The Western Roman Empire

This research examines whether and to what extent the Western Roman Empire can be said to have "fallen" over the course of the third to fifth centuries AD and how the West fared vis-�-vis the Eastern Empire over the same period. The research will discuss how the Eastern Empire responded to the conquest patterns of Islam from the seventh century onward, as well as the role of Christianity in the fate of both the East and the West.

Gibbon's narrative of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire begins essentially from the death of the last of the so-called five good emperors, Marcus Aurelius, in AD 180. Gibbon goes on to provide the precarious histories of a number of emperors, some good, most bad--and almost all assassinated. But under Diocletian, Rome in AD 286 underwent a civil and administrative restructuring that had major long-term consequences for the status and fate of the Empire. It was a practical response to the administrative and military contingencies created because Roman civil and military apparatus stretched thinly from Britain to North Africa to the eastern Mediterranean, frontier commanders could threaten civil war abroad and create anarchy at home. A pious believer in the old Roman religion and civic virtues, Diocletian mistrusted and therefore persecuted the troublesome Christian cult. German barbarians were also perpetually threatening to invade southward. Diocletian split imperial rule into Eastern and Western divisions, selecting a general, Maximian, as c

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tantinople), Constantine was not universally loved in Rome, though he did convert to Christianity and did undertake some architectural restoration there. But the emperor's new, definitely Christian capital in the East increasingly eclipsed the one in the West. Whereas, aggravated by threats from barbarians, Rome retained much of its pagan identity and culture until the early fifth century, Constantinople was decisively Christian. Constantine protected the pope's ecclesiastical status in Rome, but over the course of the fourth century, the Empire remained officially Roman in name only. The eastern emperors were active in helping to settle doctrinal orthodoxy; the major heresies over the nature of God, Christ, and the Trinity had emerged in the east. The most authoritative ecclesial voice came from Rome, but the eastern emperors gave it force. Theodosius I (the Great) actively suppressed pagan and nonorthodox worship and belief during his reign (379-95), especially during the Trinitarian controversy. By the fifth century, as the Byzantine Empire was coming into its own, Italy suffered what Gibbon calls two great invasions and several sackings of Rome, starting with the Goth Alaric in AD 395 and continuing in 415 with the Vandals (G

Category: History - T