rendered; some slaves could save money to buy their freedom. Generally mutilation and murder of slaves was prohibited by legislation. It is estimated that over 25% of the Roman population was enslaved. Professor Gerhard Rempel from the Western New England College claims that in the city of Rome alone, during the Empire, there were about 400,000 slaves.

The city of Rome had a place called the Campus Martius ("Field of Mars"), which was a sort of drill ground for Roman soldiers. Later, the Campus became Rome's track and field playground. In the campus, the youth assembled to play and exercise, which included jumping, wrestling, boxing and racing. Riding, throwing, and swimming were also preferred physical activities.

In the countryside, pastimes also included fishing and hunting. Board games played in Rome included Dice (Tesserae or Tali), Roman Chess (Latrunculi), Roman Checkers (Calculi), Tic-tac-toe (Terni Lapilli), and Ludus duodecim scriptorum and Tabula, predecessors of backgammon. There were several other activities to keep people engaged like chariot races, musical and theatrical performances,

Clothing, dining, and the arts

Roman clothing fashions changed little from the late Republic to the end of the Western empire 600 years later. The cloth and the dress distinguished one class of people from the other class. The tunic worn by plebeians (common people) like shepherds and slaves was made from coarse and dark material, whereas the tunic worn by patricians was of linen or white wool. A magistrate would wear the ''tunica augusticlavi''; senators wore a tunic with broad stripes, called ''tunica laticlavi''. Military tunics were shorter than the ones worn by civilians. Boys, up until the festival of Liberalia, wore the ''toga praetexta'', which was a toga with a crimson or purple border. The ''toga virilis'', (or ''toga pura'') was worn by men over the age of 16 to signify their citizenship in Rome.

The ''toga picta'' was worn by triumphant generals and had embroidery of their skill on the battlefield. The ''toga pulla'' was worn when in mourning. Even footwear indicated a person's social status: patricians wore red and orange sandals, senators had brown footwear, consuls had white shoes, and soldiers wore heavy boots. Men typically wore a toga, and women a stola. The woman's ''stola'' looked different from a toga, and was usually brightly coloured. The Romans also invented socks for those soldiers required to fight on the northern frontiers, sometimes worn in sandals. The use of silk also increased steadily and most courtiers of the later empire wore elaborate silk robes. Heavy military-style belts were worn by bureaucrats as well as soldiers, revealing the general militarization of late Roman government. Trousers—considered barbarous garments worn by Germans and Persians—were only adopted partially near the end of the empire in a sign for conservatives of cultural decay. Early medieval kings and aristocrats dressed like late Roman generals, not like the older toga-clad senatorial tradition. Romans had simple food habits. Staple food was simple, generally consumed at around 11 o'clock, and consisted of bread, salad, cheese, fruits, nuts, and cold meat left over from the dinner the night before. The Roman poet, Horace mentions another Roman favourite, the olive, in reference to his own diet, which he describes as very simple: "As for me, olives, endives, and smooth mallows provide sustenance." The family ate together, sitting on stools around a table. Fingers were used to eat solid foods and spoons were used for soups.

Wine was considered a staple drink, consumed at all meals and occasions by all classes and was quite cheap. Many types of drinks involving grapes and honey were consumed as well. Drinking on an empty stomach was regarded as boorish and a sure sign for alcoholism, whose debilitating physical and psychological effects were known to the Romans. An accurate accusation of being an alcoholic was an effective way to discredit political rivals.

Roman literature was from its very inception influenced heavily by Greek authors. Some of the earliest works we possess are of historical epics telling the early military history of Rome. As the empire expanded, authors began to produce poetry, comedy, history, and tragedy. Virgil represents the pinnacle of Roman epic poetry. His ''Aeneid'' tells the story of flight of Aeneas from Troy and his settlement of the city that would become Rome. The genre of satire was common in Rome, and satires were written by, among others, Juvenal and Persius. Many Roman homes were decorated with landscapes by Greek artists. Portrait sculpture during the period utilized youthful and classical proportions, evolving later into a mixture of realism and idealism. Advancements were also made in relief sculptures, often depicting Roman victories.

Music was a major part of everyday life. The word itself derives from Greek ''μουσική'' (''mousike''), "(art) of the Muses". Many private and public events were accompanied by music, ranging from nightly dining to military parades and manoeuvres. In a discussion of any ancient music, however, non-specialists and even many musicians have to be reminded that much of what makes our modern music familiar to us is the result of developments only within the last 1,000 years; thus, our ideas of melody, scales, harmony, and even the instruments we use would not be familiar to Romans who made and listened to music many centuries earlier.

Over time, Roman architecture was modified as their urban requirements changed, and the civil engineering and building construction technology became developed and refined. The Roman concrete has remained a riddle, and even after more than 2,000 years some Roman structures still stand magnificently. The architectural style of the capital city was emulated by other urban centres under Roman control and influence.

Education

Following various military conquests in the Greek East, Romans adapted a number of Greek educational precepts to their own system. Home was often the learning centre, where children were taught Roman law, customs, and physical training to prepare the boys for eventual recruitment into the Roman army. Conforming to discipline was a point of great emphasis. Girls generally received instruction from their mothers in the art of spinning, weaving, and sewing.

Education nominally began at the age of six. During the next six to seven years, both boys and girls were taught the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. From the age of twelve, they would be learning Latin, Greek, grammar and literature, followed by training for public speaking. Oratory was an art to be practised and learnt, and good orators commanded respect. To become an effective orator was one of the objectives of education and learning. In some cases, services of gifted slaves were utilized for imparting education.

Economy

Industry

The invention and widespread application of hydraulic mining, namely hushing and ground-sluicing, aided by the ability of the Romans to plan and execute mining operations on a large scale, allowed various base and precious metals to be extracted on a proto-industrial scale.

The annual total iron output is estimated at 82,500 t, assuming a productive capacity of c. 1.5 kg per capita. Copper was produced at an annual rate of 15,000 t, and lead at 80,000 t, both production levels not to be paralled until the Industrial Revolution; Spain alone had a 40% share in world lead production. The high lead output was a by-product of extensive silver mining which reached an amount of 200 t per annum. At its peak around the mid-2nd century AD, the Roman silver stock is estimated at 10,000 t, five to ten times larger than the combined silver mass of medieval Europe and the Caliphate around 800 AD. Any one of the ''Imperium'''s most important mining provinces produced as much silver as the contemporary Han empire as a whole, and more gold by an entire order of magnitude.

The high amount of metal coinage in circulation meant that more coined money was available for trading or saving in the economy (monetization).

Currency

The imperial government was, as all governments, interested in the issue and control of the currency in circulation. To mint coins was an important political act: the image of the ruling emperor appeared on most issues, and coins were a means of showing his image throughout the empire. Also featured were predecessors, empresses, other family members, and heirs apparent. By issuing coins with the image of an heir his legitimacy and future succession was proclaimed and reinforced. Political messages and imperial propaganda such as proclamations of victory and acknowledgements of loyalty also appeared in certain issues.

Legally only the emperor and the Senate had the authority to mint coins inside the empire. However the authority of the Senate was mainly in name only. In general, the imperial government issued gold and silver coins while the Senate issued bronze coins marked by the legend ''"SC"'', short for ''Senatus Consulto'' "by decree of the Senate". However, bronze coinage could be struck without this legend. Some Greek cities were allowed to mint bronze and certain silver coins, which today are known as ''Greek Imperials'' (also ''Roman Colonials'' or ''Roman Provincials''). The imperial mints were under the control of a chief financial minister, and the provincial mints were under the control of the imperial provincial procurators. The Senatorial mints were governed by officials of the Senatorial treasury.

GDP

In recent years, economic historians have turned their attention to the size and structure of the Roman economy.

+ Estimates of Roman per-capita and total GDP1)
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¹⁾ Decimal fractions rounded to the nearest tenth. Cursive numbers not directly given by the authors; they are obtained by multiplying the respective value of GDP per capita by estimated population size.

Italia is considered the richest region, due to tax transfers from the provinces and the concentration of elite income in the heartland; its GDP per capita is estimated at having been around 40% higher than in the rest of the empire.

Demography

In recent years, questions relating to ancient demographics have received increasingly more scholarly attention, with estimates of the population size of the Roman empire at its demographic peak now varying between 60 and ("low count") and over ("high count"). Adhering to the more traditional value of inhabitants, the Roman Empire constituted the most populous Western political unity until the mid-19th century and remained unsurpassed on a global scale through the first millennium.

