Who was the last emperor of the Roman Empire?
History of the East–West Schism
Disunion in the Roman Empire further contributed to disunion in the Church. The Emperor Diocletian famously divided the administration of the eastern and western portions of the Empire in the early 4th century, though subsequent leaders (including Constantine) aspired to and sometimes gained control of both regions. Theodosius the Great, who established Nicene Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire (see Edict of Thessalonica), was the last Emperor to rule over a united Roman Empire. Following his death in 395, the division into western and eastern halves, each for a few decades still under its own Emperor, was never reunited.
Ambrosius Aurelianus
In Valerio Massimo Manfredi's "The Last Legion", Aurelianus (here called "Aurelianus Ambrosius Ventidius") is a major character and is shown as one of the last loyal Romans, going to enormous lengths for his boy emperor Romulus Augustus, whose power has been wrested by the barbarian Odoacer. In this story, Romulus Augustus marries Igraine, and King Arthur is their son, and the sword of Julius Caesar becomes the legendary Excalibur in Britain. In the 2007 film version of the novel, he is played by Colin Firth and his name becomes "Aurelianus Caius Antonius". In both he is called "Aurelius" for short.
Last Roman Emperor
Saint Remigius, bishop of Reims and apostle of the Franks, baptised Clovis I, king of the Franks on 24 December 496. This baptism, leading to the conversion of the entire Frankish people to Nicene Christianity, was a momentous success for the Catholic Church and a seminal event in European history. He had a vision and prophesied that in the distant future, the last monarch who descended from the line of the kings of France, would be revealed and reestablish the Holy Roman Empire at the end of time. This prophecy was related through Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, and Rabanus Maurus Magnentius O.S.B., archbishop of Mainz. Marie-Julie Jahenny (1850-1941), also known as the "Breton" stigmatist, prophesied that Henry V, the Count of Chambord, was the chosen King. Despite his death, one of her predictions dated 1890 declares he is yet "reserved for the great epochs", i.e. the end of time.
Roman emperor
This line of Emperors lasted until 1806 when Francis II dissolved the Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. Despite the existence of later potentates styling themselves "emperor", such as the Napoleons, the Habsburg Emperors of Austria, and the Hohenzollern heads of the German Reich, this marked the end of the Western Empire. Although there is a living heir, Karl von Habsburg, to the Habsburg dynasty, as well as a Pope and pretenders to the positions of the electors, and although all the medieval coronation regalia are still preserved in Austria, the legal abolition of all aristocratic prerogatives of the former electors and the imposition of republican constitutions in Germany and Austria render quite remote any potential for a revival of the Holy Roman Empire.
History of Europe
The Roman Empire had been repeatedly attacked by invading armies from Northern Europe and in 476, Rome finally fell. Romulus Augustus, the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, surrendered to the Germanic King Odoacer. The British historian Edward Gibbon argued in "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (1776) that the Romans had become decadent, they had lost civic virtue.
Last Roman Emperor
The legend is based on the "Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius", which was, after the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation, "the most widespread apocalypse story in Europe". It proposes a different Last Emperor from the previous figure, who fought against religious enemies, and introduced the conflict with Islam: he will "go forth against them [the enemies of the faith] from the Ethiopian sea and will send the sword and desolation into Ethribus their homeland, capturing their women and children living in the Land of Promise". After conquering his enemies he would travel to Jerusalem and relinquish his power on the Mount of Olives. The Last Emperor was further developed in the writings of Adso of Montier-en-Der, whose "Libellus de Antichristo" (ca. 954) was a popular biography of the Antichrist, whose coming was preceded by the rise of a Frankish ruler (the continuation of the Roman Empire); this Last Emperor would voluntarily give up his power and die, after which the Antichrist comes to power. Another important impetus came from the oracles of the Tiburtine Sibyl, first recorded in Latin around the year 1000; its legend proved particularly adaptable to rulers all over Europe, containing as it did a list of emperors and kings leading up to the Last Emperor which could be revised or added to as political and dynastic circumstances required. It still had great currency in the fifteenth century.
History of Split
The Palace was to have one further significant occupant, however: Flavius Julius Nepos, the last legitimate Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. By the late 5th century CE, the Western provinces of the Empire fell under the control of various Germanic confederations. Dalmatia (which had been considered a Western province since the reign of Theodosius I) eventually remained the only exception in that regard. From 468 CE, the Province was ruled by Julius Nepos, who was appointed Western Emperor in 473 CE by Leo I of the Eastern Court. He attempted to establish himself in the Western capital of Ravenna (right across the Adriatic from Salona), but was deposed within two years by his Germanic "Magister militum", Orestes. He returned to Salona in 475 and took Diocletian's Palace for his residence. Orestes installed his young son Romulus Augustulus as the Emperor in the West, but was murdered within a year (476 CE) by Odoacer and his son deposed. Thereupon Odoacer did not establish his own puppet emperor, but instead returned the Imperial regalia of the West to the Emperor in the East (that now being Emperor Zeno), effectively abolishing the Western Imperial throne. The Eastern Court in Constantinople, however, still recognized Julius Nepos as legitimate Western Emperor. From AD 475, Nepos therefore ruled from Diocletian's Palace as effective "Emperor of Dalmatia". He was however murdered in the Palace by local political enemies in 480 CE, whereupon the two thrones of the Roman Empire were formally united under the Eastern emperors in Constantinople, who now became the sole Roman emperors. The Empire itself is henceforward more commonly referred to in historiography as the Byzantine Empire.
In 493 CE Salona, along with most of Dalmatia, was lost to the Ostrogothic Kingdom. However, by 535 CE the Emperor Justinian the Great was ready to attempt a reconquest of Roman lands held by the Ostrogoths. By July of the same year, the Roman general Mundus had quickly overrun Dalmatia and captured Salona. But a large Gothic army arrived to reclaim the province, and though he inflicted a heavy defeat upon them, Mundus himself was mortally wounded. As a result, the Roman army withdrew, and all of Dalmatia, with the exception of Salona, was abandoned to the Goths. Salona was then taken by the Gothic general Gripas. Justinian dispatched a new general, Constantianus, to recover Dalmatia, which he accomplished speedily. Gripas was forced to abandon Salona because of the ruined state of its fortifications and the pro-Roman stance of its citizens. Constantinianus then occupied the city and rebuilt its walls. Seven days later, the Gothic army departed for Italy, so that by late June 536 CE Dalmatia was again in Roman hands.
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire (, ; Koine and Medieval Greek: Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, tr. ) was the post-Roman Republic period of the ancient Roman civilization. It had a government headed by emperors and large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and West Asia. From the constitutional reforms of Augustus to the crisis of the third century, the Empire was a principate ruled from the city of Rome (27 BC - 285 AD). The Roman Empire was then divided between a Western Roman Empire, based in Milan and later Ravenna, and an Eastern Roman Empire, based in Nicomedia and later Constantinople, and it was ruled by multiple emperors (with the exception of the sole rule of Constantine between 324 and 337, and Theodosius between 392 and 395). The Western Empire collapsed when Ravenna fell to the Germanic Herulians of Odoacer in 476 AD. The end of the Western Roman Empire is traditionally used to mark the end of ancient Rome. The Eastern Empire, known in the post-Roman West as the Byzantine Empire, collapsed when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks of Mehmed II in 1453.
