Timeline of Rome

The fall of the western Roman Empire, and its division into Germanic kingdoms
[image source, with a large version of this map]

Despite the clear change in leadership from Italians to Germans, life in Italy did not change drastically for the common citizen. The empire, however, was gone, and Western Europe slowly transitioned into the feudal ages.

The eastern portion of the empire, renamed by historians as the Byzantine Empire, continued to exist until 1453. Citizens of this empire called themselves Romans, but the city of Rome ceased to play a role in their fate. The days of Rome’s dominance were over.

Around this time, Rome began to lose its status as a capital city. Diocletian's system of multiple emperors created a number of imperial residences outside of Rome, and emperors and the imperial court spent less and less time in the city. The government of the western half of the empire came to be based out varying cities in northern Italy, to best resist the advancing Germanic tribes.

For more information about ancient Rome, please consult my sources here.

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406
Germanic forces cross the Rhine

410
Alaric, a Visigoth general, captures Rome

The Battle of Actium is often marked as the turning point in the fall of the republic and the start of the principate. Octavian, who became Augustus, the first emperor, defeated his rivals Mark Antony and Cleopatra. The Battle of Actium also marks the end of the frequent civil wars that had plagued the previous century.

Octavian had a long and careful transition towards emperorship. Like those before him, he skillful avoided being label a king and the idea that he would rule over the empire. However, that is exactly what he ended up doing, after manipulating the Senate into granting him control of everything he wanted. The Senate also named him Augustus.

Key accomplishments of Augustus:

The Praetorian Guard, a force that was stationed in central Italy to be called upon by the emperor in need. The Praetorian Guard evolved into a power of its own, and would become the major force in the choice for future emperors.
Bureaucratic reforms – appointed a Minister of Grain whose dedicated job was to oversee food imports into Rome and establish a perminetn grain supply.
Start of the imperial cult. The imperial cult sponsored the worshipof emperors as gods, and helped draw followers across the empire. Like Julius Caesar before him, Augustus was defied. Later, so would be other emperors.

Despite surrendering nearly all power to Augustus, the Senate remained in existence throughout the duration of the empire. There were several reasons for this: first, emperors needed assistants to aid in the administration of the vast empire – these people were drawn from the pool of senators. Second, the existence of a senate lent validity to the emperor – the emperor claimed that his power came directly from the Senate.

The Julio-Claudian family reign was marked by the gradual development of a full imperial system. The imperial cult spread and grew to surprising popularity. The Roman military shifted from offensive, as during the republic, to defensive, as suggested by Augustus. The Praetorian Guard gained power, and by the reign of Caligula, the Guard was essentially choosing emperors.

Nero was the last Julio-Claudian to rule as emperor. Nero was the youngest emperor to date, and succeeding in alienating the major supporters that any emperor relies on: other Roman aristocrats, the Roman legions, and the Praetorian Guard. Nero also gained his poor reputation as a response to The Great Fire in Rome, for which he was blamed. To take the blame off himself, he accused Christians, and began persecuting them. Eventually, after losing support of the Guard, Nero fled Rome and committed suicide.

Following Nero’s death was the quick succession of four emperors. First, Galba, a Spanish general, became emperor with the support of both the Praetorian Guard and his legions. However, he refused to give the Guard and soldiers the large cash gifts they had grown accustomed to, and quickly lost their support. Then Otho, striving for emperorship, offered the Praetorians a bribe to support him. They did, but he quickly lost power when Vitellius, in control of the German legions, marched on Rome. Vitellius attempted and failed to establish a dynasty, and was ousted by Vespasian in less than a year. Vespasian drew his power from the eastern legions, which were able to defeat Vitellius’s forces in AD 69. Vespasian then secured power for himself, and started the Flavian dynasty.

1st century BC -- the fall of the republic: the dictatorships of Marius, Sulla, Pompey, and Caesar.

See the previous section for more details.

64 AD
Great Fire in Rome
66 AD
Jewish Revolt in Judaea
68 AD
Nero's death.
69 AD
Year of four emperors

74 AD
Masada, the final Jewish holdout, is captured.

80 AD
Colosseum finished

Following Domitian’s assassination and the end of the Flavian dynasty, Nerva quickly assumed the thrown. He reign was brief, however, and he died in 98 AD, but not before “adopting” Trajan to be heir to the empire. This set a new and successful precedence – the next four emperors, all good ones, would be adopted by the previous emperor. This ushered in a period of prosperity and relative internal peace, known as the Antonine Empire.

The ascension of Commodus marked the end of the Antonine Empire and Rome’s long period of prosperity and stability. Commodus was the son of Marcus Aurelius, which broke the tradition of adopting heirs from outside the family. Commodus failed as a successful emperor: after an attempt at this life, he lived in fear and had others govern in his place. He may then have went mad – he pretended to be Hercules, became obsessed with gladiators, and passed a number of extreme self-honoring resolutions. Eventually, he was assassinated, and Rome entered a period of crisis.

notes:
scale is approximately 10 pixels/year.

