From Augustus to Constantinople

Overview of the Roman Empire and its Emperors

• The Roman emperors ruled the Roman Empire from 27 BC onward, with Augustus as the first emperor who maintained a facade of Republican rule.
• The style of government instituted by Augustus is called the Principate and continued until the late third or early fourth century.
• The territory under command of the emperor had developed under the period of the Roman Republic as it invaded and occupied much of Europe and portions of North Africa and the Middle East.
• The modern word "emperor" derives from the title imperator, that was granted by an army to a successful general.
• After the Crisis of the Third Century, Diocletian increased the authority of the emperor and adopted the title "dominus noster" (our lord).
• Constantine the Great, the emperor who accepted Christianity, established a second capital in Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople.
• For most of the period from 286 to 480, there was more than one recognized senior emperor, with the division usually based on geographic regions.
• The fall of the Western Roman Empire is dated either from the de facto date of 476 or the de jure date of 480, when Eastern emperor Zeno ended recognition of a separate Western court.
• Historians typically refer to the empire in the centuries that followed as the "Byzantine Empire", orientated toward Hellenic culture and governed by the Byzantine emperors.
• Under Justinian I, in the sixth century, a large portion of the western empire was retaken, including Italy, Africa, and part of Spain.
• Over the course of the centuries thereafter, most of the imperial territories were lost, which eventually restricted the empire to Anatolia and the Balkans.
• The line of emperors continued until the death of Constantine XI Palaiologos at the fall of Constantinople in 1453, when the remaining territories were conquered by the Ottoman Turks led by Sultan Mehmed II.