Western Roman Empire
The authority of Julius Nepos as Emperor was accepted not only by Odoacer in Italy, but by the Eastern Empire and Syagrius in Gaul (who had not recognized Romulus Augustulus). Nepos was murdered by his own soldiers in 480, a plot some attribute to Odoacer or the previous, deposed emperor Glycerius, and the Eastern Emperor Zeno chose not to appoint a new western emperor. Zeno, recognizing that no true Roman control remained over the territories legally governed by the Western court, instead chose to abolish the juridical division of the position of Emperor and declared himself the sole emperor of the Roman Empire. Zeno became the first sole Roman emperor since the division after Theodosius I, 85 years prior, and the position would never again be divided. As such, the (eastern) Roman emperors after 480 are the successors of the western ones, albeit only in a juridical sense. These emperors would continue to rule the Roman Empire until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, nearly a thousand years later. As 480 marks the end of the juridical division of the empire into two separate imperial courts, some historians refer to the death of Nepos and abolition of the Western Empire by Zeno as the end of the Western Roman Empire.
Fall of the Western Roman Empire
By convention, the Western Roman Empire is deemed to have ended on 4 September 476, when Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus and proclaimed himself ruler of Italy, but this convention is subject to many qualifications. In Roman constitutional theory, the Empire was still simply united under one emperor, implying no abandonment of territorial claims. In areas where the convulsions of the dying Empire had made organized self-defence legitimate, rump states continued under some form of Roman rule after 476. Julius Nepos still claimed to be Emperor of the West and controlled Dalmatia until his murder in 480. Syagrius son of Aegidius ruled the Domain of Soissons until his murder in 487. The indigenous inhabitants of Mauretania developed kingdoms of their own, independent of the Vandals, with strong Roman traits. They again sought Imperial recognition with the reconquests of Justinian I, and they put up effective resistance to the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. While the civitates of Britannia sank into a level of material development inferior even to their pre-Roman Iron Age ancestors, they maintained identifiably Roman traits for some time, and they continued to look to their own defence as Honorius had authorized.
Emperor
The Principate (27 BC – 284 AD) period was succeeded by what is known as the Dominate (284 AD – 527 AD), during which Emperor Diocletian tried to put the Empire on a more formal footing. Diocletian sought to address the challenges of the Empire's now vast geography and the instability caused by the informality of succession by the creation of co-emperors and junior emperors. At one point, there were as many as five sharers of the "imperium" (see: Tetrarchy). In 325 AD Constantine I defeated his rivals and restored single emperor rule, but following his death the empire was divided among his sons. For a time the concept was of one empire ruled by multiple emperors with varying territory under their control, however following the death of Theodosius I the rule was divided between his two sons and increasingly became separate entities. The areas administered from Rome are referred to by historians the Western Roman Empire and those under the immediate authority of Constantinople called the Eastern Roman Empire or (after the Battle of Yarmouk in 636 AD) the Later Roman or Byzantine Empire. The subdivisions and co-emperor system were formally abolished by Emperor Zeno in 480 AD following the death of Julius Nepos last Western Emperor and the ascension of Odoacer as the "de facto" King of Italy in 476 AD.
Last Roman Emperor (disambiguation)
Last Roman Emperor may also refer to:
List of Roman consuls
As an institution, the consulship survived the abdication of the last emperor of the West, and for a time consuls continued to be appointed, one representing the Eastern Roman Empire, and the other the Western, even as the Western Empire dissolved as a political entity. The last consuls appointed represented only the Eastern Empire, until finally the title became the sole province of the Emperor, who might or might not assume it upon taking office.
Herules
Along with many other people they reappear in the written records as one of many groups from the east who were struggling for supremacy on the left bank of the middle Danube after the death of Attila, in the area stretching from modern Bavaria to modern Hungary. They established their own kingdom and many joined Odoacer, who deposed the last Western Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus in 476 AD. They became well known both as soldiers in various Roman armies, in the Italian kingdom of Odoacer, and as sea raiders on the Atlantic coast, before fading out of history. The Danubian kingdom broke up and remnants settled in the Balkans and other places. The last known political entity which was described as Herulian seem to have been in the area of modern Belgrade in the 550s, as a settlement within the Roman Empire and under Roman control.
Last Roman Emperor (disambiguation)
The Last Roman Emperor was a legendary figure in medieval Christian eschatology.
Roman emperor
Theodosius I acceded to the purple in the East in 379 and in the West in 394. He outlawed paganism and made Christianity the Empire's official religion. He was the last emperor to rule over a united Roman Empire; the distribution of the East to his son Arcadius and the West to his son Honorius after his death in 395 represented a permanent division.
Ostrogothic Ravenna
In 476 the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustus, was forced to abdicate under invasions by Goths led by Odovacar. Upon the sacking of Rome by these Goths, Odovacar declared himself King of Italy and was able to conquer the peninsula as well as much of the "Dalmatian coast". Odovacar drew the ire of the imperial court at Constantinople as "a barbarian, a non-Roman, had deposed the Roman emperor in the original heartland of the empire. He had taken on the hated royal title and was getting ready to rule in the emperor’s place..." Odovacar, however, issued his coinage in the name of the emperor Nepos, whom Constantinople had never removed its recognition of when Romulus had assumed the imperial title therefore painting himself as merely overthrowing a previous usurper to the imperial throne.
Holy Roman Emperor
From an autocracy in Carolingian times (AD 800–924) the title by the 13th century evolved into an elected monarchy chosen by the prince-electors.
Various royal houses of Europe, at different times, became "de-facto" hereditary holders of the title, notably the Ottonians (962–1024) and the Salians (1027–1125). Following the late medieval crisis of government, the Habsburgs kept possession of the title without interruption from 1440–1740. 
The final emperors were from the House of Lorraine (Habsburg-Lorraine), from 1765–1806.
The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved after the defeat at Austerlitz by emperor Francis II, who continued to rule as Austrian emperor.
Fall of Ravenna
The Fall of Ravenna, capital of the Western Roman Empire, occurred in early September 476 after a minor confrontation between the Heruli under their King Odoacer and the remnants of the Western Roman Army in Italy. The Roman Empire had been in relative decline since the beginning of the barbarian invasions and Rome, the symbolical heart and largest city of the Western Empire, was sacked in 410 by the Visigoths and in 455 by the Vandals. By 476 the Roman Emperor was little more than a warlord having very little de facto control of any territory outside of Italy. The last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was not even recognized as a legitimate ruler outside of Italy; the Eastern Roman Empire recognized Julius Nepos as the true Western Roman Emperor.
History of the Roman Empire
As a matter of historical convention, the late Roman Empire emerged from the Roman Principate (the early Roman Empire), with the accession of Diocletian in 284, his reign marking the beginning of the Dominate, or Late Roman Empire. It may begin with the commencement of the reign of Diocletian in AD 284, following the Third Century Crisis of AD 235–284, and to end in the west with the collapse of the Western Empire in AD 476, while in the east its end is disputed, as either occurring at the close of the reign of Justinian I (AD 565) or of Heraclius (AD 641).
Culture of ancient Rome
The Roman Empire, at its height (c. 117 CE), was the most extensive political and social structure in western civilization. By 285 CE the empire had grown too vast to be ruled from the central government at Rome and so was divided by Emperor Diocletian into a Western and an Eastern Empire. The Roman Empire began when Augustus Caesar became the first emperor of Rome (31 BCE) and ended, in the west, when the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by the Germanic King Odoacer (476 CE). In the east, it continued as the Byzantine Empire until the death of Constantine XI and the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 CE. The influence of the Roman Empire on western civilization was profound in its lasting contributions to virtually every aspect of western culture.
House of Habsburg
After the death of his father in 1493, Maximilian was proclaimed the new King of the Romans, receiving the name Maximilian I. Maximilian was initially unable to travel to Rome to receive the Imperial title from the Pope, due to opposition from Venice and from the French who were occupying Milan, as well a refusal from the Pope due to enemy forces being present on his territory. In 1508, Maximilian proclaimed himself as the "chosen Emperor," and this was also recognized by the Pope due to changes in political alliances. This had a historical consequence in that, in the future, the Roman King would also automatically become Emperor, without needing the Pope's consent. In 1530, Emperor Charles V became the last person to be crowned as the Emperor by the Pope.
