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The Roman Empire was the era of Roman civilisation lasting from 27 BC to 476 AD. Rome ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Romans conquered most of this during the Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of effective sole rule in 27 BC.
- Overview
- Rise and consolidation of imperial Rome
Roman Empire, the ancient empire, centred on the city of Rome, that was established in 27 bce following the demise of the Roman Republic and continuing to the final eclipse of the empire of the West in the 5th century ce. A brief treatment of the Roman Empire follows. For full treatment, see ancient Rome.
A period of unrest and civil wars in the 1st century bce marked the transition of Rome from a republic to an empire. This period encompassed the career of Julius Caesar, who eventually took full power over Rome as its dictator. After his assassination in 44 bce, the triumvirate of Mark Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian, Caesar’s nephew, ruled. It was not long before Octavian went to war against Antony in northern Africa, and after his victory at Actium (31 bce) he was crowned Rome’s first emperor, Augustus. His reign, from 27 bce to 14 ce, was distinguished by stability and peace.
Augustus established a form of government known as a principate, which combined some elements from the republic with the traditional powers of a monarchy. The Senate still functioned, though Augustus, as princeps, or first citizen, remained in control of the government..
With a mind toward maintaining the structure of power entrusted to his rule, Augustus began thinking early about who should follow him. Death played havoc with his attempts to select his successor. He had no son and his nephew Marcellus, his son-in-law Agrippa, and his grandsons Gaius and Lucius each predeceased him. He eventually chose Tiberius, a scion of the ultra-aristocratic Claudia gens, and in 4 ce adopted him as his son.
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The Roman Empire
Tiberius (reigned 14–37) became the first successor in the Julio-Claudian dynasty and ruled as an able administrator but cruel tyrant. His great-nephew Caligula (37–41) reigned as an absolutist, his short reign filled with reckless spending, callous murders, and humiliation of the Senate. Claudius (41–54) centralized state finances in the imperial household, thus making rapid strides in organizing the imperial bureaucracy, but was ruthless toward the senators and equites. Nero (54–68) left administration to capable advisers for a few years but then asserted himself as a vicious despot. He brought the dynasty to its end by being the first emperor to suffer damnatio memoriae: his reign was officially stricken from the record by order of the Senate.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The situation of the Roman Empire became dire in AD 235, when the emperor Severus Alexander was murdered by his own troops. Many Roman legions had been defeated during a campaign against Germanic peoples raiding across the borders, while the emperor was focused primarily on the dangers from the Sassanid Persian Empire.
- Colin Ricketts
- Rome: the village that became an empire. The story of Romulus and Remus is just a legend, but Rome’s mighty empire did grow from what was little more than a village in the 8th century BC or even earlier.
- Roman victory in Africa and the east. In southern Italy, they butted up against another great power, Carthage, a city in modern Tunisia. The two powers first fought in Sicily, and by 146 BC Rome had utterly defeated their great maritime rival and added large parts of North Africa and all of modern Spain to their territory.
- The conquests of Caesar and beyond. Julius Caesar took Roman power to the north, conquering Gaul (roughly modern France, Belgium and parts of Switzerland) by 52 BC in the wars that gave him the popular reputation to seize power for himself.
- The Roman Empire at its height. Emperor Trajan (ruled 98 – 117 AD) was Rome’s most expansionist ruler, his death marking the high water mark of Rome’s size.
Mar 22, 2018 · The Eastern Roman Empire continued on as the Byzantine Empire until 1453, and though known early on as simply "the Roman Empire", it did not much resemble that entity at all. The Western Roman Empire would become re-invented later as The Holy Roman Empire (962-1806), but that construct, also, was far removed from the Roman Empire of antiquity and was an "empire" in name only.
- Joshua J. Mark
- The Roman Empire began in 27 BCE and, in the West, ended in 476 CE; in the East, it ended in 1453 CE.
- Augustus Caesar was the first emperor of Rome, reigning 27 BCE-14 CE.
- The Five Good Emperors of Rome were: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius who reigned between 96-180 CE.
- The Roman Empire in the West declined and fell in 476 CE for many reasons including: political instability, religious/cultural instability, governm...
Oct 14, 2009 · The Roman Empire, founded in 27 B.C., was a vast and powerful domain that gave rise to the culture, laws, technologies and institutions that continue to define Western civilization.
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Oct 18, 2024 · Although the Senate did not formally make laws, the prestige of its members gave the Senate great influence over Rome’s law-making bodies. The Senate lasted as a sole governing body for the republic for only a brief time, lasting from the republic’s founding in 509 B.C.E. until 494 B.C.E., when a strike orchestrated by the plebeians resulted in the establishment of the Concilium Plebis ...
