Classical Studies 1000 Lecture 27: Lecture 27 Term 2 - Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.docx

• School: Western University
• Department: Classical Studies
• Course: Classical Studies 1000
• Professor: Robert Stanley Brown

Document Summary

44 provinces (provincial governments) all looking to rome for centralized authority. The emperor remained the apex of government, but was supported by an elaborate bureaucracy consilium principis (emperors council) provincial governors: administration was initially sufficient and competent tax-revenues sustained government expenditure and the standing army. The crisis of the third century: a conventional name for the period from death of severus alexander (a. d. 235) to the accession of diocletian (a. d. 284, a large number of short-lived emperors. The army: what was once the engine of imperial growth now became the source of problems. Increased army was an economic burden pressure for pay led to a debasement of coinage. Money becomes worthless cycle of inflation prices soar: armies in various parts of the empire felt that they should be able to proclaim the emperor of their choice. Senator choice when there was no obvious succession now armies had choices decline of senatorial influence overall centralized authority beginning to fail.