The Last Legion
In the film, Romulus told his mother that "during the last five years, there have been five emperors and all of them were murdered". The five Roman Emperors Romulus mentioned were possibly Libius Severus (461–465), Anthemius (467–472), Olybrius (472), Glycerius (473–474), and Julius Nepos (474–475). While Libius Severus and Anthemius were in fact murdered by the Germanic-Roman general Ricimer, Olybrius died of an illness and both Glycerius and Nepos were deposed. Glycerius was forced to surrender to Nepos in 474, to which Nepos spared his life and sent him into exile possibly in Dalmatia. Nepos ruled over the Western Empire for thirteen months before he was deposed by the Roman commander Orestes and was forced to flee to Dalmatia.
Glycerius (bishop of Milan)
Saint Glycerius has been erroneously confused as the Glycerius (c. 420 - after 480), who was one of the last of the Western Roman Emperors (reigned 473-474), and who became bishop of Salona after his deposition. Accounts concerning the emperor's later life are mixed:
Pavia
It was at Pavia in 476 AD that the reign of Romulus Augustulus (r. 475-476), the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire ended and Roman rule ceased in Italy. Romulus Augustulus, while considered the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was actually a usurper of the imperial throne; his father Flavius Orestes having dethroned the previous emperor, Julius Nepos, and raised the young Romulus Augustulus to the imperial throne at Ravenna in 475. Though being the emperor, Romulus Augustulus was simply the mouthpiece for his father Orestes, who was the person who actually exercised power and governed Italy during Romulus Augustulus's short reign. Ten months after Romulus Augustulus's reign began, Orestes's soldiers under the command of one of his officers named Odoacer, rebelled and killed Orestes in the city of Pavia in 476. The rioting that took place as part of Odoacer's uprising against Orestes sparked fires that burnt much of Pavia to the point that Odoacer, as the new king of Italy, had to suspend the taxes for the city for five years so that it could finance its recovery. Without his father, Romulus Augustulus was powerless. Instead of killing Romulus Augustulus, Odoacer pensioned him off at 6,000 solidi a year before declaring the end of the Western Roman Empire and himself king of the new Kingdom of Italy.
3rd century
After the death of Commodus in the late previous century the Roman Empire was plunged into a civil war. When the dust settled, Septimius Severus emerged as emperor, establishing the Severan dynasty. Unlike previous emperors, he openly used the army to back his authority, and paid them well to do so. The regime he created is known as the Military Monarchy as a result. The system fell apart in the 230s, giving way to a fifty-year period known as the Military Anarchy or the Crisis of the Third Century, following the assassination of the 28-year-old emperor Severus Alexander (the last emperor of the Severan dynasty), where no fewer than twenty emperors held the reins of power, most for only a few months. The majority of these men were assassinated, or killed in battle, and the empire almost collapsed under the weight of the political upheaval, as well as the growing Persian threat in the east. Under its new Sassanid rulers, Persia had grown into a rival superpower, and the Romans would have to make drastic reforms in order to better prepare their state for a confrontation. These reforms were finally realized late in the century under the reign of Diocletian, one of them being to divide the empire into an eastern and western half, and have a separate ruler for each.
Christianity in late antiquity
Christianity in late antiquity traces Christianity during the Christian Roman Empire – the period from the rise of Christianity under Emperor Constantine (c. 313), until the fall of the Western Roman Empire (c. 476). The end-date of this period varies because the transition to the sub-Roman period occurred gradually and at different times in different areas. One may generally date late ancient Christianity as lasting to the late 6th century and the re-conquests under Justinian (reigned 527-565) of the Byzantine Empire, though a more traditional end-date is 476, the year in which Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustus, traditionally considered the last western emperor.
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor was widely perceived to rule by divine right, though he often contradicted or rivaled the Pope, most notably during the Investiture controversy. 
In theory, the Holy Roman Emperor was "primus inter pares" (first among equals) among other Catholic monarchs. In practice, a Holy Roman Emperor was only as strong as his army and alliances, including marriage alliances, made him. There was never a Holy Roman Empress regnant, though women such as Theophanu and Maria Theresa of Austria served as de facto Empresses regnant.
Throughout its history, the position was viewed as a defender of the Roman Catholic faith. Until the Reformation, the Emperor elect ("imperator electus") was required to be crowned by the Pope before assuming the imperial title. Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor was the last to be crowned by the Pope in 1530. Even after the Reformation, the elected Emperor always was a Roman Catholic. There were short periods in history when the electoral college was dominated by Protestants, and the electors usually voted in their own political interest.
Constantine XI Palaiologos
Constantine XI Dragases Palaiologos, Latinized as Palaeologus (, "Kōnstantinos XI Dragasēs Palaiologos"; 8 February 1405 – 29 May 1453) was the last reigning Roman and Byzantine Emperor, ruling as a member of the Palaiologos dynasty from 1449 to his death in battle at the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
Ballot laws of the Roman Republic
After the Final War ended in 30 BC, Octavius controlled all of Rome. He concentrated the powers of consul, tribune, and pontifex maximus in his own hands, ruling as an autocrat in all but name. Octavius, renamed Augustus in 27 BC, would be the first Roman emperor. These events marked the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Principate. Although the assemblies continued to meet during the Principate, Augustus removed their judicial role and began transferring their electoral power to the Senate; his successor Tiberius would completely end the electoral role of the assemblies. The assemblies continued to have legislative powers, but even under Augustus this power was exercised more and more rarely. Rome became an autocratic state in all but name, and the ballot laws became irrelevant to the running of the state.
Roman emperor
At the end of the Roman Republic no new, and certainly no single, title indicated the individual who held supreme power. Insofar as "emperor" could be seen as the English translation of imperator, then Julius Caesar had been an emperor, like several Roman generals before him. Instead, by the end of the civil wars in which Julius Caesar had led his armies, it became clear that there was certainly no consensus to return to the old-style monarchy, but that the period when several officials, bestowed with equal power by the senate, would fight one another had come to an end.
Roman emperor
Constantine XI Palaiologos was the last reigning Roman emperor. A member of the Palaiologos dynasty, he ruled the remnant of the Eastern Roman Empire from 1449 until his death in 1453 defending its capital Constantinople.
History of Western civilization before AD 500
The slow decline of the Western Empire occurred over a period of roughly three centuries, culminating in 476, when Romulus Augustus, the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was deposed by Odoacer, a Germanic chieftain. Some modern historians question the significance of this date, and not simply because Julius Nepos, the legitimate emperor recognized by the East Roman Empire, continued to live in Salona, Dalmatia, until he was assassinated in 480. More importantly, the Ostrogoths who succeeded considered themselves upholders of the direct line of Roman traditions and, as the historian Edward Gibbon noted, the Eastern Roman Empire continued until the Fall of Constantinople on May 29, 1453.
Roman emperor
The last of the Good Emperors, Marcus Aurelius, chose his natural son Commodus as his successor rather than adopting an heir. Commodus's misrule led to his murder on 31 December 192, following which a brief period of instability quickly gave way to Septimius Severus, who established the Severan dynasty which, except for an interruption in 217–218 when Macrinus was emperor, held the purple until 235.
Christianity in the 4th century
Disunion in the Roman Empire further contributed to disunion in the Church. Emperor Diocletian divided the administration of the eastern and western portions of the empire in the early 4th century, though subsequent leaders (including Constantine) aspired to and sometimes gained control of both regions. Theodosius I, who established Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, died in 395 and was the last emperor to rule over a united Roman Empire; following his death, the division into western and eastern halves, each under its own emperor, became permanent. By the end of the 5th century, the Western Roman Empire had been overrun by the Germanic tribes, while the Eastern Roman Empire (known also as the Byzantine Empire) continued to thrive. Thus, the political unity of the Roman Empire was the first to fall.
