The Decay of the Roman Empire

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The Decay of the Roman Empire

• -Key Concepts-

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I. The Tetrarchy (284-337 AD)

• Diocletian (284-305 AD)
• --Military Crisis
• --Economic Crisis
• Ruled like an Oriental despot
• Reorganization of Imperial Administration
• --Empire divided in half
• --augusti
• --caesari
• --dioceses

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I. The Tetrarchy (cont)

• Imperial inflation
• Attempted economic reforms
• Constantine (306-337 AD)
• --Shifted capital from Rome to Constantinople

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II. Reasons for the Decay of the Empire

• Re-assertion of local loyalties
• Decline in the quality of the Roman army
• Invasion of the Germanic Tribes across the
  Rhine-Danube frontier
• --motivation for invasions
• --Fear of the Huns
• --The invasion of the Visigoths

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II. Reasons for the Decay of the Empire (cont)

• Federates
• Alarics sack of Rome (410)
• Domination of the Franks
• --Clovis
• Vandal invasion
• Invasion of the Angles and Saxons
• Non-Roman monarch rules in the West (476)

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II. Reasons for the Decay of the Empire

• Economic Crisis
• Decay of urban life and culture
• Spiritual Crisis
• Population Decline
• Growing significance of the landed estates
• Political Crisis

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Remember . . .

• Roman Empire continues in the East until 15th
  century AD
• Rome did not fall, it simply changed
• --Edward Gibbon

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Remember . . .

• Roman culture and political forms continued to
  exercise tremendous influence
• --Roman law
• --Roman buildings and roads
• --Prevalence of the Latin language
• --Dominance of the Christian Church