Roman Empire (27 BCE–395 CE)

Not to be confused with Holy Roman Empire

Roman Empire Imperium Rōmānum Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων
27 BCE–395 CE
The Roman Empire in 280
Capital	Rome Constantinople (Eastern Half, 330 CE onwards)
Common languages	Latin Ancient Greek
Religion	Imperial cult-oriented polytheism (Until 380 CE) Nicene Christianity (Officially from 380 CE onwards)
Dominant mode of production	Slavery
History
• Empire established	27 BCE
• East-West division	17 January 395 CE
Area
• Total	5,000,000 km²(117 CE)
Population
• 25 BCE estimate	56,800,000
Preceded by Succeeded by Roman Republic West Roman Empire East Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was a state that controlled various lands across Europe, West Asia and North Africa. Its predecessor, the Roman Republic, had previously conquered most of these territories, which increasingly came into the control of an autocratic emperor following Octavian's ascension and the establishment of the Principate in 27 BC.

During the Republican Era, the city-state of Rome gradually conquered most of the Mediterranean, but it grew increasingly unstable during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, leading to various civil wars and political conflicts, resulting in the ascension of Octavian in 31 BC. The Roman Senate then granted Octavian supreme military authority and the new title of AUgustus, making him the first Roman emperor. Despite many problems along the way, the next two centuries were marked by a period of stability and prosperity, a period known as the Pax Romana, with the empire reaching its greatest territorial extend under Trajan in 117 CE. Nonetheless, by the end of the 2nd century CE, the Empire would enter a period of decline, resulting in the Crisis of the Third Century, a 49-year crisis that almost ended the Empire, though Rome survived it with the victories of emperors Aurelian and Diocletian. Diocletian would also end the Principate system and initiate the Dominate era, during which political power was split between East and West, with emperor Constantine moving the capital to the newly founded city of Constantinople in 330 CE as the center of power shifted eastwards, with the last split of the Empire occuring in 395 CE. During the remaining of the 4th and 5th centuries CE, Rome would suffer from large invasions by Germanic peoples and by the Hunnic Empire, leading to the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire, while the Eastern half continued for another millennium up to the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Rome was a highly stratified slave society, and as many as 35% of the people in Roman Italy were slaves during the times of Augustus. Due to the importance of slavery in the Empire's economy, various laws were established over the centuries to govern them, which first primarily came from the Roman conquests in Italy and Greece, but by the Imperial Era also from newer provinces such as Gallia, Britain, Egypt, etc. The decline of the empire can also be partially attributed to the decline of the slave mode of production itself, which gradually caused severe labour shortages for the state, paving the way for the birth of feudalism in Europe.

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.

Expansion

In 9 CE, Germanic tribes at Teutoborg defeated 30,000 Roman soldiers. Roman expansion slowed sharply after 50 CE and almost entirely ended by the late second century. Rome's last attempt to conquer northern Britain was defeated in 211 by guerrilla warfare. In 378, Goths destroyed the entire field army of the eastern empire in Thrace at the Battle of Adrianopole. The late empire became reliant on barbarian mercenaries from the same groups that Rome was fighting against.

Decline and collapse

In the mid-fourth century, the Huns moved westward from the Eurasian steppe. They were skilled horse riders and archers and herded cattle, sheep, and goats. When they reached Eastern Europe, they overran the Ostrogoths and drove the Visigoths into the Roman Empire. The Huns forced Gothic peasants to pay tribute, which allowed them to strengthen their military. Attila became king of the Huns in 434 and attacked Gaul in 451. Celtic peasants sometimes joined forces with the Huns, but later joined with the landlords because of the Huns' predatory behavior, defeating Attila and sending him back to Eastern Europe where he died two years later.

Between 410 and 476, barbarians gradually took over parts of the Western Roman Empire until Western Europe was completely divided into various proto-states.

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.

References