History

Augustus (27 BC–AD 14)

Octavian, the grandnephew and heir of Julius Caesar, had made himself a central military figure during the chaotic period following Caesar's assassination. In 43 BC at the age of twenty he held his first consulship and became one of the three members of the Second Triumvirate, a political alliance with Lepidus, and Mark Antony. In 36 BC, he was given the power of a Plebeian Tribune, which gave him veto power over the senate and the ability to control the Plebeian Council, the principal legislative assembly. These powers made himself and his position sacrosanct. The triumvirate ended in 32 BC, torn apart by the competing ambitions of its members: Lepidus was forced into exile and Antony, who had allied himself with his lover Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt, committed suicide in 30 BC following his defeat at the Battle of Actium (31 BC) by the fleet of Octavian commanded by his general Agrippa. Octavian subsequently annexed Egypt to the empire.

Now sole ruler of Rome, Octavian began a full-scale reformation of military, fiscal and political matters. In 29 BC, he was given the authority of a Roman Censor and thus the power to appoint new senators. The senate also granted him a unique grade of Proconsular ''imperium'', giving him authority over all proconsuls, the military governors of the empire. The powers had he now secured for himself were in effect those that his predecessor Julius Caesar had secured for himself years earlier as Roman Dictator. The provinces at the frontiers where the vast majority of legions were stationed, newly classified as imperial provinces, were now under the control of Octavian. The peaceful provinces were given to the authority of the senate and were classified as senatorial provinces. The legions, which had reached an unprecedented number of around fifty because of the civil wars, were concentrated and reduced to twenty-eight. Octavian also created nine special cohorts to maintain peace in Italy, keeping at least three stationed in Rome. The cohorts in the capital became known as the Praetorian Guard.

In 27 BC, Octavian offered to transfer control of the state back to the senate. and took the title of ''Princeps'' or "first citizen". and soon after he recognized Tiberius as his heir. In 13 AD, a law was passed which extended Augustus' powers over the provinces to Tiberius, so that Tiberius' legal powers were equivalent to, and independent from, those of Augustus.

Due to the demands of the army, however, Claudius was ultimately declared emperor. Claudius was neither paranoid like his uncle Tiberius, nor insane like his nephew Caligula, and was therefore able to administer the empire with reasonable ability. In his own family life he was less successful, as he married his niece, who may very well have poisoned him in 54. Nero, who succeeded Claudius, focused much of his attention on diplomacy, trade, and increasing the cultural capital of the empire. Nero, though, is remembered as a tyrant, and was forced to commit suicide in 68.

Nero was followed by a brief period of civil war, known as the "Year of the Four Emperors". Augustus had established a standing army, where individual soldiers served under the same military governors over an extended period of time. The consequence was that the soldiers in the provinces developed a degree of loyalty to their commanders, which they did not have for the emperor. Thus the empire was, in a sense, a union of inchoate principalities, which could have disintegrated at any time. Between and , Rome witnessed the successive rise and fall of Galba, Otho and Vitellius until the final accession of Vespasian, first ruler of the Flavian dynasty. These events showed that any successful general could legitimately claim a right to the throne.

Vespasian, though a successful emperor, continued the weakening of the Senate which had been going on since the reign of Tiberius. Through his sound fiscal policy, he was able to build up a surplus in the treasury, and began construction on the Colosseum. Titus, Vespasian's successor, quickly proved his merit, although his short reign was marked by disaster, including the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii. He held the opening ceremonies in the still unfinished Colosseum, but died in 81. His brother Domitian succeeded him. Having exceedingly poor relations with the senate, Domitian was murdered in September of 96.

The next century came to be known as the period of the "Five Good Emperors", in which the successions were peaceful and the Empire was prosperous. Each emperor of this period was adopted by his predecessor. The last two of the "Five Good Emperors" and Commodus are also called Antonines. After his accession, Nerva, who succeeded Domitian, set a new tone: he restored much confiscated property and involved the Roman Senate in his rule.

Starting with 101 Trajan undertook two military campaigns against the gold rich Dacia, which he finally conquered in 106 (see Trajan's Dacian Wars). In 112, Trajan marched on Armenia and annexed it to the Roman Empire. Then he turned south into Parthia, taking several cities before declaring Mesopotamia a new province of the empire, and lamenting that he was too old to follow in the steps of Alexander the Great. During his rule, the Roman Empire expanded to its largest extent, and would never again advance so far to the east. Hadrian's reign was marked by a general lack of major military conflicts, but he had to defend the vast territories that Trajan had acquired.

Antoninus Pius's reign was comparatively peaceful. During the reign of Marcus Aurelius, Germanic tribes launched many raids along the northern border. The period of the "Five Good Emperors" also commonly described as the Pax Romana, or "Roman Peace" was brought to an end by the reign of Commodus. Commodus was the son of Marcus Aurelius, breaking the scheme of adoptive successors that had turned out so well. Commodus became paranoid and slipped into insanity before being murdered in 192. The Severan Dynasty, which lasted from 193 until 235, included several increasingly troubled reigns. A generally successful ruler, Septimius Severus, the first of the dynasty, cultivated the army's support and substituted equestrian officers for senators in key administrative positions. His son, Caracalla, extended full Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire. Increasingly unstable and autocratic, Caracalla was assassinated by Macrinus, who succeeded him, before being killed and succeeded by Elagabalus. Alexander Severus, the last of the dynasty, was increasingly unable to control the army, and was assassinated in 235.

Crisis of the Third Century and the later emperors (235–395)

The Crisis of the Third Century is a commonly applied name for the near-collapse of the Roman Empire between 235 and 284. During this time, 25 emperors reigned, and the empire experienced extreme military, political, and economic crises. Additionally, in 251, the Plague of Cyprian broke out, causing large-scale mortality which may have seriously affected the ability of the Empire to defend itself. This period ended with the accession of Diocletian, who reigned from 284 until 305, and who solved many of the acute problems experienced during this crisis.

However, the core problems would remain and cause the eventual destruction of the western empire. Diocletian saw the vast empire as ungovernable, and therefore split the empire in half and created two equal emperors to rule under the title of ''Augustus''. In doing so, he effectively created what would become the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. In 293 authority was further divided, as each ''Augustus'' took a junior Emperor called a ''Caesar'' to provide a line of succession. This constituted what is now known as the Tetrarchy ("rule of four"). The transitions of this period mark the beginnings of Late Antiquity.

The Tetrarchy effectively collapsed with the death of Constantius Chlorus, the first of the Constantinian dynasty, in 306. Constantius's troops immediately proclaimed his son Constantine the Great as ''Augustus''. A series of civil wars broke out, which ended with the entire empire being united under Constantine, who legalised Christianity definitively in 313 through the ''Edict of Milan''.

In 361, after further episodes of civil war, Julian became emperor. His edict of toleration in 362 ordered the reopening of pagan temples, and, more problematically for the Christian Church, the recalling of previously exiled Christian bishops. Julian eventually resumed the war against Shapur II of Persia, although he received a mortal wound in battle and died in 363. His officers then elected Jovian emperor. Jovian ceded territories won from the Persians as far back as Trajan's time, and restored the privileges of Christianity, before dying in 364.

Upon Jovian's death, Valentinian I, the first of the Valentinian dynasty, was elected Augustus, and chose his brother Valens to serve as his co-emperor. In 365, Procopius managed to bribe two legions, who then proclaimed him Augustus. War between the two rival Eastern Roman Emperors continued until Procopius was defeated, although in 367, eight-year-old Gratian was proclaimed emperor by the other two. In 375 Valentinian I led his army in a campaign against a Germanic tribe, but died shortly thereafter. Succession did not go as planned. Gratian was then a 16-year-old and arguably ready to act as Emperor, but the troops proclaimed his infant half-brother emperor under the title Valentinian II, and Gratian acquiesced.

Meanwhile, the Eastern Roman Empire faced its own problems with Germanic tribes. One tribe fled their former lands and sought refuge in the Eastern Roman Empire. Valens let them settle on the southern bank of the Danube in 376, but they soon revolted against their Roman hosts. Valens personally led a campaign against them in 378. However this campaign proved disastrous for the Romans. The two armies approached each other near Adrianople, but Valens was apparently overconfident of the numerical superiority of his own forces over the enemy. Valens, eager to have all of the glory for himself, rushed into battle, and on 378, the Battle of Adrianople resulted in a crushing defeat for the Romans, and the death of Valens.

Contemporary historian Ammianus Marcellinus estimated that two-thirds of the Roman soldiers on the field were lost in the battle. The battle had far-reaching consequences, as veteran soldiers and valuable administrators were among the heavy casualties, which left the Empire with the problem of finding suitable leadership. Gratian was now effectively responsible for the whole of the Empire. He sought however a replacement Augustus for the Eastern Roman Empire, and in 379 chose Theodosius I.

