The Tragedy of Empire

From Constantine to the Destruction of Roman Italy

Michael Kulikowski

• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Year: 2019
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9780674242715
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

A sweeping political history of the turbulent two centuries that led to the demise of the Roman Empire.

The Tragedy of Empire begins in the late fourth century with the reign of Julian, the last non-Christian Roman emperor, and takes readers to the final years of the Western Roman Empire at the end of the sixth century. One hundred years before Julian's rule, Emperor Diocletian had resolved that an empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, and from the Rhine and Tyne to the Sahara, could not effectively be governed by one man. He had devised a system of governance, called the tetrarchy by modern scholars, to respond to the vastness of the empire, its new rivals, and the changing face of its citizenry. Powerful enemies like the barbarian coalitions of the Franks and the Alamanni threatened the imperial frontiers. The new Sasanian dynasty had come into power in Persia. This was the political climate of the Roman world that Julian inherited.

Kulikowski traces two hundred years of Roman history during which the Western Empire ceased to exist while the Eastern Empire remained politically strong and culturally vibrant. The changing structure of imperial rule, the rise of new elites, foreign invasions, the erosion of Roman and Greek religions, and the establishment of Christianity as the state religion mark these last two centuries of the Empire.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction
• 1 The Making of the Constantinian Empire
• 2 The Failures of Julian
• 3 The Valentiniani
• 4 Adrianople and the Coup of Theodosius
• 5 The Reign of Theodosius I
• 6 Stilicho and His Rivals
• 7 Galla Placidia and Flavius Constantius
• 8 The Reign of Theodosius II
• 9 Placidia, Aëtius and Valentinian III
• 10 The Fall That No One Noticed
• 11 After the Theodosians
• 12 Zeno and Anastasius
• 13 The Western Kingdoms
• 14 The Franks and the Imperial Periphery
• 15 From Rome to Byzantium
• Roman Emperors from Constantine I to Justinian I
• Persian Kings from Shapur II to Khusrau I
• Further Reading
• Bibliography
• Index