Summary
From the middle of the second century CE, The Roman Empire faced increasing
Germanic tribe infiltration along the Danubian and Rhine borders, and internal
political chaos. Without efficient imperial succession, Romans in from the
third century set up
generals as emperors, who were quickly deposed by rival claimants. Facilitating
further
territorial losses to Barbarian tribes, this continued until Diocletian (r.
284-305). He
and Constantine (324-337) administratively reorganized the empire,
engineering an
absolute monarchy. Cultivating a secluded imperial tenor, Constantine the Great
patronized Christianity, particularly in his new city Constantinople,
founded on the
ancient site of Byzantium. Christianization, in the Hellenized and
Mediterranean
cities and among certain Barbarian newcomers, proceeded with imperial support,
and
became the state religion under Theodosius (r. 379-95). Germanic tribal
invasions
also proceeded, as did battles with the Sassanids in the East. From 375
Gothic
invasions, spurred by Hunnic marauding, began en masse, particularly in
Danubian,
Balkan areas. Entanglement with imperial armies resulted in Roman defeats, and
increased migration into Roman heartlands as far as Iberia. The Empire, as
military and
bureaucracy, underwent a certain Germanization. From the death of Theodosius,
the
Eastern Empire followed its own course, evolving into the Hellenized Byzantine
state by
the seventh century, as repeated sackings of Latin Rome (410, 455), contraction
of food
supplies to the West, and deposition of the last Western Emperor (Romulus
Augustulus) by the Ostrogoth Odovacar (476), ended any hope of
recovering
Pax-Romana in the Mediterranean basin. Gaul was controlled by a
shifting patchwork of tribes.
But though the Empire itself no longer existed, through the Christian Church,
through the always idealized vision of glorious Rome, and through the political
structures that evolved out of Rome's carcass, vestiges of the Empire played
vital and identifiable roles in the formation of the early Medieval European
world.