Theodosius, the founder of the Theodosian dynasty, proclaimed his five-year-old son Arcadius an Augustus in 383 in an attempt to secure succession. Hispanic Celt general Magnus Maximus, stationed in Roman Britain, was proclaimed Augustus by his troops in 383 and rebelled against Gratian when he invaded Gaul. Gratian fled, but was assassinated. Following Gratian's death, Maximus had to deal with Valentinian II, at the time only twelve years old, as the senior Augustus. Maximus soon entered negotiations with Valentinian II and Theodosius, attempting and ultimately failing to gain their official recognition. Theodosius campaigned west in 388 and was victorious against Maximus, who was captured and executed. In 392 Valentinian II was murdered, and shortly thereafter Arbogast arranged for the appointment of Eugenius as emperor.

The eastern emperor Theodosius I refused to recognise Eugenius as emperor and invaded the West again, defeating and killing Arbogast and Eugenius. He thus reunited the entire Roman Empire under his rule. Theodosius was the last Emperor who ruled over the whole Empire. As emperor, he made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. After his death in 395, he gave the two halves of the Empire to his two sons Arcadius and Honorius. The Roman state would continue to have two different emperors with different seats of power throughout the 5th century, though the Eastern Romans considered themselves Roman in full. The two halves were nominally, culturally and historically, if not politically, the same state.

Decline of the Western Roman Empire (395–476)

After 395, the emperors in the Western Roman Empire were usually figureheads, while the actual rulers were military strongmen. The year 476 is generally accepted as the formal end of the Western Roman Empire. That year, Orestes refused the request of Germanic mercenaries in his service for lands in Italy. The dissatisfied mercenaries, led by Odoacer, revolted, and deposed the last western emperor, Romulus Augustus. This event has traditionally been considered the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Odoacer quickly conquered the remaining provinces of Italy, and then sent the Imperial Regalia back to the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno. Zeno soon received two deputations. One was from Odoacer, requesting that his control of Italy be formally recognised by the Empire, in which case he would acknowledge Zeno's supremacy. The other deputation was from Nepos, the emperor before Romulus Augustus, asking for support to regain the throne. Zeno granted Odoacer's request. Upon Nepos's death in 480, Zeno claimed Dalmatia for the East. Odoacer attacked Dalmatia, and the ensuing war ended with Theodoric the Great, King of the Ostrogoths, conquering Italy.

The Empire became gradually less Romanised and increasingly Germanic in nature: although the Empire buckled under Visigothic assault, the overthrow of the last Emperor Romulus Augustus was carried out by federated Germanic troops from within the Roman army rather than by foreign troops. In this sense had Odoacer not renounced the title of Emperor and named himself "King of Italy" instead, the Empire might have continued in name. Its identity, however, was no longer Roman—it was increasingly populated and governed by Germanic peoples long before 476.

The Roman people were by the 5th century "''bereft of their military ethos''" and the Roman army itself a mere supplement to federated troops of Goths, Huns, Franks and others fighting on their behalf. Many theories have been advanced in explanation of the decline of the Roman Empire, and many dates given for its fall, from the onset of its decline in the 3rd century to the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Militarily, however, the Empire finally fell after first being overrun by various non-Roman peoples and then having its heart in Italy seized by Germanic troops in a revolt. The historicity and exact dates are uncertain, and some historians do not consider that the Empire fell at this point. Disagreement persists since the decline of the Empire had been a long and gradual process rather than a single event.

Eastern Roman Empire (476–1453)

As the Western Roman Empire declined during the 5th century, the richer Eastern Roman Empire would be relieved of much destruction, and in the mid 6th century the Eastern Roman Empire (generally today called the Byzantine Empire) under the emperor Justinian I reconquered Italy and parts of Illyria from the Ostrogoths, North Africa from the Vandals, and southern Hispania from the Visigoths. The reconquest of southern Hispania was somewhat ephemeral, but North Africa served the Byzantines for another century, parts of Italy for another five centuries, and parts of Illyria even longer.

Of the many accepted dates for the end of the classical Roman state, the latest is 610. This is when the Emperor Heraclius made sweeping reforms, forever changing the face of the empire. Greek was readopted as the language of government and Latin influence waned. By 610, the Eastern Roman Empire had come under definite Greek influence, and could be considered to have become what many modern historians now call the Byzantine Empire. However, the Empire was never called thus by its inhabitants, who used terms such as ''Romania'', ''Basileia Romaion'' or ''Pragmata Romaion'', meaning "Land of the Romans" or "Kingdom of the Romans", and who still saw themselves as Romans, and their state as the rightful continuation of the ancient empire of Rome.

During the Muslim conquests in the 7th century, the Empire lost its possessions in Africa and the Levant to the Arab-Islamic Caliphate, reducing Byzantine lands to Anatolia, the Balkans and southern Italy. The sack of Constantinople at the hands of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 is sometimes used to date the end of Eastern Roman Empire: the destruction of Constantinople and most of its ancient treasures, total discontinuity of leadership, and the division of its lands into rival states with a Catholic-controlled "Emperor" in Constantinople itself was a blow from which the Empire never fully recovered.

Nevertheless, the Byzantines recovered Constantinople itself and reestablished the empire in 1261, and continued to call themselves Romans until their fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. That year the eastern part of the Roman Empire was ultimately ended by the Fall of Constantinople. Even though Mehmed II, the conqueror of Constantinople, declared himself the Emperor of the Roman Empire (''Caesar of Rome / Kayser-i Rum''), and even though this capture was in some ways far less catastrophic than the sack, Constantine XI is usually considered the last Roman Emperor. The Greek ethnic self-descriptive name "Rhomios" (''Roman'') survives to this day.

Military history

Principate (27 BC–AD 235)

Between the reigns of the emperors Augustus and Trajan, the Roman Empire achieved great territorial gains in both the East and the West. In the West, following several defeats in 16 BC, Roman armies pushed north and east out of Gaul to subdue much of Germania. Despite the loss of a large army almost to the man in Varus' famous defeat in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9,

Rome recovered and continued its expansion up to and beyond the borders of the known world. The Romans invaded Britain in AD 43, forcing their way inland, and building two military bases to protect against rebellion and incursions from the north, from which Roman troops built and manned Hadrian's Wall.

Emperor Claudius ordered the suspension of further attacks across the Rhine, setting what was to become the permanent limit of the Empire's expansion in this direction. Further east, Trajan turned his attention to Dacia. Following an uncertain number of battles, Trajan marched into Dacia, besieged the Dacian capital and razed it to the ground. With Dacia quelled, Trajan subsequently invaded the Parthian empire to the east, his conquests taking the Roman Empire to its greatest extent.

In AD 69, Marcus Salvius Otho had the Emperor Galba murdered and claimed the throne for himself, but Vitellius had also claimed the throne. Otho left Rome, and met Vitellius at the First Battle of Bedriacum, after which the Othonian troops fled back to their camp, and the next day surrendered to the Vitellian forces. Meanwhile, the forces stationed in the Middle East provinces of Judaea and Syria had acclaimed Vespasian as emperor. Vespasians' and Vitellius' armies met in the Second Battle of Bedriacum, after which the Vitellian troops were driven back into their camp. Vespasian, having successfully ended the civil war, was declared emperor.

The First Jewish-Roman War, sometimes called The Great Revolt, was the first of three major rebellions by the Jews of Judaea Province against the Roman Empire. Earlier Jewish successes against Rome only attracted greater attention from Emperor Nero, who appointed general Vespasian to crush the rebellion. By the year 68, Jewish resistance in the northern region, the Galilee, had been crushed and in the year 70, Jerusalem was captured and the Second Temple destroyed. In 115, revolt broke out again in the province, leading to the second Jewish-Roman war known as the Kitos War, and again in 132 in what is known as Bar Kokhba's revolt. Both were brutally crushed.

Due in large part to their employment of powerful heavy cavalry and mobile horse-archers, the Parthian Empire was the most formidable enemy of the Roman Empire in the east. Trajan had campaigned against the Parthians and briefly captured their capital, putting a puppet ruler on the throne, but the territories were abandoned. A revitalised Parthian Empire renewed its assault in 161, and defeated two Roman armies. General Gaius Avidius Cassius was sent in 162 to counter the resurgent Parthia. The Parthian city of Seleucia on the Tigris was destroyed, and the Parthians made peace but were forced to cede western Mesopotamia to the Romans.

In 197, Emperor Septimius Severus waged a brief and successful war against the Parthian Empire, during which time the Parthian capital was sacked, and the northern half of Mesopotamia was restored to Rome. Emperor Caracalla marched on Parthia in 217 from Edessa to begin a war against them, but he was assassinated while on the march. In 224, the Parthian Empire was crushed not by the Romans but by the rebellious Persian vassal king Ardashir, who revolted, leading to the establishment of Sassanid Empire of Persia, which replaced Parthia as Rome's major rival in the East.

