Saving the Roman Empire

Catalog description

In his autobiographical epitaph, the Res Gestae, Augustus, founder of the Roman Empire, claimed to have restored Rome to her former glory. His moral, social and political reforms solidified Roman control of the world and the imperial family's hold on ruling her. Through the next five hundred years, as the power of the empire waned and waxed, Augustus's successors turned time and again to reforming the empire and restoring her to her former glory - to saving the Roman Empire. In doing so they had to deal with problems both external and internal; sometimes their ideas worked, often they did not. Ultimately they failed, and Rome and the western empire fell in CE 476. Examines the rise, decline and fall of the Roman Empire from the perspective of internal and external problems the Empire faced, and asks which reforms worked, which did not work, and why. What could have been done differently? Should anything have been done differently, or was the western Roman Empire always doomed?