Roman expansion in Italy
The last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, is portrayed by the sources as a powerful, but tyrannical, king. He is said to have taken Pometia by storm and Gabii by ruse, colonized Signia and Circeii, and to have organized the Latin states into an alliance under his own leadership. However Tarquinius was deposed by a conspiracy led by two of his relatives, Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus. These two then founded the Roman Republic with themselves as its first two consuls; traditionally the overthrow of the monarchy has been dated to 509 BC. Tarquinius is supposed to have sought refuge with king Lars Porsenna of Clusium, who marched against Rome to reinstate the king. After various heroic acts by brave defenders of Rome, Porsenna gave up and instead attacked Aricia, but was defeated by an alliance of Latin cities and the Greek colony of Cumae. Modern historians have had difficulties accepting this tale and have instead proposed that Porsenna actually captured Rome and deposed Tarquinius and replaced him with two leading aristocrats. With leadership of the city divided, Rome would have been easier for Porsenna to control.
History of the Roman Empire
The last 2 of the "Five Good Emperors" and Commodus are also called Antonines.
History of the Roman Empire
After 395, the emperors in the Western Roman Empire were usually figureheads, while the actual rulers were military strongmen who took the title of "magister militum", "patrician" or both—Stilicho from 395 to 408, Constantius from about 411 to 421, Aëtius from 433 to 454 and Ricimer from about 457 to 472. The year 476 is generally accepted as the formal end of the Western Roman Empire. That year, Orestes, having stolen power from the emperor Julius Nepos the year before, refused the request of Germanic mercenaries in his service for lands in Italy. The dissatisfied mercenaries, including the Heruli, revolted. The revolt was led by the Germanic chieftain Odoacer. Odoacer and his men captured and executed Orestes; weeks later they captured Ravenna and deposed Orestes' usurper son, Romulus Augustus. This event has been traditionally considered the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. Odoacer quickly conquered the remaining provinces of Italy.
Kingdom of Arles
In 1365, Charles was the last emperor to be crowned King of Arles. In 1378, Charles appointed the Dauphin of France (later King Charles VI of France) as permanent Imperial vicar to administer nominally on behalf of the Empire what remained of Arelat, and from then on Arelat in effect ceased to exist. However, the title "King of Arles" remained one of the Holy Roman Emperor's subsidiary titles until the dissolution of the Empire in 1806, and the office of the Archbishop of Trier continued to act as an archchancellor and prince-elector for the King of the Romans (the designated future Holy Roman Emperor), a status that was confirmed by the Golden Bull of 1356.
Roman Republic
Since the foundation of Rome, its rulers had been monarchs, elected for life by the patrician noblemen who made up the Roman Senate. The last Roman king was Lucius Tarquinius Superbus ("Tarquin the Proud"). In the traditional histories, Tarquin was expelled in 509 because his son, Sextus Tarquinius, had raped the noblewoman Lucretia, who afterwards took her own life. Lucretia's father; her husband, Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus; and Tarquin's own nephew, Lucius Junius Brutus, mustered support from the Senate and army, and forced Tarquin into exile in Etruria.
Constantine VI
Constantine VI was the final ruler to be universally recognized as Roman Emperor, being recognized as such by both the Empire which he ruled in the east, the papacy and the Western European powers over which the pope held suzerainty. With his mother becoming Empress regnant upon his deposition, the papacy crowned Charlemagne as a new Emperor in Western Europe, asserting that a woman could not be Empress in her own right. This laid the foundations of a new polity, independent of the East, that would evolve into the "Holy Roman Empire".
Byzantine Empire
Theodosius I (379–395) was the last Emperor to rule both the Eastern and Western halves of the Empire. In 391 and 392 he issued a series of edicts essentially banning pagan religion. Pagan festivals and sacrifices were banned, as was access to all pagan temples and places of worship. The last Olympic Games are believed to have been held in 393. In 395, Theodosius I bequeathed the imperial office jointly to his sons: Arcadius in the East and Honorius in the West, once again dividing Imperial administration. In the 5th century the Eastern part of the empire was largely spared the difficulties faced by the West – due in part to a more established urban culture and greater financial resources, which allowed it to placate invaders with tribute and pay foreign mercenaries. This success allowed Theodosius II to focus on the codification of Roman law and further fortification of the walls of Constantinople, which left the city impervious to most attacks until 1204. Large portions of the Theodosian Walls are preserved to the present day.
Probus (emperor)
According to the favorable treatment of Gibbon (whose account is largely derived from the "Augustan History"), Probus was the last of the benevolent constitutional emperors of Rome. While his successor Carus (Imp. 281-284) simply disdained to seek the senate's confirmation of his title, the latter's successor Diocletian (Imp. 284-305) took active measures to undermine its authority, and established the autocratic nature and divine deriviation of the Imperial power. Never again, after Diocletian's reforms, would the Roman senate play an active role in the management of the empire. On the military sphere, Probus' victories continued the succession of martial Illyrian emperors begun by Claudius Gothicus, which restored the military supremacy of Rome after defeats sustained during the crisis of the third century.Attribution:
History of Rome
Rome's population declined after its peak in the 2nd century. At the end of that century, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the Antonine Plague killed 2,000 people a day. Marcus Aurelius died in 180, his reign being the last of the "Five Good Emperors" and Pax Romana. His son Commodus, who had been co-emperor since AD 177, assumed full imperial power, which is most generally associated with the gradual decline of the Western Roman Empire. Rome's population was only a fraction of its peak when the Aurelian Wall was completed in the year 273 (in that year its population was only around 500,000).
Doukas (historian)
Doukas or Dukas (after 1462) was a Byzantine historian who flourished under Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last Byzantine Emperor. He is one of the most important sources for the last decades and eventual fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans.
East Roman army
In 395, the death of the last sole Roman emperor, Theodosius I (r. 379-95), led to the final split of the empire into two political entities, the West ("Occidentale") and the East ("Orientale"). The system of dual emperors (called "Augusti" after the founder of the empire, Augustus) had been instituted a century earlier by the great reforming emperor Diocletian (r.284-305). But it had never been envisaged as a political separation, purely as an administrative and military convenience. Decrees issued by either emperor were valid in both halves and the successor of each "Augustus" required the recognition of the other. The empire was reunited under one emperor under Constantine I, after 324, under Constantius II, after 353, under Julian, after 361, and Theodosius himself, after 394.
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
In June 474, Julius Nepos became Western Emperor but in the next year the "magister militum" Orestes revolted and made his son Romulus Augustus emperor. Romulus, however, was not recognized by the Eastern Emperor Zeno and so was technically an usurper, Nepos still being the legal Western Emperor. Nevertheless, Romulus Augustus is often known as the last Western Roman Emperor. In 476, after being refused lands in Italy, Orestes' Germanic mercenaries under the leadership of the chieftain Odoacer captured and executed Orestes and took Ravenna, the Western Roman capital at the time, deposing Romulus Augustus. The whole of Italy was quickly conquered, and Odoacer was granted the title of patrician by Zeno, effectively recognizing his rule in the name of the Eastern Empire. Odoacer returned the Imperial insignia to Constantinople and ruled as King in Italy. Following Nepos' death Theodoric the Great, King of the Ostrogoths, conquered Italy with Zeno's approval.
The Last Legion
The film depicts the coronation of Romulus (and subsequent fall of Rome) as having taken place in 460, while the novel gives the year as 476. In point of fact, coronations were not invented until later in the Roman Empire (in the Byzantine period). Historically, Romulus was a usurper proclaimed by his father in 475. It is believed he was born in 460. Romulus' reign was never recognised as emperor except by his father's troops. The emperors of the East continued to regard Julius Nepos, who had fled Italy and reestablished himself in Dalmatia in the face of a rebellion by Orestes, as the legitimate Western Emperor. Romulus was Emperor for ten months, not a single day as in the film.
