despise and mistrust. He chose instead to project the benevolent image of savior and protector of the people. In 27BC he took the title of Imperator Caesar Agustus, ? The Great Victor and Ruler.? But Octavian himself never used the title of emperor, preferring to be called either Augustus or princeps, meaning ?first citizen?. Whatever he chose to call himself at the time, he was in fact the first in a long line of Roman Emperors. Beginning with his reign, Rome and its provinces became known as the Roman Empire. Agustus enjoyed a long, successful, and peaceful reign. After more than a century of bloodshed, power struggles, and civil strife, the Roman people were thankful for the order and stability he brought. In time, most people remembered the days of the republic as a time of troubles and chaos and the idea of restoring it steadily died out. Though the system that had brought Rome power and prestige for five hundred years was gone, Rome?s days of glory were not over. The Romans were embarking on a new era of accomplishments that would profoundly affect the many lands and peoples they would encounter and thereby help to shape the next two thousand years of world history.
As a result of the Republic falling, the empire grew but for only a short period of time. Hooker R, 1996 author of ?Rome the Late Empire? stated that:
While people like to talk about the ?decline? of the ?fall? of Rome, no such thing really happened. Although Rome underwent several shocks in the fourth and fifth centuries, some of them violent with a transfer of the imperiate to non-Romans, Rome really did remain in existence. It?s impossible to say when the history of Rome with the assumption of the imperiate by foreigners. But the empire really does end, for all practical purposes, with the restructing of the empire by Diocletian. Diocletian (284-305) came to the throne after a century of disorganization, internal dissent, economic collapse, and foreign incisions. A tough and practical soldier he had one ambition: to retire from the imperiate alive. And he managed to do it (an exceptional feat). To stem the descent into chaos, he decided that the Empire was too large to be administered by a central authority, so he divided it in half. A colleague, Maximian would rule the western half, and the seat of government was in Nicomedia. Maxima recognized Diocletain as ?Agustus?, or the senior ruler of the Roman emperor. Beneath these two were appointed to each two officials, called Caesars, no only to help manage the administration, but to assume their respective empires on the
death of the emperor. In this way, the succession was always guaranteed and the successors had already spent much of their career administering the empire. This would prevent both the possibility of the ambitious seizing of the imperiate by provincial generals and would prevent incompetence from assuming control of the Empire. This was a brilliant strategy and, with other innovations, stabilized the Empire. Diocletian was the first emperor to manifestly break with Roman tradition. He shifted the seat of power to the east, on Nicomedia in Turkey. He also adopted eastern ideas of monarchy; he no longer called himself princeps or even imperator, but dominus, or ?Lord.? He took a crown and wore royal clothing; he demanded and got out and out worship by his subjects. In 305, Diocletian retired to farm to raise cabbages; he forced Maxmiam also to retire. So the imperiate passed without fuss to their two Caesars. This brilliant system, so promising in its inception, fell apart immediately as the two emperors began feuding. Within a year, the sin of one of the original Caesars gained the throne: Constantine (396-337). Like Diocletian, he ruled only half of the Roman Empire, the western half. But in 324, he abandoned the system and ruled over a single, united empire. However, he shifted the seat of government east to his own city in Turkey, Constantinople. Constantine was like Diocletian his affection for eastern ways of life and eastern views of monarchy. He took on himself all the trappings of an eastern king, as Diocletian had done, and declared the imperiate to be hereditary. After eight hundred years without a monarch, Rome had finally returned back to monarchy. Constantine, however, is one of the most noted rulers in Rome for he was the first emperor to convert to Christianity. Although he didn?t make Christianity a state religion, his conversion provoked a wild proliferation of the faith, particularly in the Eastern Empire. Constantine, however never really became a Christian ruler. He retained all the trappings of power including the demand that he be venerated as a god, as Diocletian had done. Constantine, however, had several problems with his new faith. The first was that there was no established doctrine. In fact, there were as many forms of Christianity as there were communities of Christians. The second was more pressing, for foundational Christianity was manifestly anti-political. Its founder, Jesus of Nazareth, consistently condemned worldly authority and insisted that the Christian siege is a non-worldly, individualistic, non-political life. As a result, the foundational Christian texts are not only anti-Roman, but