Barracks and Illyrian emperors (235–284) and Dominate (284–395)

Although the exact historicity is unclear, some mix of Germanic peoples, Celts, and tribes of mixed Celto-Germanic ethnicity were settled in the lands of Germania from the 1st century onwards. The essential problem of large tribal groups on the frontier remained much the same as the situation Rome faced in earlier centuries; the 3rd century saw a marked increase in the overall threat.

The assembled warbands of the Alamanni frequently crossed the border, attacking Germania Superior such that they were almost continually engaged in conflicts with the Roman Empire. However, their first major assault deep into Roman territory did not come until 268. In that year the Romans were forced to denude much of their German frontier of troops in response to a massive invasion by another new Germanic tribal confederacy, the Goths, from the east. The pressure of tribal groups pushing into the Empire was the end result of a chain of migrations with its roots far to the east.

The Alamanni seized the opportunity to launch a major invasion of Gaul and northern Italy. However, the Visigoths were defeated in battle that summer and then routed in the Battle of Naissus. The Goths remained a major threat to the Empire but directed their attacks away from Italy itself for several years after their defeat.

The Alamanni on the other hand resumed their drive towards Italy almost immediately. They defeated Aurelian at the Battle of Placentia in 271 but were beaten back for a short time, only to reemerge fifty years later. In 378 the Goths inflicted a crushing defeat on the Eastern Empire at the Battle of Adrianople.

At the same time, Franks raided through the North Sea and the English Channel, Vandals pressed across the Rhine, Iuthungi against the Danube, Iazyges, Carpi and Taifali harassed Dacia, and Gepids joined the Goths and Heruli in attacks round the Black Sea. At the start of the 5th century AD, the pressure on Rome's western borders was growing intense.

A military that was often willing to support its commander over its emperor meant that commanders could establish sole control of the army they were responsible for and usurp the imperial throne. The so-called Crisis of the Third Century describes the turmoil of murder, usurpation and in-fighting that is traditionally seen as developing with the murder of the Emperor Alexander Severus in 235.

Emperor Septimius Severus was forced to deal with two rivals for the throne: Pescennius Niger and then Clodius Albinus. Severus' successor Caracalla passed uninterrupted for a while until he was murdered by Macrinus, who proclaimed himself emperor in his place. The troops of Elagabalus declared him to be emperor instead, and the two met in battle at the Battle of Antioch in AD 218, in which Macrinus was defeated.

However, Elagabalus was murdered shortly afterwards; Alexander Severus was proclaimed emperor, and at the end of his reign was murdered in turn. His murderers raised in his place Maximinus Thrax. However, just as he had been raised by the army, Maximinus was also brought down by them and was murdered when it appeared to his forces as though he would not be able to best the senatorial candidate for the throne, Gordian III.

Gordian III's fate is not certain, although he may have been murdered by his own successor, Philip the Arab, who ruled for only a few years before the army again raised a general to proclaimed emperor, this time Decius, who defeated Philip in the Battle of Verona to seize the throne. Gallienus, emperor from AD 260 to 268, saw a remarkable array of usurpers. Diocletian, a usurper himself, defeated Carinus to become emperor. Some small measure of stability again returned at this point, with the empire split into a tetrarchy of two greater and two lesser emperors, a system that staved off civil wars for a short time until AD 312. In that year, relations between the tetrarchy collapsed for good. From AD 314 onwards, Constantine the Great defeated Licinius in a series of battles. Constantine then turned to Maxentius, beating him in the Battle of Verona and the Battle of Milvian Bridge.

After overthrowing the Parthian confederacy, the Sassanid Empire that arose from its remains pursued a more aggressive expansionist policy than their predecessors and continued to make war against Rome. In 230, the first Sassanid emperor attacked Roman territory, and in 243, Emperor Gordian III's army defeated the Sassanids at the Battle of Resaena.

In 253 the Sassanids under Shapur I penetrated deeply into Roman territory, defeating a Roman force at the Battle of Barbalissos and conquering and plundering Antioch. In 260 at the Battle of Edessa the Sassanids defeated the Roman army and captured the Roman Emperor Valerian.

There was a lasting peace between Rome and the Sassanid Empire between 297 and 337 following a treaty between Narseh and Emperor Diocletian. However, just before the death of Constantine I in 337, Shapur II broke the peace and began a twenty-six-year conflict, attempting with little success to conquer Roman fortresses in the region. Emperor Julian met Shapur in 363 in the Battle of Ctesiphon outside the walls of the Persian capital. The Romans were victorious but were unable to take the city and were forced to retreat. There were several later wars.

Collapse of the Western Empire (395–476)

After the death of Theodosius I in 395, the Visigoths renounced their treaty with the Empire and invaded northern Italy under their new king Alaric, but were repeatedly repulsed by the Western commander-in-chief Stilicho. However, the ''limes'' on the Rhine had been depleted of Roman troops, and in early 407 Vandals, Alans, and Suevi invaded Gaul ''en masse'' and, meeting little resistance, proceeded to cross the Pyrenees, entering Spain in 409.

Stilicho became a victim of court intrigues in Ravenna (where the imperial court resided since 402) and was executed for high treason in 408. After his death, the government became increasingly ineffective in dealing with the barbarians, and in 410 Rome was sacked by the Visigoths.

Under Alaric's successors, the Goths then settled in Gaul (412–418) as ''foederati'' and for a while were successfully employed against the Vandals, Alans, and Suevi in Spain. Meanwhile, in the turmoil of the preceding years, Roman Britain had been abandoned.

After Honorius' death in 423, the Eastern empire installed the weak Valentinian III as Western Emperor in Ravenna. After a violent struggle with several rivals, Aetius rose to the rank of ''magister militum''. Aetius was able to stabilize the empire's military situation somewhat, relying heavily on his Hunnic allies. With their help he defeated the Burgundians, who had occupied part of southern Gaul after 407, and settled them as Roman allies in the Savoy (433). Later that century, as Roman power faded away, the Burgundians extended their rule to the Rhone valley.

Meanwhile, pressure from the Visigoths and a rebellion by the governor of Africa, Bonifacius, had induced the Vandals under their king Gaiseric to cross over from Spain in 429. After capturing Carthage, they established an independent state with a powerful navy (439), which was officially recognised by the Empire in 442. The Vandal fleet from then on formed a constant danger to Roman seafare and the coasts and islands of the Western and Central Mediterranean.

In 444, the Huns, who had been employed as Roman allies by Aetius, were united under their king Attila, who invaded Gaul and was only stopped with great effort by a combined Roman-Germanic force led by Aetius in the Battle of Châlons (451). The next year, Attila invaded Italy and proceeded to march upon Rome, but he halted his campaign and died a year later in 453.

Aetius was murdered by Valentinian in 454, who was then himself murdered by the dead general's supporters a year later. With the end of the Theodosian dynasty, a new period of dynastic struggle ensued. The Vandals took advantage of the unrest, sailed up to Rome, and plundered the city in 455. As the barbarians settled in the former provinces, nominally as allies but ''de facto'' operating as independent polities, the territory of the Western Empire was effectively reduced to Italy and parts of Gaul.

From 455 onward, several emperors were installed in the West by the government of Constantinople, but their authority only reached as far as the barbarian commanders of the army and their troops (Ricimer (456–472), Gundobad (473–475)) allowed it to. In 475, Orestes, a former secretary of Attila, drove Emperor Julius Nepos out of Ravenna and proclaimed his own son Romulus Augustus as emperor.

In 476, Orestes refused to grant Odoacer and the Heruli federated status, prompting the latter to kill him, depose his son and send the imperial insignia to Constantinople, installing himself as king over Italy. Although isolated pockets of Roman rule continued even after 476, the city of Rome itself was under the rule of the barbarians, and the control of Rome over the West had effectively ended. The Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire ended in 1453 with the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks led by Mehmed II.

Legacy

The American magazine ''National Geographic ''described the legacy of the Roman Empire in ''The World According to Rome'': and were thus derived indirectly, while the main verb and the preposition in the first sentence are native English (Germanic) forms, though with close Latin parallels (''est'', ''in'') due to shared Indo-European history. However, the point pertaining to the pervading influence is valid.|group=nb}} }}

Several states claimed to be the Roman Empire's successors after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire, an attempt to resurrect the Empire in the West, was established in 800 when Pope Leo III crowned Frankish King Charlemagne as Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, though the empire and the imperial office did not become formalised for some decades. After the fall of Constantinople, the Russian Tsardom, as inheritor of the Byzantine Empire's Orthodox Christian tradition, counted itself the Third Rome (Constantinople having been the second). These concepts are known as Translatio imperii.

When the Ottomans, who based their state on the Byzantine model, took Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II established his capital there and claimed to sit on the throne of the Roman Empire. He even went so far as to launch an invasion of Italy with the purpose of "re-uniting the Empire", although Papal and Neapolitan armies stopped his march on Rome at Otranto in 1480. Constantinople was not officially renamed Istanbul until 1930.

