Rome fades away

Two Emperors

Diocletian
-he rules from 284-303
-it's cool to persecute Christians
-Rome needs a big army (400,00 strong)
-Rome needs a big government (20,00 officials)

Constantine
-he rules from 306-337
-it's cool BE a Christian
-conversion to Christianity via a cross in the sky (conquer by this!)
-313- his Edict of Milan proclaims freedom of worship
-built a new capital in the east
      -Byzantium, soon to be known as Constantinople

Edict of Milan
The agreement shifted Christianity from being an illicit, persecuted sect to being a welcome—and soon dominant—religion of the Roman Empire.

-It came out of a two-man summit meeting in the northern Italian city of Milan in January 313. The two men were the Roman emperors—Constantine ruling the West and Licinius the East. They met “under happy auspices,” as their joint communiqué put it. After years of power struggles for the imperial purple, the Roman world enjoyed a degree of peace. And after the failure of the Great Persecution (initiated by the emperors Diocletian and Galerius in 303–304), the Christian church had begun to recover its stability. Constantine and Licinius turned their minds to matters affecting the general welfare of the Empire.

The Edict of Milan is a proclamation that gave religious toleration.

The struggle of the peasants, Life in the Fourth Century
-country dwellers are getting bankrupted by endless tax collection
-new farming system: peasants work for elite landlords on large farms
-peasants can avoid paying taxes, but they are getting hit just as hard by the landlords
-paying off debts and being "allowed" to love on the land, in exchange for endless back-breaking work (such a deal!!)
-landowners hold local power as counts and bishops, wielding more real power than the faraway empire
-Foreshadowing feudalism

The western Empire crumbles
-Rome's power is decreasing, while nomadic barbarians gain power
-western Empire is too poor, begins to be neglected
-Huns migrate from China to eastern Europe
-Visigoths take over Spain, and actually capture and loot Rome itself in 410
-Vandals control Carthage and the western Mediterranean

Other barbarian tribes
-Ostrogoths in Italy
-Franks in Gaul
-Angles and Saxons in Britain

End of an era
500 BC- the monarchy is abolished
450 BC- the Twelve Tables are established

through the glory days
44 BC-end of the line for Julius Caesar
27 BC-180 AD- the roman Peace (Pax Romana)

to the bitter end
-constant fifth century invasions by barbarian tribes left the western Roman Empire shattered and crumbling
-The last emperor was a teenage boy installed in 475 by his father
-Barbarians deposed Romulus Augustulus without bothering to kill him