Nepotianus (magister militiae)
Nepotianus married the sister of Marcellinus, the semi-independent ruler of Dalmatia; Julius Nepos, last Western Roman Emperor, might have been their son and did at some point succeed Nepotianus as ruler of Dalmatia.
Majorian
A prominent general of the Late Roman army, Majorian deposed Emperor Avitus in 457 and succeeded him. Majorian was the last emperor to make a concerted effort to restore the Western Roman Empire with its own forces. Possessing little more than Italy, Dalmatia, and some territory in northern Gaul, Majorian campaigned rigorously for three years against the Empire's enemies. His successors until the fall of the Empire, in 476/480, were actually instruments of their barbarian generals, or emperors chosen and controlled by the Eastern Roman court.
List of Roman emperors
In the late 3rd century, after the Crisis of the Third Century, Diocletian formalised and embellished the recent manner of imperial rule, establishing the so-called Dominate period of the Roman Empire. This was characterised by the explicit increase of authority in the person of the Emperor, and the use of the style ("Our Lord"). The rise of powerful Barbarian tribes along the borders of the empire and the challenge they posed to defense of far-flung borders and unstable imperial succession led Diocletian to divide the administration geographically of the Empire in 286 with a co-Augustus. In 330, Constantine the Great established a second capital in Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople. For most of the period from 286 to 480, there was more than one recognised senior emperor, with the division usually based in geographic terms. This division was consistently in place after the death of Theodosius I in 395, which historians have dated as the division between the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. However, formally the Empire remained a single polity, with separate co-emperors in the separate courts. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, and so the end of a separate list of emperors below, is dated either from the date of 476 when Romulus Augustulus was deposed by Odoacer who became King of Italy, or the date of 480, on the death of Julius Nepos, when Eastern Emperor Zeno ended recognition of a separate Western court. In the period that followed, the Empire is usually treated by historians as the Byzantine Empire governed by the Byzantine Emperors, although this designation is not used universally, and continues to be a subject of specialist debate today.
History of Rome
In 480, the last Western Roman emperor, Julius Nepos, was murdered and a Roman general of barbarian origin, Odoacer, declared allegiance to Eastern Roman emperor Zeno. Despite owing nominal allegiance to Constantinople, Odoacer and later the Ostrogoths continued, like the last emperors, to rule Italy as a virtually independent realm from Ravenna. Meanwhile, the Senate, even though long since stripped of wider powers, continued to administer Rome itself, with the Pope usually coming from a senatorial family. This situation continued until Theodahad murdered Amalasuntha, a pro-imperial Gothic queen, and usurped the power in 535. The Eastern Roman emperor, Justinian I (reigned 527–565), used this as a pretext to send forces to Italy under his famed general Belisarius, recapturing the city next year. The Byzantines successfully defended the city in a year-long siege, and eventually took Ravenna.
Theodosian dynasty
Its founding father was Flavius Theodosius (often referred to as Count Theodosius), a great general who had saved Britannia from the Great Conspiracy. His son, Flavius Theodosius was made emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire in 379, and briefly reunited the Roman Empire 394–395 by defeating the usurper Eugenius. Theodosius I was succeeded by his sons Honorius in the West and Arcadius in the East. The House of Theodosius was related to the Valentinian Dynasty by marriage, since Theodosius I had married Galla, a daughter of Valentinian I. Their daughter was Galla Placidia. The last emperor in the West belonging to the dynasty was Galla Placidia's son Valentinian III. The last emperor of the dynasty in the East was Theodosius II, the son of Arcadius. Later, both in the East and in the West, the dynasty briefly continued, but only through marriages: Marcian became emperor by marrying Pulcheria, the older sister of Theodosius II, after the death of the latter, Petronius Maximus was married to Licinia Eudoxia, the daughter of Theodosius II, and Olybrius was married to Placidia, the daughter of Valentinian III. Anthemius is also sometimes counted to the dynasty as he became a son-in-law of Marcian. Descendants of the dynasty continued to be part of the East Roman nobility at Constantinople until the end of the 6th century.In "italics" the Augusti and the Augustae.
Final War of the Roman Republic
Cleopatra did not immediately follow Antony in suicide. Instead, in a last-ditch effort, Cleopatra opened negotiations with Octavian. Cleopatra begged Octavian to spare Caesarion’s life in exchange for willing imprisonment. Octavian refused. Within a week, Octavian informed Cleopatra that she was to play a role in Octavian's Triumph back in Rome. This role was "carefully explained to her", while Caesarion was "butchered without compunction". Octavian supposedly said "two Caesars are one too many" as he ordered Caesarion's death. According to Strabo who was alive at the time of the event, Cleopatra died from a self-induced bite from a venomous snake, or from applying a poisonous ointment to herself. Learning of Cleopatra's death, Octavian had mixed feelings. He admired the bravery of Cleopatra, and gave her and Antony a public military funeral in Rome. As they left Alexandria, a new age dawned when Rome annexed Egypt. With Cleopatra's death, the final war of the Republic was over.
Within a month, Octavian was named Pharaoh, and Egypt became his personal possession. By executing Antony's supporters, Octavian finally brought a century of civil war to a close. In 27 BC Octavian was named Augustus by the Senate and given unprecedented powers. Octavian, now Augustus, transformed the Republic into the Roman Empire, ruling it as the first Roman emperor.
Christian persecution of paganism under Theodosius I
In the year 392, Theodosius become Emperor of also the western part of the Roman Empire, the last emperor to rule over both. In the same year he officially began to proscribe the practice of paganism. This was when he authorized the destruction of many temples throughout the empire.
Holy Roman Emperor
The Emperor was crowned in a special ceremony, traditionally performed by the Pope in Rome. Without that coronation, no king, despite exercising all powers, could call himself Emperor. In 1508, Pope Julius II allowed Maximilian I to use the title of Emperor without coronation in Rome, though the title was qualified as "Electus Romanorum Imperator" ("elected Emperor of the Romans"). Maximilian's successors adopted the same titulature, usually when they became the sole ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. Maximilian's first successor Charles V was the last to be crowned Emperor.
4th century
The last emperor to control both the eastern and western halves of the empire was Theodosius I. As the century progressed after his death it became increasingly apparent that the empire had changed in many ways since the time of Augustus. The two emperor system originally established by Diocletian in the previous century fell into regular practice, and the east continued to grow in importance as a centre of trade and imperial power, while Rome itself diminished greatly in importance due to its location far from potential trouble spots, like Central Europe and the East. Late in the century Christianity became the official state religion, and the empire's old pagan culture began to disappear. General prosperity was felt throughout this period, but recurring invasions by Germanic tribes plagued the empire from AD 376 onward. These early invasions marked the beginning of the end for the Western Roman Empire.
Final War of the Roman Republic
With the end of the last Republican civil war, the Republic was replaced by the Empire. The reign of Augustus would usher in the golden era of Roman culture and produce a stability which Rome had not seen in over a century. With Rome in control of the entire Mediterranean world, a peace would reign in the Roman world for centuries after the death of Augustus: the so-called Pax Romana (Roman Peace).
The Fall of the Roman Empire (film)
The film's plot is only loosely based on actual historical events. However, in the long-established view of Roman history, Marcus Aurelius is considered as the last of the Five Good Emperors whose time is considered the best of Roman imperial history. Commodus is generally considered to have fallen far below the standard set by his father and the four earlier Emperors, and his reign is considered as the beginning of the decline - though that would still take several centuries.