Excluding these states claiming its heritage, if the traditional date for the founding of Rome is accepted as fact, the Roman state can be said to have lasted in some form from 753 BC to the fall in 1461 of the Empire of Trebizond (a successor state and fragment of the Byzantine Empire which escaped conquest by the Ottomans in 1453), for a total of 2,214 years. The Roman impact on Western and Eastern civilisations lives on. In time most of the Roman achievements were duplicated by later civilisations. For example, the technology for cement was rediscovered 1755–1759 by John Smeaton.

The Empire contributed many things to the world, such as a calendar with leap years, the institutions of Christianity and aspects of modern neo-classicistic and Byzantine architecture. The extensive system of roads that was constructed by the Roman Army lasts to this day. Because of this network of roads, the time necessary to travel between destinations in Europe did not decrease until the 19th century, when steam power was invented. Even modern astrology comes to us directly from the Romans.

The Roman Empire also contributed its form of government, which influences various constitutions including those of most European countries and many former European colonies. In the United States, for example, the framers of the Constitution remarked, in creating the Presidency, that they wanted to inaugurate an "Augustan Age". The modern world also inherited legal thinking from Roman law, fully codified in Late Antiquity. Governing a vast territory, the Romans developed the science of public administration to an extent never before conceived or necessary, creating an extensive civil service and formalised methods of tax collection.

While in the West the term "Roman" acquired a new meaning in connection with the church and the Pope of Rome the Greek form Romaioi remained attached to the Greek-speaking Christian population of the Eastern Roman Empire and is still used by Greeks in addition to their common appellation.

The Roman Empire's territorial legacy of controlling the Italian peninsula would serve as an influence to Italian nationalism and the unification (''Risorgimento'') of Italy in 1861.

Notes and references

Notes:

References: ;Footnotes ;Citations

References

John Bagnell Bury, ''A History of the Roman Empire from its Foundation to the death of Marcus Aurelius'', 1913, ISBN 978-1-4367-3416-5

Winston Churchill, ''A History of the English-Speaking Peoples'', Cassell, 1998, ISBN 0-304-34912-7

J. A. Crook, ''Law and Life of Rome, 90 BC–AD 212'', 1967, ISBN 0-8014-9273-4

Donald R. Dudley, ''The Civilization of Rome'', 2nd ed., 1985, ISBN 0-452-01016-0

Arther Ferrill, ''The Fall of the Roman Empire: The Military Explanation'', Thames and Hudson, 1988, ISBN 0-500-27495-9

Edward Gibbon, ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', 1776–1789

Goldsworthy, Adrian. ''The Punic Wars'', Cassell & Co, 2000, ISBN 0-304-35284-5

Goldsworthy, Adrian. ''In the Name of Rome: The Men Who Won the Roman Empire'', Weidenfield and Nicholson, 2003, ISBN 0-297-84666-3

Goldsworthy, Adrian. ''The Complete Roman Army'', Thames and Hudson, 2003, ISBN 0-500-05124-0

Michael Grant, ''The History of Rome'', Faber and Faber, 1993, ISBN 0-571-11461-X

Benjamin Isaac, "The Limits of Empire: the Roman Army in the East" Oxford University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-19-814926-3

Andrew Lintott, ''Imperium Romanum: Politics and administration'', 1993, ISBN 0-415-09375-9

Edward Luttwak, ''The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire'', Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 0-8018-2158-4

Antonio Santosuosso, ''Storming the Heavens: Soldiers, Emperors and Civilians in the Roman Empire'', Westview Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8133-3523-X

External links

Adena, L. The 'Jesus Cult' and the Roman State in the Third Century, Clio History Journal, 2008.

Roman battlefield unearthed deep inside Germany

BBC Romans for Children

Classics Unveiled

Complete map of the Roman Empire in year 100

Detailed history of the Roman Empire

Historical Atlas (Swedish)

Roman Numismatic Gallery

The Celts and Romans

The Roman Empire

The Roman Empire in the First Century from PBS

UNRV Roman History

The Romans

Category:476 disestablishments Category:1453 disestablishments Category:Former countries on the Italian Peninsula Category:Roman Empire Category:Roman States Category:States and territories established in 27 BC

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Irvin Baxter Jr. is a Oneness Pentecostal minister who is the founder and president of Endtime Ministries, a Christian organization devoted to presenting his views on Christian eschatology. Baxter is also an author, publisher, broadcaster and international prophecy teacher. Before committing himself to full-time work with Endtime Ministries, Rev. Baxter served as pastor of the Oak Park Church ( UPCI) in Richmond, Indiana for approximately 32 years.

Life

According to his website, Mr. Baxter became intensely interested in Bible prophecy at the age of 20, when a visiting evangelist taught that the four beasts of the book of Revelation, chapter four, were Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He suspected that was incorrect, and in the next thirty days read the book of Revelation through nineteen times. His studies caused him to conclude that his suspicions were well-founded, and led him to devote considerable time to a personal study of Pentecostal and Evangelical eschatology.

In 1986 Baxter authored ''A Message for the President'', in which he identified the United States, Great Britain, Russia, and other modern nations as being mentioned in the Bible. He also said that the Berlin Wall would be torn down, Germany would be reunited, and that these events would be the catalyst which would inaugurate a permanent New World Order. In 1991 publication of ''Endtime Magazine'', the herald of his organization, began. In 1994, Baxter published a book entitled ''Mideast Treaty'' about his predictions for the prophesied final seven years preceding the Battle of Armageddon. Baxter also designed, authored, and published a series of lessons in color for lay readers, ''Understanding the Endtime'', in 1995. These lessons have since been committed to DVD and are widely distributed.

Irvin Baxter Jr. has published two fiction books with the U.S. Christian publisher Destiny Image. ''China War and the Third Temple'' (2001) depicts Baxter’s view of how events will play out in the near future, and ''Dark Intentions'' (2004) is a story of how the Antichrist, as a young boy, foresaw world events in detail and used the knowledge to his advantage.

Baxter hosts the rapidly growing National Prophecy radio talk show called "Politics and Religion", which began in 1998. He also conducts one-day prophecy conferences in the United States almost every week and hosts an overseas prophecy tour at least once a year.

There are several DVDs for sale on his website with colorful titles such as "Understanding the Endtime Level II Series" and "Is the Antichrist Among Us?"

Today

He and his wife, Judy, have three grown children and eight grandchildren, and reside in Garland, Texas.

See also

Left Behind

Dispensationalism

Futurism

Summary of Christian eschatological differences

External links

Endtime Ministries Web site

Category:American Pentecostals Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:People from Garland, Texas Category:People from Richmond, Indiana Category:Pentecostal clergy

Border	imperial
royal title	Emperor
realm	the Roman Empire
coatofarms	Vexilloid of the Roman Empire.svg
coatofarmscaption	Vexillum
style	Imperator, Augustus, Caesar, Princeps, Dominus Noster, or Autokrator (depending on period)
first monarch	Augustus
last monarch	Theodosius I (Unified or Classical),Romulus Augustus (Western),Constantine XI (Eastern)
began	27 BC
ended	AD 395 (Unified or Classical),AD 476 (Western),AD 1453 (Eastern)
pretender	None }}

The Roman Emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period (starting at about 27 BC). The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the Emperor. If a man was "proclaimed Emperor" this normally meant he was proclaimed ''augustus'', or (for generals) ''imperator'' (from which English ''emperor'' ultimately derives). Several other titles & offices were regularly accumulated by emperors, such as ''caesar'', ''princeps senatus'', ''consul'' and ''pontifex maximus''. The power of Emperors was generally based on the accumulation of powers from republican offices and the support of the army.

Roman Emperors refused to be considered "kings", instead claiming to be leaders of a republic, however nominal. The first Emperor, Augustus, resolutely refused recognition as a monarch. Although Augustus could claim that his power was authentically Republican, his successor, Tiberius, could not convincingly make the same claim. Nonetheless, the Republican institutional framework (senate, consuls, magistracies etc.) was preserved until the very end of the Western Empire.

By the time of Diocletian, Emperors were openly "monarchs", but the contrast with "kings" was maintained: Although the imperial succession was, ''de facto'', generally hereditary, it was only hereditary if there was a suitable candidate acceptable to the army and the bureaucracy so the principle of ''automatic'' inheritance was not adopted. The Eastern (Byzantine) emperors ultimately adopted the formal title of ''Basileus'', which had meant ''king'' in Greek, but became a title reserved solely for the "Roman" Emperor (and the ruler of the Sassanid Empire). Other kings were referred to as ''regas''.

In addition to their pontifical office, Emperors were given divine status: initially after their death, but later from their accession. As Christianity prevailed over paganism, the emperor's religious status changed to that of Christ's regent on earth, and the Empire's status was seen as part of God's plan to Christianize the world.

