Rome Fades Away

• Two Emperors
• Diocletian
• he rules from 284-303
• cool to persecute Christians
• Rome needs a big army (400,000 strong)
• Rome needs a big government (20,000 officials)
• Constantine
• he rules from 306-337
• its cool to be a Christian
• conversion to Christianity via a cross in the sky (conquer by this)
• 313- his edict of Milan proclaims freedom of worship
• built a new capital in the East
• Byzantium, soon to be known as Constantinople 
• The struggle of the peasants
• Life for the peasants in the 4th Century
• country dwellers are getting bankrupted by endless tax collection
• new farming system: peasants work for elite landlords on large farms 
• paying off debts and being allowed to live on land, in exchange for endless back-breaking work 
• landowners hold local power as counts and bishops, wielding more real power than the faraway empire
• foreshadowing feudalism (The dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which land granted by the Crown to the nobility was in turn held by vassals and worked)
• The Western Empire Crumbles
• Romes's power decreasing, while nomadic barbarians gain power
• Western Empire is too poor, beings to be neglected
• Huns migrate from China to eastern Europe 
• Visigoths take over Spain, and actually capture and loot Rome itself in 410
• Vandals control Carthage and the western Mediterranean
• Other barbarian tribes
• Ostrogoth in Italy 
• Franks in Gaul
• Angles and Saxons in Britain
•  End of an area
• From the beginnings
• 500 BC- the monarchy is abolished
• 450 BC- the Twelve Tables are established
• Through the Glory days
• 44 BC- end of the line for Julius Caesar 
• 27 BC- 180 AD- Pax Romana 
• To the Bitter end
• constant 5th century invasions by barbarian tribes left the western roman empire and crumbing
• the last emperor was a teenage boy in 475 by his father
• barbarians deposed Romulus Augustulus without bothering to kill him 
• Barbarian Groups
• Angles: were German people that settled in Britannia 
• Franks: German tribe that settled on the lower and middle Rhine, they raided Roman territory, most powerful German tribe 
• Huns
• Ostrogoths: established a kingdom in Italy in the late 5th century and early 6th century
• Saxons: German tribe on the North German Plain
• Vandals: were an east Germanic tribe
• Visigoths: Germanic people referred to as Goths