Rome Fades Away

• Diocletian
• he rules from 284-303
• its cool to persecute Christians
• Rome needs a big army (400,000)
• Rome needs a big gov (20,000 officials)
• had the idea to split Rome into two empires.
• Constantine
• rules from 306-337
• its cool to be a Christian
• conversion to Christianity via a cross in the sky
• 313 - his Edict of Milan proclaims freedom of worship
• built a new capital in the East
• Byzantium, soon to be known as Constantinople.
• The Edict of Milan
• a proclamation that gave religious toleration to Christianity within the Roman empire. 
• It was the outcome of a political agreement concluded in Milan between the Roman emperors Constantine I and Licinius in February 313. 
• The proclamation, made for the East by Licinius in June 313, granted;
• all persons freedom to worship whatever deity they pleased
• assured Christians of legal rights
• including the right to organize churches
• directed the prompt return to Christians of confiscated property.
• Peasants
• life in the Fourth Century
• getting bankrupted by endless tax collection
• new farming system: peasants work for elite landlords on large farms
• peasant can avoid paying taxes, but get just as hard by landlords
• paying off debts and being "allowed" to live on the land, in exchange for endless back breaking work.
• landowners hold local power as counts and bishops, wielding more real power.
• foreshadowing feudalism.
• Western Empire crumbles
• Rome's power decreasing
• too poor and begins to be neglected
• Huns migrate from China to eastern Europe
• Visigoths take over Spain, and actually capture the loot Rome itself in 410
• Vandals control Carthage and the western Mediterranean
• Ostrogoth's in Italy
• Franks in Gaul
• Angles and Saxons in Britain
• End of an Era
• 500 BC - the monarchy was abolished
• 450 BC - the Twelve Tables are established
• 44 BC- end of the line for Julius Caesar
• 27 BC - 180 AD - the Roman Peace (Pax Romana)
• 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