The Western Roman Empire ended in 476 and the Eastern Roman Empire in 1453.

Overview

Rome used no single constitutional office, title or rank exactly equivalent to the English title "Roman Emperor". Romans of the Imperial era used several titles to denote their emperors, and all were associated with the pre-Imperial, Republican era. "Roman Emperor" is a convenient shorthand used by historians to express the complex nature of the person otherwise known as princeps - itself a republican honorific.

The emperor's legal authority derived from an extraordinary concentration of individual powers and offices extant in the Republic rather than from a new political office; emperors were regularly elected to the offices of consul and censor. Among their permanent privileges were the traditional Republican title of ''princeps senatus'' (leader of the Senate) and the religious office of ''pontifex maximus'' (chief priest of Roman state). Every emperor held the latter office and title until Gratian surrendered it in 382 AD to St. Siricius; it eventually became an auxiliary honor of the Bishop of Rome.

These titles and offices conferred great personal prestige (''dignitas'') but the basis of an emperor's powers derived from his ''auctoritas'': this assumed his greater powers of command (''imperium maius'') and tribunician power (''tribunicia potestas'') as personal qualities, independent of his public office. As a result, he formally outranked provincial governors and ordinary magistrates. He had the right to enact or revoke sentences of capital punishment, was owed the obedience of private citizens (''privati'') and by the terms of the ''ius auxiliandi'' could save any plebeian from any patrician magistrate's decision. He could veto any act or proposal of any magistrate, including the tribunes of the people (''ius intercedendi'' or ''ius intercessionis''). His person was held to be sacrosanct.

Roman magistrates on official business were expected to wear the form of toga associated with their office; different togas were worn by different ranks; senior magistrates had the right to togas bordered with purple. A triumphal imperator of the Republic had the right to wear the toga picta (of solid purple, richly embroidered) for the duration of the triumphal rite. During the Late Republic, the most powerful had this right extended. Pompey and Caesar are both thought to have worn the triumphal toga and other triumphal dress at public functions. Later Emperors were distinguished by wearing ''togae purpurae'', purple togas; hence the phrase "to don the purple" for the assumption of imperial dignity.

The titles customarily associated with the imperial dignity are ''imperator'' ("commander", lit. "one who prepares against"), which emphasizes the emperor's military supremacy and is the source of the English word ''emperor''; ''caesar'', which was originally a name but it came to be used for the designated heir (as ''Nobilissimus Caesar'', "Most Noble Caesar") and was retained upon accession. The ruling emperor's title was the descriptive ''augustus'' ("majestic" or "venerable", which had tinges of the divine), which was adopted upon accession. In Greek, these three titles were rendered as ''autokratōr'' (""), ''kaisar'' (""), and ''augoustos'' ("") or ''sebastos'' ("") respectively. In Diocletian's Tetrarchy, the traditional seniorities were maintained: Augustus was reserved for the two senior emperors and ''Caesar'' for the two junior emperors - each delegated a share of power and responsibility but each an emperor-in-waiting, should anything befall his senior.

As ''princeps senatus'' (lit., "first man of the senate"), the emperor could receive foreign embassies to Rome; some emperors (such as Tiberius) are known to have delegated this task to the Senate. In modern terms these early emperors would tend to be identified as chiefs of state. The office of ''princeps senatus,'' however, was not a magistracy and did not own ''imperium''. At some points in the empire's history, the emperor's power was nominal; powerful praetorian prefects, masters of the soldiers and on a few occasions, other members of the Imperial family including Imperial mothers and grandmothers acted as the true source of power.

''Imperator''

The title ''imperator'' dates back to the Roman Republic, when a victorious commander could be hailed as ''imperator'' in the field by his troops. The Senate could then award (or withhold) the extraordinary honour of a triumph; the triumphal commander retained the title until the end of his magistry. Roman tradition held the first triumph as that of Romulus but the first attested recipient of the title ''imperator'' in a triumphal context is Aemilius Paulus in 189 BC. It was a title held with great pride: Pompey was hailed ''imperator'' more than once, as was Sulla, but it was Julius Caesar who first used it permanently - according to Dio, this was a singular and excessive form of flattery granted by the Senate, passed to Caesar's adopted heir along with his name and virtually synonymous with it.

In 38 BC Agrippa refused a triumph for his victories under Octavian's command and this precedent established the rule that the ''princeps'' should assume both the salutation and title of ''imperator''. It seems that from then on Octavian (later first emperor Augustus) used imperator as a praenomen (''Imperator Caesar'' not ''Caesar imperator''). From this the title came to denote the supreme power and was commonly used in that sense. Otho was the first to imitate Augustus but only with Vespasian did ''imperator'' (emperor) become the official title by which the ruler of the Roman Empire was known.

''Princeps''

The word ''princeps'' (plural ''principes''), meaning "first", was a republican term used to denote the leading citizen(s) of the state. It was a purely honorific title with no attached duties or powers. It was the title most preferred by Caesar Augustus as its use implies only primacy, as opposed to another of his titles, ''imperator'', which implies dominance. ''Princeps'', because of its republican connotation, was most commonly used to refer to the emperor in Latin (although the emperor's actual constitutional position was essentially "pontifex maximus with tribunician power and ''imperium'' superseding all others") as it was in keeping with the façade of the restored republic; the Greek word ''basileus'' ("king") was modified to be synonymous with emperor (and primarily came into favour after the reign of Heraclius) as the Greeks had no republican sensibility and openly viewed the emperor as a monarch.

In the era of Diocletian and beyond, ''princeps'' fell into disuse and was replaced with ''dominus'' ("lord"); later emperors used the formula ''Imperator Caesar NN. Pius Felix (Invictus) Augustus''. NN representing the individual's personal name, Pius Felix, meaning "Pious and Blest", and Invictus meaning "undefeated". The use of ''princeps'' and ''dominus'' broadly symbolise the differences in the empire's government, giving rise to the era designations "Principate" and "Dominate".

First Roman Emperor

At the end of the Roman Republic no new, and certainly no single title indicated the individual who held supreme power. Insofar as ''emperor'' could be seen as the English translation of imperator, then Julius Caesar had been an emperor, like several Roman generals before him. Instead, by the end of the civil wars in which Julius Caesar had led his armies, it became clear on the one hand that there was certainly no consensus to return to the old-style monarchy, and that on the other hand the situation where several officials, bestowed with equal power by the senate, fought one another had to come to an end.

Julius Caesar, then Octavian after him, accumulated offices and titles of the highest importance in the Republic, making the power attached to these offices permanent, and preventing anyone with similar aspirations from accumulating or maintaining power for themselves. However, Julius Caesar, unlike those after him, did so ''without'' the Senate's vote and approval.

Julius Caesar held the Republican offices of consul four times and dictator five times, was appointed dictator in perpetuity (''dictator perpetuo'') in 45 BC and had been "pontifex maximus" for several decades. He gained these positions by senatorial consent. By the time of his assassination in 44 BC he was the most powerful man in Rome.

In his will, Caesar appointed his adopted son Octavian as his heir. On Caesar's death, Octavian inherited his adoptive father's property and lineage, the loyalty of most of his allies and - again through a formal process of senatorial consent – an increasing number of the titles and offices that had accrued to Caesar. A decade after Caesar's death, Octavian's victory over his erstwhile ally Mark Antony at Actium put an end to any effective opposition and confirmed Octavian's supremacy.

In 27 BC, Octavian appeared before the Senate and offered to retire from active politics and government; the Senate not only requested he remain, but increased his powers and made them lifelong, awarding him the title of Augustus (the elevated or divine one, somewhat less than a god but approaching divinity). Octavian stayed in office till his death; the sheer breadth of his superior powers as princeps and permanent imperator of Rome's armies guaranteed the peaceful continuation of what nominally remained a republic. His "restoration" of powers to the Senate and the people of Rome was a demonstration of his ''auctoritas'' and pious respect for tradition.

Even at Augustus' death, some later historians such as Tacitus would say that the true restoration of the Republic might have been possible. Instead, Augustus actively prepared his adopted son Tiberius to be his replacement and pleaded his case to the Senate for inheritance through merit. The Senate disputed the issue but eventually confirmed Tiberius as princeps. Once in power, Tiberius took considerable pains to observe the forms and day-to-day substance of republican government.

The historians of the 1st centuries observed the dynastic continuity: if a hereditary monarchy-not-by-kings existed after the republic, it had started with Julius Caesar. In this sense Suetonius wrote of ''The Twelve Caesars,'' meaning the Emperors from Julius Caesar to the Flavians included (where, after Nero, the ''inherited name'' had turned into a ''title''), and emperors adopted themselves into an Imperial lineage.

