Empire

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=__**The Timelines**__=

Fall of Constantinople – 1453
=__**The Roman Empire**__=

The Roman Empire is the name given by the city-state of Rome. From the time of Augustus Caesar to the Fall of the Western Empire, Rome's regions covered all of these places: England, Wales, most of Europe, coastal northern Africa; together with the neighboring of Egypt; the Balkans, the Black Sea, and Asia Minor; and also the Levant. The Roman Empire, from west-to-east, in modern-day Portugal, Spain, England and France, Italy, Albania, Greece, the Balkans, and Turkey. Southward it has parts of the Middle East: present day Syria, Lebanon, and more. Southwestward it included the whole of ancient Egypt. Westward the coastal regions of what are today Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, out to the longitudes just west of Gibraltar. Roman expansion began long before the state was changed into a monarchy and reached its fullness under Emperor Trajan and Rome's influence upon the culture, law, technology, arts, language, religion, government, military, and architecture of these civilizations that arose from this ancient ancestor continues to this day.

The end of the Roman Empire is sometimes placed at 4th September 476 AD, when the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustus, was dethroned, but not replaced. However, Diocletian, who retired in AD 305, was the last sole Emperor of an undivided Empire whose capital was the City of Rome. The Western Roman Empire declined and fell apart in the course of the 5th century. The Eastern Roman Empire, known widely today as the Byzantine Empire, preserved Greco-Roman legal and cultural traditions along with Hellenic and Orthodox Christian elements for another millennium, until its eventual collapse with the conquest of Constantinople, as Constantine's city become known for the Ottoman Empire in 1453.

Diocletian's rule worked very well for 20 years, but after that it came down to ruins. Later one of the Emperors, Constantius, died. Severus was suppose to rule after him but he had a son, whose name was Constantine. When Constantius died, Constantine was not happy about being left out, and Constantius' army declared Constantine emperor, but Severus was not happy so there was a big civil war.

In one of the battles of this war, in 312 AD, Constantine was about to fight the son of another Emperor, Maximian, named Maxentius. The battle was right outside Rome: Constantine was camped outside the walls of Rome, and Maxentius was inside Rome and so Constantine's men were badly outnumbered.

The night before the battle, Constantine had a dream. A cross appeared in the sky, a cross that looked like the Christian cross; and he heard the words, "Under this sign you will win. Constantine thought that this meant he would win the battle if he had his soldiers paint that cross on their shields. He had his soldiers paint the cross on their shields, and they did win the battle. Constantine was very impressed with the power of the Christian god, and became a Christian.

By 324 AD Constantine had killed off the last of the other Emperors, and ruled alone. In the same year he founded a new capital city in the East at Constantinople which is modern Istanbul today, to reflect the growing weakness of the Western part of the Roman Empire and the strength of the Eastern part.Constantine named his city Constantinople or the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople means 'The city of Constantine'. Constantinople was also halfway between the fighting against the Germans in the north and the fighting against the Sassanids in the East, making it easier for Constantine to get where he needed to be, an Emperor.

__**Sources**

http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/romans/__