Uncited images are believed to be in the public domain.

Unfortunately, the line of succession after Commodus was not set. First came Pertinax, who tried to cut governmental spending, particularly by decreasing donations to soldiers. The Praetorian Guard quickly had him removed. This power of the Praetorians was demonstrated absolutely when they literally auctioned off the emperorship to Didius Julianus, who promised each Praetorian a large sum of money. Didius failed to receive support from any other group in Rome. At the same time, several provincial generals proclaimed themselves emperor. Septimius Severus, commanding the numerous Pannonian legions, marched on Rome and quickly removed Didius. Septimius then defeated the other major challengers, Pescennius Niger (Syria) and Clodius Albinus (Britain), and became the unchallenged emperor.

Septimius began his reign be replacing the Praetorian Guard with soldiers from his own legions. He quarreled with the Senate, putting senators to death and recruiting legions for his private control. He was the first emperor in a while to show interest towards military expansion, and created two new provinces, Parthia and Mesopotamia. Finally, Septimius secured to the succession for his two sons, Caracalla and Geta.

Soon after Septimius’s death, Caracalla had his brother killed and assumed sole control of the empire. Caracalla’s main contribution to the Roman Empire was granting Roman citizenship to everyone in the empire, all provinces included. His motives for this, however, were dubious: he had raised soldiers’ pay by 50% and needed a way to fund it. By granting universal citizenship, he could collect more taxes.

Following Caracalla’s assassination (he was not popular), power was seized briefly by Macrinus, who was noteworthy only for the fact he was from the equestrian class, not the senatorial. After Macrinus was disposed, Julia Maesa, the sister of Severus, began to manipulate the principate to grant her descendants power. First, she placed her grandson on the thrown, but then had him killed for his unhealthy obsession with an eastern cult (he began to call himself by the god’s name, Elagabalus). She murdered him only after he had declared Severus Alexander his heir. Severus was young, and it is doubtful that he actually ruled the empire. In 235, he was assassinated by his soldiers, and the empire fell into a deep, prolonged period of crisis.

For the next half century, Rome saw as many emperors as years. Simultaneously, Rome’s enemies attacked: the Parthians, a long time menace, invaded in the east, and even captured the emperor Valerian in 260. The Goths of Germany crossed the Danube a number of times, and the Franks and Alemanni pillaged as far as Spain in 263. Provinces rebelled. The imperial economy also took a hit – the value of coins decreased greatly as they were debased with common metals. Provincials stopped accepting Roman money.

It was not until 284 that the crisis was eased, with the ascension to power of Diocletian. Diocletian initiated reforms in multiple areas of society. Politically, he created the first tetrarchy. He appointed a co-emperor – another augusti – and secured the secession by choosing two caesares, or junior emperors. Together, the four ruled the empire. This system allowed there to be imperial presence in multiple places at once, and for the empire to be divided under the care of four men. Although the tetrarchy did not survive in this pure form – that is, with four emperors ruling harmoniously – the emperorship became a permanent plurality with the reign of Diocletian.

In the military sphere, Diocletian greatly increased the size of the Roman army, perhaps as much as doubling it. He strengthened frontier fortifications and restructured the legions to have smaller, mobile squads. The size and momentum of the previous legions had been a disadvantage – once the enemy broke through the frontier, they encountered little resistance in the heart of the empire. This is what allowed Germanic tribes to pillage as far as Spain in 263.

Diocletian reformed provincial administration. He divided what were then about 32 provinces into 100 smaller districts. This increased the number of administrators across the empire, led to tighter Roan control, more flexibility at a local level, and increased stability. Also, by creating smaller provinces ruled by more officials, Diocletian decreased the chance that any governor could gain enough power to usurp the emperor.

Finally, Diocletian passed financial reforms. He greatly simplified the tax system so that is was universal across the empire and based on the productive capacity of local land. He also passed edicts in attempt to stop inflation.

Following Diocletian, Constantine came to power by pushing other Augusti and Caesaes out of the way. Eventually he ruled as sole emperor, ending the tetrarchy, but he expressed interest in reestablishing it with his death. Constantine did continue many of Diocletian’s other reforms.

For whatever reason, Constantine embraced Christianity, ending the long persecution of the Christian Church and contributing to its spread across the Roman world (before Constantine’s emperorship, about 10% of Romans were Christians).

Constantine also founded the city of Constantinople and spent a considerable amount of time there with the imperial court. In fact, since Diocletian, emperors often resided outside of Rome. However, the founding of Constantinople marked a shift in political power away from Rome itself and the waning of Rome’s influence.