Fall of the West

By the end of the 3rd century, the Roman Empire was split into Western and an Eastern parts, each with its own ''augustis'' (and/or ''caesares''). In the West, which included Rome, the succession of emperors ended in the year 476 when the last Western emperor, Romulus Augustus, was deposed by the Germanic King Odoacer, although many maintain that Julius Nepos was the last emperor and that the Eastern emperor Zeno decided not to appoint a new emperor in the West. This is generally accepted to be the end of Antiquity and the beginning the Early Middle Ages also known as the Dark Ages.

However, Roman rule had disintegrated somewhat earlier in the century as a result of Germanic invasions which had overrun all of the territory that had belonged to the western half of the Roman Empire. In the east however, the Eastern Roman Empire survived until 1453. Although the Greek-speaking inhabitants were ''Romaioi'' (Ῥωμαῖοι), many in Western Europe referred to the political entity as the "Greek Empire". Today it is known as the Byzantine Empire, as its capital was once the city of Byzantium, which had been massively expanded and re-named Constantinople in honour of the emperor Constantine the Great, and is now known as the Turkish city of Istanbul.

Survival of the Roman Empire in the East

The line of Roman Emperors in the Eastern Roman Empire continued unbroken until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 under Constantine XI Palaiologos. These emperors eventually normalized the imperial dignity into the modern conception of an emperor, incorporated it into the constitutions of the state, and adopted the aforementioned title ''Basileus kai autokratōr Rhomaiōn'' ("Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans"). These emperors ceased to use Latin as the language of state after Heraclius. Historians have customarily treated the state of these later Eastern emperors under the name "Byzantine Empire", though ''Byzantine'' is not a term that the Byzantines ever used to describe themselves.

Last Roman Emperor

Constantine XI Palaiologos was the last reigning Roman Emperor. A member of the Palaiologos dynasty, he ruled the feeble remnant of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire from 1449 until his death in 1453 defending its capital Constantinople.

He was born in Mystra as the eighth of ten children of Manuel II Palaiologos and Helena Dragaš, the daughter of the Serbian prince Constantine Dragaš of Kumanovo. He spent most of his childhood in Constantinople under the supervision of his parents. During the absence of his older brother in Italy, Constantine was regent in Constantinople from 1437-1440.

Before the beginning of the siege, Mehmed II made an offer to Constantine XI. In exchange for the surrender of Constantinople, the emperor's life would be spared and he would continue to rule in Mystra. Constantine refused this offer. Instead he led the defense of the city and took an active part in the fighting along the land walls. At the same time, he used his diplomatic skills to maintain the necessary unity between the Genovese, Venetian, and Byzantine troops. As the city fell on May 29, 1453, Constantine is said to have remarked: "The city is fallen but I am alive." Realizing that the end had come, he reportedly discarded his purple cloak and led his remaining soldiers into a final charge, in which he was killed. With his death, Roman imperial succession came to an end, almost 1500 years after Augustus.

After the fall of Constantinople, Thomas Palaiologos, brother of Constantine IX, was elected Emperor and tried to organize the remaining forces. His rule came to an end after the fall of the last major Byzantine city, Corinth. He then moved in Italy and continued to be recognized as Eastern Emperor by the Christian powers.

His son Andreas Palaiologos continued claims on the Byzantine throne until he sold the title to Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, the grandparents of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

New Western lineage

The concept of the Roman Empire was renewed in the West with the coronation of the king of the Franks, Charlemagne, as Roman emperor by the Pope on Christmas Day, 800. This line of Roman emperors was actually generally Germanic rather than Roman, but maintained their Roman-ness as a matter of principle. These emperors used a variety of titles (most frequently "''Imperator Augustus''") before finally settling on ''Imperator Romanus Electus'' ("Elected Roman Emperor"). Historians customarily assign them the title "Holy Roman Emperor", which has a basis in actual historical usage, and treat their "Holy Roman Empire" as a separate institution. To Latin Christians of the time, the Pope was the temporal authority as well as spiritual authority, and as Bishop of Rome he was recognized as having the power to anoint or crown a new Roman Emperor.

The title of "Western Roman Emperor" was further legitimized when the Eastern Roman Emperor at Constantinople recognized Charlemagne as basileus of the west. The last man to hold the title of proper Roman Emperor and to be crowned by the pope (although in Bologna, not Rome) was Charles V. All his successors bore only a title of "Emperor-elect". Charles V was also the last man to celebrate a triumph in Rome.

The line of "emperor-elect" rulers lasted until 1806 when Francis II dissolved the Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. Despite the existence of later potentates styling themselves "Emperor", such as the Napoleons, the Habsburg Emperors of Austria, and the Hohenzollern heads of the German Reich, this marked the end of the Western Empire. Although there is a living heir to the Habsburg dynasty, as well as a Pope and pretenders to the positions of the electors, and although all the medieval coronation regalia are still preserved in Austria, the legal abolition of all aristocratic prerogatives of the former electors and the imposition of republican constitutions in Germany and Austria removed the potential for a revival of the Holy Roman Empire.

New Eastern lineage

The "seat" of the eastern lineage was claimed in Russia by the Byzantine-born wife of Ivan III "the Great" who would become the first 'Tsar' or 'Czar' the Russian title for 'Caesar.' He called Russia the third Rome (The capital of the Roman Empire moved to Byzantium by Constantine I, first called 'Nova Roma' and then Constantinople) where some of the relics of the Eastern Orthodox Church and from the Roman Empire were brought.

When Mehmed II conquered Constantinople on 29 May 1453, he claimed the title Emperor of the Roman Empire (Kayser-i-Rûm) and protector of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Here, the Caesar title should not be understood as the minor title it had become, but as the glorious title of the emperors of the past, a connotation that had been preserved in Persian and Arabic. The adoption of the title also implied that the Ottoman state considered itself the continuation (by absorption) of the Roman Empire - a view not shared in the West. Acting in his capacity as Caesar of the Roman Empire, Mehmed reinstated the defunct Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

He appointed the Patriarch of Constantinople Gennadius Scholarius, whom he protected and whose stature he elevated into leader of all the Eastern Orthodox Christians. As emperor of the Romans he laid claim to all Roman territories. However, at the time of the Fall of Constantinople, they extended to little more than the city itself, as well as a small area in Morea (the Peloponnese). Partly to bolster his claim to the title and reunite the Roman Empire, Mehmed II planned to conquer the city of Rome in 1480, but failed. The title of Roman emperor was added to the long list of other titles claimed by the Ottoman sultans.

A branch of the Comnenus family who provided emperors from 1081-1185 continued rule over the break-away Empire of Trebizond till 1461.

Titles and positions

Although these are the most common offices, titles, and positions, one should note that not all Roman emperors used them, nor were all of them used at the same time in history. The consular and censorial offices especially were not an integral part of the Imperial dignity, and were usually held by persons other than the reigning Emperor.

Augustus (also "" or ""), "Majestic" or "Venerable"; an honorific cognomen exclusive to the emperor , ''Autokrator'' (lit. "Self-ruler"); Greek title equivalent to imperator i.e. Commander-in-Chief (''Basileus''), Greek for King, popularly used in the east to refer to the emperor; a formal title of the Roman emperor beginning with Heraclius Caesar (also "" or "Nobilissimus Caesar"), "Caesar" or "Most Noble Caesar"; an honorific name later used to identify an Emperor-designate

Censor, a Republican office with a five year term and one coequal officeholder

Consul, the highest magistracy of the Roman Republic with a one year term and one coequal officeholder

Dominus, "Lord" or "Master"; an honorific title popular in the Empire's middle history

Imperator, "Commander" or "Commander-in-Chief"; a victory title taken on accession to the purple and after a major military victory; the praenomen of most Roman emperors

Imperator Destinatus, "Destined to be Emperor"; heir apparent, used by Septimius Severus for Caracalla.

''Imperium maius'', "greater ''imperium''"; absolute power to a degree greater than any other, including power of enacting capital punishment

Invictus, "Unconquered"; an honorific title

Pater Patriae, "Father of the Fatherland"; an honorific title

Pius Felix, "Pious and Blessed" an honorific title

Pontifex Maximus, "Supreme Pontiff" or "Chief Priest" (lit. "Greatest Bridgemaker"); a title and office of Republican origin—could not be used by "Catholic" Emperors, while by that time only the pope had a claim on the title of highest religious authority.