The Last Legion
The film shows King Arthur as a descendant of the last Roman imperial line. In "Le Morte d'Arthur" Arthur claims descent from Constantine and is crowned Roman Emperor after defeating its (fictional) ruler, Lucius Tiberius.
Roman triumph
For triumphs of the Roman regal era, the surviving Imperial "Fasti Triumphales" are incomplete. After three entries for the city's legendary founder Romulus, eleven lines of the list are missing. Next in sequence are Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius, and finally Tarquin "the proud", the last king. The "Fasti" were compiled some five centuries after the regal era, and probably represent an approved, official version of several different historical traditions. Likewise, the earliest surviving written histories of the regal era, written some centuries after it, attempt to reconcile various traditions, or else debate their merits. Dionysus, for example, gives Romulus three triumphs, the same number given in the "Fasti". Livy gives him none, and credits him instead with the first spolia opima, in which the arms and armour were stripped off a defeated foe, then dedicated to Jupiter. Plutarch gives him one, complete with chariot. Tarquin has two triumphs in the "Fasti" but none in Dionysius. No ancient source gives a triumph to Romulus' successor, the peaceful king Numa.
Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire
In 476, the last western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by Odoacer, who became the first "barbarian" king of Italy. Pagans used the occasion to attempt to revive the old rites. In 484, the Magister militum per Orientem, Illus, revolted against Eastern Emperor Zeno and raised his own candidate, Leontius, to the throne. Leontius hoped to reopen the temples and restore the ancient ceremonies; as such, many Pagans joined in his revolt against Zeno. Illus and Leontius were compelled, however, to flee to a remote Isaurian fortress, where Zeno besieged them for four years. Zeno finally captured them in 488 and promptly had them executed. Following the revolt, Zeno instituted harsh anti-paganism policies. With the failure of the revolt of Leontios, some pagans became disillusioned and became Christian, or pretended to do so, in order to avoid persecution. The subjugation of the Roman Empire to Christianity became complete when the emperor Anastasius I, who came to the throne in 491, was required to sign a written declaration of orthodoxy before his coronation.
Western Roman Empire
In 476, after the Battle of Ravenna, the Roman Army in the West suffered defeat at the hands of Odoacer and his Germanic "foederati". Odoacer forced the deposition of emperor Romulus Augustulus and became the first King of Italy. In 480, following the assassination of the previous Western emperor Julius Nepos, the Eastern emperor Zeno dissolved the Western court and proclaimed himself the sole emperor of the Roman Empire. The date of 476 was popularized by the 18th century British historian Edward Gibbon as a demarcating event for the end of the Western Empire and is sometimes used to mark the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Odoacer's Italy, and other barbarian kingdoms, would maintain a pretence of Roman continuity through the continued use of the old Roman administrative systems and nominal subservience to the Eastern Roman court.
Emperor and Galilean
The play is about the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate. The play covers the years 351–363. Julian was the last non-Christian ruler of the Roman Empire. It was his desire to bring the empire back to its ancient Roman values. Another crucial and more sympathetic feature of Emperor Julian, is his disliking of his own dynasty, who, in the play at least, were claiming descent and authority for being Gallileans, making Jesus Christ their own, in terms of ethnicity.
Campaign history of the Roman military
The Empire became gradually less Romanised and increasingly Germanic in nature: although the Empire buckled under Visigothic assault, the overthrow of the last Emperor Romulus Augustus was carried out by federated Germanic troops from within the Roman army rather than by foreign troops. In this sense had Odoacer not renounced the title of Emperor and named himself "King of Italy" instead, the Empire might have continued in name. Its identity, however, was no longer Roman – it was increasingly populated and governed by Germanic peoples long before 476 AD. The Roman people were by the 5th century "bereft of their military ethos" and the Roman army itself a mere supplement to federated troops of Goths, Huns, Franks and others fighting on their behalf.
Decebalus
Decebalus (r. 87–106 AD) was the last king of Dacia. He is famous for fighting three wars, with varying success, against the Roman Empire under two emperors. After raiding south across the Danube, he defeated a Roman invasion in the reign of Domitian, securing a period of independence during which Decebalus consolidated his rule.
List of Roman emperors
The line of emperors continued until the death of Constantine XI Palaiologos during the fall of Constantinople in 1453, when the remaining territories were captured by the Ottoman Empire.
King of Italy
Charles V was the last emperor to be crowned king of Italy, or to use the title. The Peace of Westphalia, in 1648, formally ended the rule of the Holy Roman Emperors in Italy. However, the empire continued to include some territory in northern Italy, including Tyrol, until its dissolution in 1806.
Italy
In a slow decline since the third century AD, the Empire split in two in 395 AD. The Western Empire, under the pressure of the barbarian invasions, eventually dissolved in 476 AD, when its last Emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed by the Germanic chief Odoacer, while the Eastern half of the Empire survived for another thousand years.
Constitution of the Roman Empire
The general who won the last civil war of the Roman Republic, Gaius Octavian, became the master of the state. In the years after 30 BC, Octavian set out to reform the Roman constitution. The ultimate consequence of these reforms was the abolition of the republic and the founding of the Roman Empire. When Octavian deposed his fellow triumvir, Mark Antony, in 32 BC, he resigned his position as triumvir, but was probably vested with powers similar to those that he had given up. Octavian wanted to solidify his status as master of the state whilst avoiding assassination.
Roman emperor
After the fall of Constantinople, Thomas Palaiologos, brother of Constantine XI, was elected emperor and tried to organize the remaining forces. His rule came to an end after the fall of the last major Byzantine city, Corinth. He then moved in Italy and continued to be recognized as Eastern emperor by the Christian powers.
Maecilia (gens)
The gens Maecilia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Although of great antiquity, only two members of this gens are mentioned in republican times, both tribunes of the plebs in the first century of the Republic. The Maecilii appear again, somewhat sporadically, in imperial times, even obtaining the consulship during the early fourth century. One of the last emperors of the Western Empire was Marcus Maecilius Avitus.List of Roman gentes
Anicius Faustus Albinus Basilius
Anicius Faustus Albinus Basilius was a high official of the Eastern Roman Empire and the last ordinary consul of Roman history, holding the office in 541.
List of Roman and Byzantine Empresses
The Western Roman Empire met its end in 476 and the Eastern Roman Empire in 1453. Although others continued to claim similar titles after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 — e.g. Holy Roman Empresses (as heirs of the Western Empire) or Russian Tsaritsas and Empresses (as the Empresses of the Third Rome) — the last reigning Empress consort of the Eastern Roman Empire of Constantinople was Maria of Trebizond. The last Palaiologan pretender, Andreas Palaiologos, sold his right to the imperial succession to Charles VIII of France, but he also willed the imperial titles to Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castille, and so in a sense either the French queens or the Spanish queens have been the titular Empresses of the Eastern Roman Empire since the 15th century. Another Palaiologian, Manuel Palaiologos, sold his right of succession to Ottoman Sultan Bayazid II (the Ottoman sultans already claim to be the Kaizer-i Rum or Roman emperors); but since there is no such thing as a sultaness because the Ottomans practiced polygamy, there are no Ottoman consorts. Other possible pretenders may be the former Queens of Greece because the Greek monarchy was mainly created in 1832 to be the successor of the Byzantine Empire. The former Queens of Italy could be another claimant since their husband's were one of the only European monarchs to effectively hold the city of Rome, the seat of the Roman Empire since its beginning. 
Neither the Empresses of Russia, the Queens of France, the Queens of Spain, the Queens of Italy or the Queens of the Hellenes claimed any sort of Roman titles and the claimants that clearly made the most point by using the word "Roman" in their title, the Holy Roman Empresses and the Queens of the Romans, ceased their claim upon the dissolution the empire in 1806. Currently the consorts of five of these states are pretenders in their own countries, themselves, and the current Queen of Spain claims no Roman titles. The status of the current pretenders to the Byzantine successor states of Trebizond, Epirus, and Nicaea are unclear much less their spouses; the despots of Morea became the Byzantine emperors (in exile) in 1453.
