Western Roman Empire

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The Western Roman Empire is the name given to the western half of the Roman Empire after its division by Diocletian in 286 AD. It would exist intermittently in several periods between the 3rd Century and the 5th Century, after Diocletian's Tetrarchy and the reunifications associated with Constantine the Great and his later successors, and is generally held to have ended with the abdication of Romulus Augustus on September 4, 476, under pressure of the Germanic chieftain Odoacer. Its counterpart, the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire, survived for another 1,000 years.

Although linguistically united by the Latin language, and later under Roman Catholicism, the Western Roman Empire was in reality comprised of numerous different cultures that had been incompletely assimilated by the Romans, in contrast to the Eastern Roman Empire, which was Greek-speaking and had been culturally united since Alexander the Great's conquests in the 4th century BC.

The Roman Empire thus truly split along cultural, religious, and linguistic lines, as the Hellenistic East held together around the Greek culture and Eastern Orthodox Church, and the cultural unity of the West was terminally strained by the influx of barbarians, who had been allowed to settle there in order to replenish the manpower of legions along the frontier, but who may also have had the unintended effect of causing even more discord in the West. Divergence in the Western and Eastern Empires continued, and in 410, Rome was sacked for the first time in over 800 years — the Western Empire soon ceased to be Roman and became ruled by the invading tribes. The transformation was complete by 526, and despite brief periods of reconquest by the Eastern Roman Empire, the Western Empire would never rise again.


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Imperial Boundaries, 1st Century AD

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Roman boundaries under Trajan, 1st Century AD

During the reign of Caesar Augustus, and into the late 1st century AD, the final boundaries of the Empire would be developed. Iberia and Britain in the west, the Danube and Mesopotamia in the east. During this period a huge amount of economic development would take place throughout the Empire. In the West, lands formerly controlled by barbarian tribes were being Romanized, their industries modernized, and a huge amount of infrastructure development was taking place. In the East, redevelopment of the large urban centres was taking place, centres decimated first by continuous warfare as the hellenistic world crumbled, and then by Roman occupation. During the stable 200 years from the first to early 3rd century AD, an atmosphere was finally available for the actual Romanization of the empire. However, this economic development came at a cost. As the periphery grew, the core began to rot.

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Crisis of the 3rd Century

Rome and the Italian peninsula began to experience an economic slowdown as industries and money began to move outward.

Starting on March 18/ 19, 235 with the assassination of Roman Emperor Alexander Severus, the Roman Empire fell into a 50 year cycle of civil wars known as the Crisis of the Third Century. In 259, Emperor Valerian I was captured by Shapur I of Persia, a ruler of the Sassanid dynasty. His succeeding son, Gallienus was off fighting in the East. His own son and the Praetorian Prefect Aurelius Heraclianus were residing in Colonia Agrippina. The governor of the German provinces, Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus, took it upon himself to assault Colonia Agrippina, kill the heir and the prefect, and create an independent state now known as the Gallic Empire.

Its capital was at Augusta Treverorum, and in time it expanded to control not just the German provinces, but also all of Gaul, Hispania, and Britannia. It had its own senate, and a partial list of consuls still survive. It maintained Roman religion, language, and culture, and was more concerned with fighting the Germanic tribes than other Romans. However, in the reign of Claudius Gothicus (268 to 270), large expanses of the Gallic Empire were returned to Roman rule.

At roughly the same time, the eastern provinces were rebelling as the “Kingdom of Palmyra”, ruled over by Queen Zenobia. In 272, Emperor Aurelian managed to finally subdue Palmyra and return its territory to the Empire. With the East secure, he turned his attention west, and in the next year, the Gallic Empire fell. Due to a secret deal between Aurelian and the Gallic emperor Tetricus I and his son Tetricus II, the Gallic army was massacred while the two were allowed to live. This saved face for the two, and in exchange Aurelian went so far as to give them important positions in Italy.

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The Tetrarchies and the Constantine Dynasty

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Map of the Roman empire c.379, showing the praetorian prefectures of Gaul, Italy, Illyricum and Oriens, roughly analogous to the four Tetrarchs' zones of influence, though the western part of Illyricum (not shown) was attached to the prefecture of Italy.

After the restoration of Gaul, the west's external borders were largely quiet for the remainder of the Crisis of the Third Century, although between the death of Aurelius in 275 and the accession of Diocletian ten years later, at least eight Emperors or would-be Emperors were killed, many by their own troops. It was under Diocletian that the eventual permanent division of the Empire would start. In 286, through his creation of the Tetrarchy, he gave control over the western portion of the Empire to Maximian as Augustus, and named Constantius Chlorus as his subordinate (Caesar). This system divided up the Empire into four parts, and moved the capital from Rome to four smaller cities as a way to avoid the civil unrest that marked the 3rd century. In the west the capitals were Maximian's Milan and Constantius' Trier. On May 1, 305, the two Augusti stepped down and were replaced by their respective Caesars.

