Transcript Fall of Rome-Constantine

The Empire Splits
THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE & THE FALL OF ROME
Diocletian
•Diocletian in A.D. 284 became a strong leader
•He doubled the Roman armies and hired German
mercenaries
•Persecuted Christians
•He divided the Roman empire into 2 sides
• East: Greek speaking
• West: Latin speaking
Constantine
•Took over the West part of the
empire in A.D. 312
•Constantine (312 CE) united the
empire again under one ruler
•Moved the capital to a strategic
location in Greece in the East in
Byzantium and renamed it
Constantinople
•He accepted Christianity
The Goal: Unity
•The goal in the East was to centralize
government and impose legal and
doctrinal conformity.
•Did not last long because of attacks
from invaders
One God
One Empire
One Religion
The West Falls - The Huns
•The west faced worse problems than
the east that was far from invaders
•From A.D. 376 to 476, huge numbers
of Germanic tribes poured into Rome
to get away from the fierce Huns
•Attila the Hun was a powerful
leader who swept through the west
The West Falls - The Huns
•Attila negotiated with Pope Leo I and
withdrew
◦Emperors offered money and gifts to
invaders to bribe them not to invade
•Germanic tribes continued to invade and
finally the west was no longer Rome
The West Falls - The Franks
Clovis (c. 466–511 AD) was the first King of
the Franks to unite all the Frankish tribes
under one ruler
While he was not the first Frankish king, he
was the kingdom’s political and religious
founder
Clovis was not only a Frankish king, he was
also a Roman official
The West Falls - The Goths
The first barbarian group to feel
the brunt of the Huns’ assault
were the Goths
◦ Germanic speakers living NE
of the Balkans
The Goths were split into the
Visigoths (“West Goths”) and
the Ostrogoths (“East Goths”)
The West Falls - The Goths
Alaric: new Visigothic leader
◦ Rome pulled the legions off the Rhine river,
leaving the northern frontier of the Empire
unprotected
Alaric attacked Italy
◦ 410 CE: the Visigothic Sack of Rome
◦ three days of plunder
◦ the devastation was more psychological
than physical
Byzantine Empire
After 476 C.E. Rome was under the control of foreigners who
themselves claimed to be continuing the empire
The Byzantine empire continued as before, believing themselves
to be the Roman Empire.
Their empire was centered in Constantinople
Lasted until 1453
Because of its location close to Judea, most
Byzantines had converted to Christianity before those
in the Western Roman Empire
Christians in Western
Christians in Eastern
The
Division
Europe
becameof
theChristianity
Europe became the
Roman Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Church