Final War of the Roman Republic
Following the end of the war, Octavian brought peace to the Roman state that had been plagued by a century of civil wars. Octavian became the most powerful man in the Roman world and the Senate bestowed upon him the name of Augustus in 27 BC. Octavian, now Augustus, would be the first Roman Emperor and would transform the oligarchic/democratic Republic into the autocratic Roman Empire.
Legacy of the Roman Empire
From a legal point of view the Roman Empire, founded by Augustus in 27 BC and divided into two "parts" after the death of Theodosius I in 395, had survived only in the eastern part which, with the deposition of the last western emperor Romulus Augustulus, in 476, had also obtained the imperial regalia of the western part reuniting from a formal point of view the Roman Empire.
Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor
Henry II (; ) (6 May 973 – 13 July 1024), also known as Saint Henry the Exuberant, Obl. S. B., was Holy Roman Emperor ("Romanorum Imperator") from 1014 until his death in 1024 and the last member of the Ottonian dynasty of Emperors as he had no children. The Duke of Bavaria from 995, Henry became King of Germany ("Rex Romanorum") following the sudden death of his second cousin, Emperor Otto III in 1002, was crowned King of Italy ("Rex Italiae") in 1004, and was crowned by the Pope as Emperor in 1014.
The Last Legion (novel)
In 476, the Western Roman Empire is under attack by the barbarian armies under the Heruli General Odoacer. Forces loyal to the empire were destroyed and the Emperor Romulus Augustus, a child at the age of 13, was arrested, deposed, and exiled to the island of Capri. Meanwhile, in Dertona, where stands the castrum of the last legion, the "Nova Invicta", the battle rages against the Heruli and Skyrian horsemen. The officer Aurelianus Ambrosius Ventidius, detached from his friends, rides desperately toward the villa of the noble Orestes for help, but the villa was attacked and destroyed by Odoacer's barbarians. Aurelius soon finds Orestes fatally wounded and can only receive the last request of Orestes' dying breath to save and protect Romulus Augustus, his son, the last emperor of Rome.
Roman Senate
During the days of the kingdom, it was little more than an advisory council to the king. The last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, was overthrown following a coup d'état led by Lucius Junius Brutus, who founded the Roman Republic.
Near East
It has pleased western historians to write of a decline of the Ottoman Empire as though a stable and uncontested polity of that name once existed. The borders did expand and contract but they were always dynamic and always in "question" right from the beginning. The Ottoman Empire was created from the lands of the former eastern Roman Empire on the occasion of the latter's violent demise. The last Roman emperor died fighting hand-to-hand in the streets of his capital, Constantinople, overwhelmed by the Ottoman military, in May, 1453. The victors inherited his remaining territory in the Balkans.
History of the Roman Empire
The transition from a single united empire to the later divided Western and Eastern empires was a gradual transformation. In July 285, Diocletian defeated rival Emperor Carinus and briefly became sole emperor of the Roman Empire. Diocletian's reign stabilized the empire and marked the end of the Crisis of the Third Century. Diocletian appointed a co-emperor in 286 and delegated further with two junior-emperors.
Antoninus Pius
Antoninus was the last Roman Emperor recognised by the Indian Kingdoms. Raoul McLaughlin quotes Aurelius Victor as saying "The Indians, the Bactrians and the Hyrcanians all sent ambassadors to Antoninus. They had all heard about the spirit of justice held by this great emperor, justice that was heightened by his handsome and grave countenance, and his slim and vigorous figure." Due to the outbreak of the Antonine epidemic and wars against northern Germanic tribes, the reign of Marcus Aurelius was forced to alter the focus of foreign policies, and matters relating to the Far East were increasingly abandoned in favour of those directly concerning the Empire's survival.
East–West Schism
Disunion in the Roman Empire contributed to disunion in the Church. Theodosius the Great, who in 380 established Nicene Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire (see Edict of Thessalonica), was the last Emperor to rule over a united Roman Empire. Following the death of Theodosius in 395, the Empire was divided for the final time into western and eastern halves. In the 4th century, the Roman emperor (reigning in Constantinople) started to control the Church in his territory.
List of Roman emperors
Note: Theodosius I was the last person to rule both halves of the Roman Empire, dividing the administration between his sons Arcadius and Honorius on his death.
Pax Romana
The Pax Romana (Latin for "Roman Peace") was a long period of relative peace and stability experienced by the Roman Empire. It is traditionally dated as commencing from the accession of Caesar Augustus, founder of the Roman principate, in 27 BCE and concluding in 180 CE with the death of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the "good emperors". Since it was inaugurated by Augustus with the end of the Final War of the Roman Republic, it is sometimes called the Pax Augusta. During this period of approximately 206 years, the Roman empire achieved its greatest territorial extent and its population reached a maximum of up to 70 million people – a third of the world’s population. According to Cassius Dio, the dictatorial reign of Commodus, later followed by the Year of the Five Emperors and the crisis of the third century, marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust".
The Last Legion
Orestes, who was partly of Germanic blood, was historically the "magister militum" – the senior officer of the Roman army second to the emperor. He had indeed promised his Germanic foederati a third of Italy to settle in but not to Odoacer personally. Orestes was himself a usurper, having promised the land to foederati to buy their quiescence in his rebellion against the legitimate emperor Julius Nepos. Although Orestes proclaimed his son, Romulus Augustus (derisively called "Augustulus", meaning "little Augustus") Emperor, the proclamation was not recognised as legitimate beyond the parts of the Italian Peninsula controlled by Orestes' troops. The common identification of Augustus as the "last Western Emperor" dates only from the publication of British historian Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the late 18th Century.
Augustus (title)
The last Roman Emperor to rule in the West, Romulus Augustus became known as "Augustulus" ("little Augustus"), due to the unimportance of his reign.
Imperial cult of ancient Rome
Constantine's nephew Julian, Rome's last non-Christian emperor, rejected the "Galilean madness" of his upbringing for a synthesis of neo-Platonism, Stoic asceticism and universal solar cult and actively fostered religious and cultural pluralism. His restored Augustan form of principate, with himself as "primus inter pares", ended with his death in 363, after which his reforms were reversed or abandoned. The Western emperor Gratian refused the office of "pontifex maximus" and, against the protests of the Senate, removed the altar of "Victoria" (Victory) from the Senate House and began the disestablishment of the Vestals. Theodosius I briefly re-united the Western and Eastern halves of the Empire, officially adopted Nicene Christianity as the Imperial religion and ended official support for all other creeds and cults. He refused to restore "Victoria" to the Senate House, extinguished Vesta's sacred fire and vacated her temple. Even so, he accepted address as a living divinity, comparable to Hercules and Jupiter, by his overwhelmingly pagan Senate. After his death the sundered Eastern and Western halves of Empire followed increasingly divergent paths: nevertheless both were Roman and both had emperors. Imperial ceremonial – notably the Imperial "adventus" or ceremony of arrival, which derived in greater part from the Triumph – was embedded within Roman culture, Church ceremony and the Gospels themselves.
Justinian II
Justinian II (, "Ioustinianos II"; ; 668 – 11 December 711), surnamed the Rhinotmetos or Rhinotmetus (, "the slit-nosed"), was the last Byzantine Emperor of the , reigning from 685 to 695 and again from 705 to 711. Justinian II was an ambitious and passionate ruler who was keen to restore the Roman Empire to its former glories, but he responded poorly to any opposition to his will and lacked the finesse of his father, Constantine IV. Consequently, he generated enormous opposition to his reign, resulting in his deposition in 695 in a popular uprising, and he only returned to the throne in 705 with the help of a Bulgar and Slav army. His second reign was even more despotic than the first, and it too saw his eventual overthrow in 711, abandoned by his army who turned on him before killing him.
