Roman Empire (27 BCE–395 CE)

Roman Empire Imperium Rōmānum Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων
27 BCE–395 CE
The Roman Empire in 280
Common languages	Latin Ancient Greek
Dominant mode of production	Slavery
History
• Empire established	27 BCE
• East-West division	17 January 395 CE
• Fall of Western Roman Empire	4 September 476
Area
• Total	5,000,000 km²(117 CE)
Population
• 25 BCE estimate	56,800,000

The Roman Empire was an ancient state that existed in Europe, West Asia, and North Africa. While the western part of the Roman Empire fell in 476 CE, the eastern part would live on for nearly a thousand more years, until 1453 CE.

History

Formation

The populist general Julius Caesar won the civil war of the Roman Republic in 45 BCE but was soon assassinated. Mark Antony and Octavian, the leaders of his faction defeated the pro-Senate opposition of Brutus and Cassius but then went to war against each other, with Octavian (renamed Augustus) becoming a military dictator and proclaiming himself the first emperor of Rome.

Mode of production

Ancient Rome was a slave society that relied on war for its supply of slaves. The wealthy ruling class lived their whole lives without working and viewed their slaves as subhuman. In the last two centuries of the empire, the slave mode of production began to decline. Population and production decreased and many large estates were broken into smaller ones. Slave owners freed many slaves because they could not profit from their labor and because many slaves intentionally destroyed or damaged the means of production. These people became small-scale producers called coloni, who later developed into the serfs of feudalism.

The Roman Empire was weakened by internal slave revolts and external invasions and eventually collapsed, ending slavery as the dominant mode of production in Europe.