Princeps, "First Citizen" or "Leading Citizen"; an honorific title denoting the status of the emperor as first among equals

Princeps Iuventutis, "Prince of Youth"; an honorific title awarded to a presumptive Emperor-designate

Princeps Senatus, "First Man of the Senate" a Republican office with a five year term

''Tribunitia potestas'', "tribunician power"; the powers of a tribune of the people including sacrosanctity and the veto (the emperor could not ''be'' a "tribune" because a tribune was a plebeian by definition, therefore the emperor had the powers of a tribune without actually being one)

Powers

When Augustus established the ''Princeps'', he turned down supreme authority in exchange for a collection of various powers and offices, which in itself was a demonstration of his ''auctoritas'' ("authority"). As holding ''princeps senatus'', the emperor declared the opening and closure of each Senate session, declared the Senate's agenda, imposed rules and regulation for the Senate to follow, and met with foreign ambassadors in the name of the Senate. Being ''pontifex maximus'' made the emperor the chief administrator of religious affairs, granting him the power to conduct all religious ceremonies, consecrate temples, control the Roman calendar (adding or removing days as needed), appoint the vestal virgins and some flamens, lead the Collegium Pontificum, and summarize the dogma of the Roman religion.

While these powers granted the emperor a great deal of personal pride and influence, they did not include legal authority. In 23 BC, Augustus gave the emperorship its legal power. The first was ''Tribunitia Potestas'', or the power of the tribune without actually holding the office. This endowed the emperor with inviolability (sacrosanctity) of his person, and the ability to pardon any civilian for any act, criminal or otherwise. By holding the powers of the tribune, the emperor could prosecute anyone who interfered with the performance of his duties. The emperor's tribuneship granted him the right to convene the Senate at his will and lay proposals before it, as well as the ability to veto any act or proposal by any magistrate, including the actual tribune of the plebeians. Also, as holder of the tribune's power, the emperor would convoke the Council of the People, lay legislation before it, and served as the council's president. But his tribuneship only granted him power within Rome itself. He would need another power to veto the act of governors and that of the consuls while in the provinces.

To solve this problem, Augustus managed to have the emperor be given the right to hold two types of imperium. The first being ''consular imperium'' while he was in Rome, and ''imperium maius'' outside of Rome. While inside the walls of Rome, the reigning consuls and the emperor held equal authority, each being able to veto each other's proposals and acts, with the Emperor holding all of the Consul's powers. But outside of Rome, the emperor outranked the consuls and could veto them without the same effects on himself. Imperium Maius also granted the emperor authority over all the provincial governors, making him the ultimate authority in provincial matters and gave him the supreme command of all of Rome's legions. With Imperium Maius, the emperor was also granted the power to appoint governors of imperial provinces without the interference of the Senate. Also, Imperium Maius granted the emperor the right to veto the governors of the provinces and even the reigning consul while in the provinces.

Lineages and epochs

In the listings of Roman emperors below, the common name is given first, followed by the more formal name adopted upon accession to the purple, the name given at birth, and the years of his reign. So-called victory titles and other titles not forming an integral part of the name (''Pontifex Maximus'', ''Princeps Senatus'', ''Pater Patriae'', &c.;) are not listed. Co-emperors are listed in inferior text, along with notes identifying senior emperors who had hitherto served as co-emperors. Following abbreviations are used:

A.: Aulus

Aug.: Augustus (as a title)

C.: Gaius

Germ.: Germanicus

Imp.: Imperator

L.: Lucius

M.: Marcus

Max.: Maximus

Nob.: Nobilissimus

P.: Publius

P.F.: Pius Felix

Princ. Iuv.: Princeps Iuventutis

Q.: Quintus

Ser.: Servius

T.: Titus

Ti.: Tiberius

Principate

The nature of the imperial office and the Principate was established under Julius Caesar's heir and posthumously adopted son, Caesar Augustus, and his own heirs, the descendants of his wife Livia from her first marriage to a scion of the distinguished Claudian clan. This Julio-Claudian dynasty came to an end when the emperor Nero—a great-great-grandson of Augustus through his daughter and of Livia through her son—was deposed in 68.

Nero was followed by a succession of usurpers throughout 69, commonly called the "Year of the Four Emperors". The last of these, Vespasian, established his own Flavian dynasty. Nerva, who replaced the last Flavian emperor, Vespasian's son Domitian, in 96, was elderly and childless, and chose therefore to adopt an heir, Trajan, from outside his family. When Trajan acceded to the purple he chose to follow his predecessor's example, adopting Hadrian as his own heir, and the practise then became the customary manner of imperial succession for the next century, producing the "Five Good Emperors" and the Empire's period of greatest stability.

The last of the Good Emperors, Marcus Aurelius, chose his natural son Commodus as his successor rather than adopting an heir. Commodus's misrule led to his murder on 31 December 192, following which a brief period of instability quickly gave way to Septimius Severus, who established the Severan dynasty which, except for an interruption in 217-218, held the purple until 235.

Crisis of the Third Century

The accession of Maximinus Thrax marks both the close and the opening of an era. It was one of the last attempts by the increasingly impotent Roman Senate to influence the succession. Yet it was the second time that a man had achieved the purple while owing his advancement purely to his military career; both Vespasian and Septimius Severus had come from noble or middle class families, while Thrax was born a commoner. He never visited the city of Rome during his reign, which marks the beginning of a series of "barracks emperors" who came from the army. Between 235 and 285 over a dozen emperors achieved the purple, but only Valerian and Carus managed to secure their own sons' succession to the throne; both dynasties died out within two generations.

Dominate

The accession to the purple on 20 November 284, of Diocletian, the lower-class, Greek-speaking Dalmatian commander of Carus's and Numerian's household cavalry (''protectores domestici''), marked a major departure from traditional Roman constitutional theory regarding the emperor, who was nominally first among equals; Diocletian introduced oriental despotism into the imperial dignity. Whereas before emperors had worn only a purple toga (''toga purpura'') and been greeted with deference, Diocletian wore jewelled robes and shoes, and required those who greeted him to kneel (proskynesis) and kiss the hem of his robe ''(adoratio)''. In many ways, Diocletian was the first monarchical emperor, and this is symbolised by the fact that the word ''dominus'' ("Lord") rapidly replaced ''princeps'' as the favoured word for referring to the emperor. Significantly, neither Diocletian nor his co-emperor, Maximian, spent much time in Rome after 286, establishing their imperial capitals at Nicomedia and Mediolanum (modern Milan), respectively.

Diocletian established the Tetrarchy, a system by which the Roman Empire was divided into East and West, with each having an Augustus to rule over it and a Caesar to assist him. The Tetrarchy ultimately degenerated into civil war, but the eventual victor, Constantine the Great, restored Diocletian's system of dividing the Empire into East and West. He kept the East for himself and founded his city of Constantinople as its new capital.

The dynasty Constantine established was also soon swallowed up in civil war and court intrigue until it was replaced, briefly, by Julian the Apostate's general Jovian and then, more permanently, by Valentinian I and the dynasty he founded in 364. Though he was a soldier from a low middle class background, Valentinian was not a barracks emperor; he was elevated to the purple by a conclave of senior generals and civil officials.

Late empire

Theodosius I acceded to the purple in the East in 379 and in the West in 394. He outlawed paganism and made Christianity the Empire's official religion. He was the last emperor to rule over a united empire; the distribution of the East to his son Arcadius and the West to his son Honorius after his death in 395 represented a permanent division.

In the West, the office of emperor soon degenerated into being little more than a puppet of a succession of Germanic tribal kings, until finally the Heruli Odoacer simply overthrew the child-emperor Romulus Augustulus in 476, shipped the imperial regalia to the emperor Zeno in Constantinople and assumed the title "King of Italy". Though during his own lifetime Odoacer maintained the legal fiction that he was actually ruling Italy as the viceroy of Zeno, historians mark 476 as the traditional date of the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. Large parts of Italy (Sicily, the south part of the peninsula, Ravenna, Venice etc.), however, remained under actual imperial rule from Constantinople for centuries, with imperial control slipping or becoming nominal only as late as the 11th century. In the East, the Empire continued until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Although known as the Byzantine Empire by contemporary historians, the empire was simply known as the Roman Empire to its citizens and neighboring countries.

:''For rulers of Italy after Romulus "Augustulus" and Julius Nepos, see list of barbarian kings''.

:''For the Roman Emperors who ruled in the East after The Fall in the West, see List of Byzantine Emperors.''

:''For emperors of the HRE in the West , see Holy Roman Emperor.''

See also

Byzantine Emperor

Holy Roman Emperor

Imperator

Interregnum

Justitium

King of Rome

Roman Emperors family tree; also Julio-Claudian family tree and Severan dynasty family tree

Roman usurper

Lists:

List of Imperial Victory Titles

List of Roman Emperors

List of Roman usurpers

List of condemned Roman emperors

Notes

Further reading

External links

De Imperatoribus Romanis

Rulers of Rome

"Decadence, Rome and Romania, and the Emperors Who Weren't", by Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D.

UNRV.com

The Roman Law Library

Emperor Emperor, Roman Category:Positions of authority Category:Deified people

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