Roman Empire
Roman Empire / Mediterranean · -27 – 476
Overview
The empire that ruled the Mediterranean world for half a millennium and shaped the foundations of Western law, governance, language, and Christianity. From Augustus's establishment of the principate in 27 BC to the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476, more than seventy emperors held the throne — by inheritance, adoption, civil war, and the sword of the Praetorian Guard. The Western half collapsed in the fifth century under Germanic pressure; the Eastern half outlived it by a thousand years.
Lineage
21 figures- Augustus63 BC – 14
- Tiberius42 BC – 37
- Livia Drusilla58 BC – 29
- Claudius10 BC – 54
- Vespasian9 – 79
- Caligula12 – 41
- Agrippina the Younger15 – 59
- Nero37 – 68
- Trajan53 – 117
- Hadrian76 – 138
- Marcus Aurelius121 – 180
- Commodus161 – 192
- Septimius Severus145 – 211
- Caracalla188 – 217
- Diocletian244 – 311
- Constantine the Great272 – 337
- Constantius II317 – 361
- Julian331 – 363
- Theodosius I347 – 395
- Honorius384 – 423
- Romulus Augustulus461 – 511
All figures
- Augustus63 BC – 14
- Livia Drusilla58 BC – 29
- Tiberius42 BC – 37
- Claudius10 BC – 54
- Vespasian9 – 79
- Caligula12 – 41
- Agrippina the Younger15 – 59
- Nero37 – 68
- Trajan53 – 117
- Hadrian76 – 138
- Marcus Aurelius121 – 180
- Septimius Severus145 – 211
- Commodus161 – 192
- Caracalla188 – 217
- Diocletian244 – 311
- Constantine the Great272 – 337
- Constantius II317 – 361
- Julian331 – 363
- Theodosius I347 – 395
- Honorius384 – 423
- Romulus Augustulus461 – 511
Related events
On 16 January 27 BC the Senate confirmed Octavian's settlement of the previous month, granting him the title Augustus and conferring extraordinary powers while maintaining the formal continuity of the Republic. The arrangement created the role of princeps — first citizen — and gave Rome its first emperor in all but name. The Principate as Augustus designed it lasted three centuries.
A fire that began in the merchant district around the Circus Maximus burned for six days and destroyed two-thirds of the city. The emperor Nero, despite later legend, was at Antium when it broke out and returned to organize relief; he then made the city's Christians a scapegoat for the disaster, crucifying members of the community in his gardens. The persecution gave Christianity its first Roman martyrs.
Joint declaration by Constantine, augustus of the West, and Licinius, augustus of the East, granting toleration to Christianity throughout the Roman Empire and returning previously confiscated church property. The edict ended three centuries of intermittent persecution and put the imperial government in the position of supporter rather than enemy of the Christian church — a shift that decisively shaped European history.
On 4 September 476 the Germanic general Odoacer deposed the teenage emperor Romulus Augustulus in Ravenna and sent the imperial regalia to Constantinople with a message that the Western Empire no longer needed an emperor of its own. The conventional date for the fall of the Western Roman Empire, though contemporaries scarcely noticed: the institution had been hollowing out for a century.
See also
Same era
- Zhou
Imperial China · 1046 BC – 256 BC
- Mauryan Empire
South Asia / India · 322 BC – 185 BC
- Ptolemaic Dynasty
Ancient Egypt / Hellenistic World · 305 BC – 30 BC
- Qin
Imperial China · 221 BC – 206 BC
- Han
Imperial China · 206 BC – 220
- Khosroid
Iberia (Caucasus) · 580 – 786