In 212, during the reign of Caracalla, Roman citizenship was granted to all free

born inhabitants of the Empire. But despite this gesture of universality, the Se
veran dynasty was tumultuous
an emperor's reign was ended routinely by his murde
r or execution and, following its collapse, the Roman Empire was engulfed by the
Crisis of the Third Century, a period of invasions, civil strife, economic diso
rder, and plague.[18] In defining historical epochs, this crisis is sometimes vi
ewed as marking the transition from Classical Antiquity to Late Antiquity. Aurel
ian (reigned 270 275) brought the Empire back from the brink and stabilized it. Di
ocletian completed the work of fully restoring the empire, but declined the role
of princeps and became the first emperor to be addressed regularly as domine, "
master" or "lord".[19] This marked the end of the Principate, and the beginning
of the Dominate. Diocletian's reign also brought the Empire's most concerted eff
ort against the perceived threat of Christianity, the "Great Persecution". The s
tate of absolute monarchy that began with Diocletian endured until the fall of t
he Eastern Roman Empire in 1453.
Diocletian divided the empire into four regions, each ruled by a separate Empero
r (the Tetrarchy).[20] Confident that he fixed the disorders that were plaguing
Rome, he abdicated along with his co-emperor, and the Tetrarchy soon collapsed.
Order was eventually restored by Constantine, who became the first emperor to co
nvert to Christianity, and who established Constantinople as the new capital of
the eastern empire. During the decades of the Constantinian and Valentinian dyna
sties, the Empire was divided along an east west axis, with dual power centers in
Constantinople and Rome. The reign of Julian, who attempted to restore Classical
Roman and Hellenistic religion, only briefly interrupted the succession of Chri
stian emperors. Theodosius I, the last emperor to rule over both East and West,
died in 395 AD after making Christianity the official religion of the Empire.[21
]
The Roman Empire began to disintegrate in the early 5th century as Germanic migr
ations and invasions overwhelmed the capacity of the Empire to assimilate the mi
grants and fight off the invaders. The Romans were successful in fighting off al
l invaders, most famously Attila the Hun, though the Empire had assimilated so m
any Germanic peoples of dubious loyalty to Rome that the Empire started to disme
mber itself. Most chronologies place the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476,
when Romulus Augustulus was forced to abdicate to the Germanic warlord Odoacer.
[22] By placing himself under the rule of the Eastern Emperor, rather than namin
g himself Emperor (as other Germanic chiefs had done after deposing past Emperor
s), Odoacer ended the Western Empire by ending the line of Western Emperors.
The empire in the East known today as the Byzantine Empire, but referred to in i
ts time as the "Roman Empire" or by various other names
had a different fate. It
survived for almost 1000 years after the fall of its Western counterpart and be
came the most stable Christian realm during the Middle Ages. During the 6th cent
ury, Justinian briefly reconquered Northern Africa and Italy, but Byzantine poss
essions in the West were reduced to southern Italy and Sicily within a few years
after Justinian's death.[23] In the east, partially resulting from the destruct
ive Plague of Justinian, the Byzantines were threatened by the rise of Islam, wh
ose followers rapidly conquered the territories of Syria, Armenia and Egypt duri
ng the Byzantine-Arab Wars, and soon presented a direct threat to Constantinople
.[24][25] In the following century, the Arabs also captured southern Italy and S
icily.[26] Slavic populations were also able to penetrate deep into the Balkans.