Roman emperor
Due to the cultural rupture of the Turkish conquest, most western historians treat Constantine XI as the last meaningful claimant to the title Roman Emperor. From 1453, one of the titles used by the Ottoman Sultans was "Caesar of Rome" (Turkish: "Kayser-i Rum"), part of their titles until the Ottoman Empire ended in 1922. A Byzantine group of claimant Roman emperors existed in the Empire of Trebizond until its conquest by the Ottomans in 1461, though they had used a modified title since 1282.
Emperor
Historians generally refer to the continuing Roman Empire in the east as the Byzantine Empire after Byzantium, the original name of the town that Constantine I would elevate to the Imperial capital as New Rome in AD 330. (The city is more commonly called Constantinople and is today named Istanbul). Although the empire was again subdivided and a co-emperor sent to Italy at the end of the fourth century, the office became unitary again only 95 years later at the request of the Roman Senate and following the death of Julius Nepos, last Western Emperor. This change was a recognition of the reality that little remained of Imperial authority in the areas that had been the Western Empire, with even Rome and Italy itself now ruled by the essentially autonomous Odoacer.
Sack of Rome (410)
The sack was a culmination of many terminal problems facing the Western Roman Empire. Domestic rebellions and usurpations weakened the Empire in the face of external invasions. These factors would permanently harm the stability of the Roman Empire in the west. The Roman army meanwhile became increasingly barbarian and disloyal to the Empire. A more severe sack of Rome by the Vandals followed in 455, and the Western Roman Empire finally collapsed in 476 when the Germanic Odovacer removed the last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, and declared himself King of Italy.
Coronations in Europe
Since Charlemagne in 800, Holy Roman Emperors were crowned by the pope until 1530, when Charles V became the last Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned by the Pope, at Bologna. Thereafter, until the abolition of the empire in 1806, Imperial coronations were held in Frankfurt and were performed by the Spiritual Princes-Electors,the Archbishops of Cologne, Mainz and Trier. Later rulers simply proclaimed themselves "Electus Romanorum Imperator" or "Elected Emperor of the Romans", without the formality of a coronation by the Pontiff.
East–West Schism
In 476, when the last emperor of the western part of the Roman Empire was deposed and the western imperial insignia were sent to Constantinople, there was once again a single Roman Emperor. However, he had little power in the West, which was ruled almost entirely by various Germanic tribes. In the opinion of Randall R. Cloud, the permanent separation of the Greek East from the Latin West was "the fundamental reason for the estrangement that soon followed between the Greek and the Latin Christians".
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius ( or ; ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180), called the Philosopher, was Roman emperor from . He ruled the Roman Empire with his adoptive brother, Lucius Verus, until Lucius' death in 169. He was the last of the rulers traditionally known as the Five Good Emperors. He is also seen as the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace and stability for the Empire.
Middle Ages
By the end of the 5th century the western section of the empire was divided into smaller political units, ruled by the tribes that had invaded in the early part of the century. The deposition of the last emperor of the west, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 has traditionally marked the end of the Western Roman Empire. By 493 the Italian peninsula was conquered by the Ostrogoths. The Eastern Roman Empire, often referred to as the Byzantine Empire after the fall of its western counterpart, had little ability to assert control over the lost western territories. The Byzantine emperors maintained a claim over the territory, but while none of the new kings in the west dared to elevate himself to the position of emperor of the west, Byzantine control of most of the Western Empire could not be sustained; the reconquest of the Mediterranean periphery and the Italian Peninsula (Gothic War) in the reign of Justinian (r. 527–565) was the sole, and temporary, exception.
2nd century
Early in the century, the Roman Empire attained its greatest expansion under the emperor Trajan, but after his death became primarily defensive for the rest of its history. Much prosperity took place throughout the empire at this time, ruled as it were by the Five Good Emperors, a succession of well-received and able rulers.
This period also saw the removal of the Jews from Jerusalem during the reign of Hadrian after Bar Kokhba's revolt.
The last quarter of the century saw the end of the period of peace and prosperity known as the Pax Romana at the death of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, last of the "Five Good Emperors", and the ascension of Commodus.
Western Roman Empire
Charlemagne, and the subsequent Holy Roman Emperors, were not, and did not claim to be, rulers of a restored Western Roman Empire. Pope Leo III and contemporary historians were fully aware of that the notion of a separate Western court had been abolished over three centuries prior and considered the Roman Empire to be "one and indivisible". The ruler of the Roman Empire at the time of Charlemagne's coronation was Irene, the mother of emperor Constantine VI who she had deposed. Leo III considered Irene to be a usurper and illegitimate to rule due to her gender and as such considered the imperial throne to be vacant. Thus, Charlemagne was not crowned as the ruler of the Western Roman Empire and successor to Romulus Augustulus, but rather as the successor of Constantine VI and as sole Roman Emperor. Irene was deposed and replaced by Emperor Nikephoros soon after, and the Eastern Empire refused to recognize the Imperial title of Charlemagne. Following several wars in the 810s Emperor Michael I Rangabe eventually recognized Charlemagne as an "Emperor", but as the slightly humiliating "Emperor of the Franks" rather than "Roman Emperor", a title he reserved for himself. For centuries to come, the "revived" Western court and the Eastern court, in direct succession to the Roman Emperors of old, would make competing claims to be rulers of the whole Roman Empire. With the Eastern Empire terming the Holy Roman Empire as an "Empire of the Franks", the term "Empire of the Greeks" was popularized in the Frankish court as a way to refer to the Empire centered in Constantinople.
Prince-elector
From the 13th century onwards, the Prince-Electors had the privilege of electing the King of the Romans, who would be crowned by the Pope as Holy Roman Emperor. Charles V was the last to be a crowned Emperor (elected 1519, crowned 1530); his successors were elected Emperors directly by the electoral college, each being titled "Elected Emperor of the Romans" (; ). In practice, every emperor from 1440 onwards (except for Charles VII and Francis I) came from the Austrian House of Habsburg, and the Electors merely ratified the Habsburg succession.
History of the Roman Empire
The Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate in the early 5th century as Germanic migrations and invasions overwhelmed the capacity of the Empire to assimilate the migrants and fight off the invaders. The Romans were successful in fighting off all invaders, most famously Attila the Hun, though the Empire had assimilated so many Germanic peoples of dubious loyalty to Rome that the Empire started to dismember itself. Most chronologies place the end of the Western Roman empire in 476, when Romulus Augustulus was forced to abdicate to the Germanic warlord Odoacer. By placing himself under the rule of the Eastern Emperor, rather than naming himself Emperor as other Germanic chiefs had done, Odoacer ended the Western Empire by ending the line of Western Emperors. The eastern Empire exercised diminishing control over the west over the course of the next century. The empire in the East—known today as the Byzantine Empire, but referred to in its time as the "Roman Empire" or by various other names—ended in 1453 with the death of Constantine XI and the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks.
Roman emperor
This line of Roman emperors was actually generally Germanic rather than Roman, but maintained their Roman-ness as a matter of principle. These emperors used a variety of titles (most frequently ""Imperator Augustus"") before finally settling on "Imperator Romanus Electus" ("Elected Roman Emperor"). Historians customarily assign them the title "Holy Roman Emperor", which has a basis in actual historical usage, and treat their "Holy Roman Empire" as a separate institution. To Latin Catholics of the time, the Pope was the temporal authority as well as spiritual authority, and as Bishop of Rome he was recognized as having the power to anoint or crown a new Roman emperor. The last man to be crowned by the pope (although in Bologna, not Rome) was Charles V. All his successors bore only a title of "Elected Roman Emperor".