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Economic stagnation in the West

By the end of the Crisis of the Third Century the economic stagnation of Italy could easily be seen in the provincial born Emperors such as Trajan and Hadrian. (Actually, these two emperors ruled at the begining of the Second Century). Economic problems only grew for Italy as time continued, and it eventually spread into much of the rest of the west, especially Gaul, whose industries, particularly the pottery industry, began to suffer tremendously as the 4th century wore on. Another key problem that was almost certainly related to the economic slowdowns in Gaul and Italy was the cost on manpower of maintaining the frontier. Illyricum, a province technically part of the East but more or less in between Rome and Constantinople also suffered heavily in this regard as barbarian invasions increased in the Late Empire in strength and frequency.

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Constantine the Great

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Reunification, Eastern focus, and re-division

Once again the Roman Empire was ruled by a single ruler, but with the death of Constantine in 337, civil war erupted among his three sons, dividing the Empire into three parts. The West was reunified in 340, and the final reunification of the entire Empire occurred in 353, under Constantius II.

Notably, Constantius II focused most of his power in the East, and he is often regarded as the first Emperor of the Byzantine Empire. Under his rule, the city of Byzantium, only recently refounded as Constantinople, was truly developed as a capital.

In 361 Constantius II took ill and died, and Constantius Chlorus' grandson Julian, who had served as Constantius II's Caesar, took power briefly. Julian was killed carrying on Constantius II's war against Persia in 363, and was replaced by an officer named Jovian who ruled only until 364. These deaths marked the end of the reunified Empire.

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Permanent division

Following the death of Jovian the empire fell into a new set of crisis similar to the Crisis of the Third Century. In 364, another officer named Valentinian I took power. He immediately divided the empire once again, giving the eastern half to his brother Valens. Stability was not achieved for long in either half of the empire as conflicts with barbarians intensified, especially with the Huns and Goths. Another serious problem in the west was a growing backlash by emperors against paganism. In 379, Valentine I's son and successor Gratian had refused to wear the mantle of pontifex maximus and in 382 had rescinded the rights of pagan priests, as well as removing the pagan altar from the Curia. In 388 a powerful and popular general named Magnus Maximus seized power in the west, and forced Gratian's son Valentinian II to flee to the east and the aid of the Eastern Emperor Theodosius I who quickly restored Valentinian II to power, but also converted him to Christianity and caused a ban on paganism to be implemented in the west in 391. In 392 pagan usurpers assassinated Valentinian II and a man named Eugenius was declared emperor until he was defeated in 394 by Theodosius I, who, having ruled both east and west for a year died in 395. This marked the beginning of the end for the West, as with Theodosius's death went the East's assistance for the West. A short period of stability under the puppet emperor Honorius controlled by Flavius Stilicho ended at Stilicho's death in 408, and many argue with him went the Western Roman Empire. It was during this period that the two empires truly diverged, as the east began a slow recovery and consolidation, the west began to collapse entirely.

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Fall of Rome

With the death of Stilicho in 408 the weak emperor Honorius was left in charge, and although he ruled until his death in 423, his reign was filled with usurpations and barbarian invasions, particularly by the Vandals and Visigoths. In 410, Rome was sacked for the first time since the Gallic invasions of the 4th Century BC, and in effect as the military order of the western empire unraveled it ceased to be Roman and became barbarian. The instability caused by usurpers throughout the Western Empire helped the barbarians in their conquests, and as the 5th century wore on the barbarians became usurpers themselves. In 475, Orestes, a former secretary of Attila the Hun drove the emperor Julius Nepos out of Ravenna and proclaimed his son Romulus Augustus to be Emperor. Although some pockets of Roman civilization continued, (in northwest Gaul and Britannia, under Syagrius and Ambrosius Aurelianus, respectively) the rule of Rome over the west was effectively ended. In 476 after Orestes refused to grant the Heruli led by Odoacer federated status. Odoacer sacked Rome and sent the imperial insignia to Constantinople, installing himself as King over Italy. The last hope for a reunited Empire came in 493 when Odoacer was replaced by the Ostrogoth Theodoric the Great. Theodoric had been recruited by the Eastern Emperor Zeno to retake the western portion of the empire, Rome most importantly. Technically he was to be subordinant as a viceroy to the Emperor of the East, Theodoric was in fact an equal. It was in this period while Rome was under direct barbarian control for the first time starting 476 that the collapse started to become final in the West. Barbarian tribes flooded into the western provinces and began to take control, and without an organized Roman Army to stop them they had free reign. Following Theodoric's death in 526, the west no longer resembled the east, as both had transformed. The west was now fully controlled by barbarians, while the east retreated from former borders and hellenized. While the East would make some further attempts to recapture the west, it would never more be the Roman Empire.

