67 Diocletian divided the empire into halves

Diocletian judged the empire too vast for any one emperor to rule effectively, so he divided the empire among four vice-emperors, who were also military men. He postured as the exalted supreme ruler of the empire and proclaimed himself the earthly representative of Rome's supreme god, Jupiter. He claimed that he was responsible only to Jupiter. He surrounded himself with bureaucrats and a small army of bodyguards. And his court grew in size and did its business with elaborate ceremonies and fanfare

Diocletian ran his government as a general runs an army, giving orders and expecting them to be carried out. Diocletian tried to restore order in the ruined economy by governmental directives. He created a national budget that aimed at balancing expenses and revenues. In 301 he responded to rising prices with an edict that fixed prices on thousands of commodities and services. In response to soaring interest rates, he fixed them to between six and twelve percent, depending upon the amount of risk involved in the loan.

Peace and a degree of order followed. Impressed, some people looked to him with hope. But Diocletian's economic policies failed. Despite the death penalty for violations of his laws on prices, violations became so widespread that his government stopped trying to enforce them. Diocletian's increased taxation resulted in the owners of estates producing less for the open market, and these estates continued to expand and absorb poor peasants as laborers.

For the sake of law and order and collecting taxes, Diocletian renewed an attempt made earlier in the century to prohibit people from moving off the lands they worked. Everyone was ordered to remain at his present occupation. Tenant farmers were to inherit the obligations of their fathers and were becoming serfs, to be sold as property when the landowner sold his land.

Diocletian tried to create order in the realm of ideas. He outlawed astrologers and the alchemists of Egypt and had their writings burned. He viewed Manichaeanism as a Persian religion and ordered Manichaean writings burned and death for those of the Manichaean faith.

Before the rule of Diocletian, disgust with Rome had led many citizens to embrace an alternative to its gods. Christians in the eastern half of the empire had increased to 20 or more percent of the population. North Africa had become largely Christian, the result of Christian evangelists having learned the Coptic and Berber languages. Across the empire as a whole, Christians were about ten percent of the population – their number having doubled in about fifty years.

Trouble arose involving Christians during a religious ritual performed in the presence of Diocletian. One or more of Diocletian's Christian courtiers made a sign of the cross to ward off the demonic influences of the ritual. Diocletian ordered everyone in the palace to worship Rome's gods or be beaten. More trouble with Christians resulted in Christians ordered to sacrifice to the gods of the state or face execution. Christian assemblies were forbidden. Bibles were confiscated and burned, and churches were destroyed. But by now, Christians had become too numerous to be wiped out.  Moreover, because Christians could read and write – in an effort to study scripture – they had become an indispensable part of government. The purges slowly and intermittently dragged on into the year 305, when Diocletian retired because of ill-health.

The Western Roman Empire was the western part of the Roman Empirewhich, later, became known as The Holy Roman Empire. By 285 CE the Roman Empire had grown so vast that it was no longer feasible to govern all the provinces from the central seat ofRome. The Emperor Diocletiandivided the empire into halves with the Eastern Empire governed out ofByzantium (later Constantinople) and the Western Empire governed from Rome. Both sections were known equally as `The Roman Empire’ although, in time, the Eastern Empire would adoptGreek instead of Latin and would lose much of the character of the traditional Roman Empire.

THE DISSOLUTION OF THE EMPIRE

The two halves of the empire continued to prosper equally until the reign of the Emperor Theodosius I (379 – 395 CE) when internal and external forces exerted themselves to break the two halves apart. These forces included, but were not limited to: the excessive zeal of Theodosius I in spreading Christianity and stamping out pagan practices; corruption of the ruling class; incursions by Germanic tribes; and over-extension of boundaries and resources. The Gothic War of 376-382 CE severely weakened the Western Empire even though the battles were routinely fought by forces from the Eastern Empire. At the Battle of Adrianople in 378 CE, the Eastern Emperor Valens was defeated by Fritigern of the Goths and many historians agree that this marks the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire. A steady decline in power and prestige , however, had been on-going prior to the Roman defeat at Adrianople and other historians claim that this culminated in the last Roman Emperor, RomulusAugustus, being deposed by the Germanic king Odoacer on 4 September 476 CE, prior to Adrianople. Regarding the end of the empire, the historian Guy Halsall writes:

The most ironic thing of all is that during the preceeding century it is almost impossible to identify a single figure who had actually tried to cause its demise. All the decisive acts in bringing down the Empire were carried out by people attempting to create a better position for themselves within the sorts of imperial structures that had existed in the fourth century. In a famous dictum, Andre Piganiol wrote that `Roman civilisation did not die a natural death; it was assassinated.' Neither althernative seems correct. The Roman Empire was not murdered and nor did it die a natural death; it accidentally committed suicide (283).

THE KINGDOM OF ITALY

While 476 CE is the traditionally accepted date for the end of the Western Roman Empire, that entity did continue on under the rule of Odoacer who, officially anyway, was simply ruling in place of the deposed emperor Julius Nepos (who had been deposed by the general Orestes who had placed his son, Romulus Augustulus, on the throne). Therefore, there are still other historians and scholars who date the end of the Roman Empire to the assassination of Julius Nepos in 480 CE. After Nepos' death, Odoacer annexed the region of Dalmatia to his own lands which concerned the emperor of the eastern part of the empire, Zeno, by whose authority Odoacer had been allowed to rule. In Zeno's view, Odoacer was acting with too much independent authority and was beginning to pose a significant threat.

His suspicions were confirmed when Odoacer was found to be backing Zeno's rival, the general Illus, in a revolt. Zeno employed the Gothic leader Theodosius to defeat Illus but then Theodosius turned his formidable army on Zeno and Constantinople. Halsall writes, "the Goths theatened Constantinople and ravaged the Balkans but could not take the capital, whilst Zeno, secure behind the city's famous triple line of walls, was unlikely to drive the latter completely from his territories. A solution was required, agreeable to both parties, and found: for Theodoric's Ostrogoths to move to Italy and dispose of the `tyrant' Odoacer" (287).  Theodoric invaded Italy at the head of his army in 488 CE and battled the forces of Odoacer across the region for the next four years. A compromise was finally brokered by John, Bishop of Ravenna, by which Odoacer and Theodoric would jointly rule but, at the feast to celebrate the end of hostilities in 493 CE, Theodoric assassinated Odoacer and claimed the kingship for himself. From Odoacer to Theodoric and onwards, the Western Roman Empire became the Kingdom of Italy, fully under the control of Germanic or Frankish rulers.