The Beginning of the End of the Roman Empire

Hard Times in the Empire           

Wikipedia

Commodus was the son of Marcus Aurelius. His reign was marked the beginning of the end of the empire. At his time there was great unrest in the empire and there were many political problems. Violence replaced the rule of law and around 26 emperors ruled within the span of 50 years! There were many attacks by barbarians from the north. There were also many economic problems, such as high taxes that made tax collection nearly impossible. There was great inflation and no new gold sources to revive the economy. The farming and manufacturing productivity decreases and rural areas were full of bandits and robbers. Laws requires farmers to remain on their land. In cities there were mandatory “Collegia” (worker’s trade associations). The social problems were that there was an overall decrease in population and many plagues spread through the empire. This made travel throughout the empire very unsafe.

Two good rulers attempted to slow the decline of the empire. The first one, named Diocletian tried to make the empire easier to govern. He reorganized the empire into two parts, east and west. He ruled the more wealthy half, the East, while his emperor, named Augustus, ruled the West. The Co-emperor reported to Diocletian and for a while, some order was restored in the empire. Later on, The co-emperors and the Caesars (The people who ruled the East) would start to struggle for control.

Constantine was the second of the two good rulers who tried to save the empire. He attempted to slow the economic decline in the Empire by creating fixed prices for goods and services to combat the inflation in the empire. He also forced farmers to stay on their land, to maintain a steady income. Also in cities, sons were required to follow the occupation of their fathers for the same reason. Constantine also issued two steps that changed the course of European history which were the protection of Christians and the construction of the new capital, Constantinople. The eastern portion of the empire was now the center of power  and will survive another 1000 years and the Western Empire was starting to fall apart because of weaker leadership. After Justinian’s death, there were another 50 years of stability and then corruption started to plague the empire again.

Theodosius was the emperor to rule the unified empire. Theodosius made Christianity the state religion of Rome. He banned the Olympic games because they were originally played to glorify the Greek gods. Also pagan worshipping was banned. After Theodosius, the empire dies in the West and thrives in the East until 1453 AD when if finally collapsed.

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