consistently dismissive of human worldly authority. If Christianity were going to work as a religion in a state ruled but a monarch that demanded worship and absolute authority, it would have to be changed. To this end, Constantine convened a group of Christian bishops at Nicea in 325; there, the basic orthodoxy of Christianity was instantiated in what came to be called the Nicene Creed, the basic statement of belief for orthodox Christianity. Constantine accomplished more, however, for the Nicene council also ratified his own power and Christianity would begin the long struggle, lasting to this day, between the anti-political ideas of Jesus of Nazareth and the Christianity that is compromised to allow for human authority and power. When Constantine died, he divided the Empire between his three sons who, as you might expect, began fighting one another over a complete control of the Empire. His sons all adopted Christianity as well, but the emperor, Julian the Apostate (361-363), opposed the religion and tried to undo it by dismissing all the Christians from the government. He was little too late and reigned a little too briefly, though, to have any real effect. The government of Rome during the fourth century essentially traces out a history of dynastic squabbles and constant internal fractiousness; it wasn?t until the end of the century, in the rule of Theodosius (379-365), that Rome was again united under a single emperor. Theodosius made his mark in history by declaring Christianity the state religion of Rome; he made all pagan religions illegal. The Christian Roman State had entered the stage; however history was about to dramatically change the character of Rome. In 410, the Visigoths, a Germanic tribe that had migrated into northern Italy under the pressure of migrations of the Huns, captured and sacked Rome. From 451 to 453 Rome was overrun by the Hunnish leader, Attila, and finally, in 476,Odacer deposed the Roman emperor and made himself emperor. Power had passed from the Romans to the barbarian?s war-chiefs; the Middle Ages had begun. Rome now passed to two heirs: Europe in the east and, to the west, the Byzantines, who carried on the government structure, the social structure, the art and the thought of classical Rome and Greece.
In conclusion, the expansion of Rome led to the Punic Wars, breakdown of the Republic, and in
the end the fall of the empire. Although this paper is only a brief outline of these events, not all information can be refereed as ?new knowledge?. Green, E 1994 again states:
Most of our knowledge about ancient Rome comes from written records of the Romans. These records include such documents as law codes, treaties, and decrees of the emperors and the Roman Senate. Other written records are masterpieces of Latin literature. In many works, the authors wrote about events the lived through. Such works include the letters and speeches of Cicero and the letters of Plane the Younger.
These are only a few examples of where the information stated in this paper came from. In the end the moral proves to show, what goes up must come down.
References
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1. Boise, S. (1996). ?The Punic Wars?. Internet. (http://history.idbsu.edu/westcir/punicwar/01-18.htm).
2. Green, E. (1994). The World Book Encyclopedia. World Book, Inc. Chicago, Ill..
3. Harker, K. (1998). ?Punic Wars?. Internet. (http://www.kileenroos.com/1/Punic.html).
4. Hooker, R. (1996). Rome the Crisis of the Republic?. Internet. (http://www-wsu.edu/~dee/ROME/CRISIS.HTM).
5. Hooker, R. (1996). ?Rome History?. Internet. (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/Rome/Late.htm).
6. Hooker, R. (1996). ?Rome the Late Empire?. Internet. (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/Rome/HISTORY.htm) .
7. Hooker, R. (1996).?Rome History. Internet. (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ROME/PUNICWARS.HTM).
8. Kjeilen, T.(1999). ?Punic Wars?. Internet. (http://I-cias.com/e.o/punic_wr.htm).
9. Nardo, D. (1994). The Roman Empire. Lucent Books: San Diego, CA..
10. Nardo, D. (1994). The Roman Republic. Lucent Books: San Diego, CA..