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Economic factors

While the West was experiencing an overall economic decline throughout the late empire, the East was maintaining economic stability and growth, especially as Emperors like Constantine the Great and Constantius II began pouring vast sums of money into economic development of eastern cities. The severe economic decline of the west, especially following the Crisis of the Third Century in the end helped to aid in the eventual collapse of this area of the empire. Once the west did collapse, the economic stability collapsed along with the Roman institutions. Most barbarian lords required the Roman subjects in the provinces they conquered to give a third of their land as tribute when they conquered an area, and this could turn into much more, as different lords conquered that same land and demanded similar tribute. Tens of square kilometres of carefully developed land was abandoned due to lack of economic viability. Because most of the economy of Antiquity was based upon agriculture, this was a severe blow. This occurred because during the height of western development, many plots of land were developed that required a large investment in time and money simply to maintain production, and these were abandoned in favour of more easy to farm land. Unfortunately, this meant attempts to reconquer the west by the east were very difficult, as not only was the land occupied by barbarian tribes, the huge decline in the economy made these new reconquests impossible to maintain.

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Byzantine reconquest

Several times throughout the middle ages, the eastern Byzantine Empire managed to reconquer large areas of the west which had been occupied by barbarian tribes. The first such case was the campaigns of the Byzantine generals Belisarius and Narses on behalf of the Emperor Justinian I from 535 to 554. Regaining much of the then Vandal occupied former Roman territory in North Africa, particularly the territory centred around the city of Carthage, the campaign eventually moved into Italy itself, eventually reconquering the entirety of the peninsula, with some minor territory being taken as far west as the southern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.

It appeared at the time that perhaps the Roman state as it existed could be saved. Throughout the empire's history, there had been times when great losses of territory were later reversed, however, the barbarian influence had caused far too much damage to these former Roman provinces, both economically and culturally. Not only were they extremely costly to maintain, the invasion and propagation of the barbarian tribes throughout these territories meant that much of the Roman cultural influence that had held the empire together had been destroyed, or at the very least severely damaged. This eventually resulted in the east abandoning these territories for the most part.

Although eastern emperors would occasionally attempt to reconquer the west, none would be as successful as Justinian. The division between the empires would only grow as the influence of the Pope on the former territories of the west grew, resulting in growing rivalry between the east and west. While the east held on to isolated pockets of territory throughout the middle-ages, after Justinian, the emperors focused on acquiring and defending territory closer to Constantinople. The east no longer had the ability to project power like it had in the early days of that empire's history, spelling the end of any hope for reunification.

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The continued tradition of Empire

Although the west fell, the barbarians lords who took over felt compelled to uphold many Roman traditions. This can be seen in the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages. However, the most important remnant of the Western Empire is the Roman Catholic Church. The Church slowly began to replace Roman institutions in the west, even helping to negotiate the safety of Rome during the late 5th Century. As the barbarians invaded, many converted, and by the middle of the medieval period (ca. 9th and 10th centuries) the entirety of the former Western half of the Empire had been completely converted to Christianity and leadership by the Pope. Ironically, Rome's final conquering of the Germans and Slavs came after her fall as an Empire through the Christian missionaries spreading ever further north, until paganism was stamped out throughout Europe.

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List of western Roman emperors

Gallic Emperors (259 to 273):

Tetrarchy (293 to 313):

Augusti are shown with their Caesares, regents, etc., further indented

Constantinian Dynasty (313 to 363):

Non-Dynastic (363 to 364):

Valentinian Dynasty (364 to 392):

Non-Dynastic (392 to 394):

Theodosian Dynasty (394 to 455):

Non-Dynastic (455 to 480):

Orestes was killed by revolting barbarian mercenaries. Their leader Odoacer assumed control of Italy as a de jure representative of Julius Nepos and Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno.

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See also

Roman Emperors by Epoch (see also: List - Concise List - Roman Empire)  
 Principate  Crisis of the 
 3rd Century  		 Dominate  Late Empire
(most Tetrarchies) Theodosian Dynasty
(Tetrarchy, unification
and final split)

Emperors of the
Western Empire

Byzantine emperors

→ (Italy:)
Barbarian kings

→ (Much later in Western Europe:)

Holy Roman Emperors

→ (Continuing in Eastern Europe:)

Byzantine emperors
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External links

es:Imperio Romano de Occidente fr:Empire romain d'Occident id:Kekaisaran Romawi Barat it:Impero Romano d'Occidente nl:West-Romeinse Keizerrijk nds:Weströömsch Riek pt:Império Romano do Ocidente