Roman Empire?

Question

Can someone give me a Short brief summary of the Roman Empire? Rise and Fall? Accomplishments and Failures?

Answer 1

Wow, short story of Rome, hmm.

The current capital of Italy once began as a sort of housing development started by two brothers Romulus and Remus, who had a fun story about their upbringing. The city thrived and its people became very aggressive, even greedy. They developed some very good and specialized traditions. They had a code of laws that inspired the American Constitution, they had a legislative body that we also borrowed examples from, the Senate. They had, in the days of the Roman Republic, a chief executive that became the model for the American Presidency. And, they took the ideas of Greek democracy and gave it a little tweak--in a republic, the elected officers are for a term, a period of time, and this serves to insulate them from the mob mentality that could overthrow a leader on a whim when the crowd calls for an impromptue vote because they don't like decisions. (We still have crowds to tell the leaders we don't like things, but anti-war protestors don't send the White House resident home merely by showing up to chant and wave signs). Rome had an unusually well-disciplined military. Adventurous generals and political leaders had a knack for conquoring neighbors for personal gain (we learned fromt that, our military today is under civilian control and our troops don't pledge allegence to a general but to a constitutional system). But over time, powerful people gained more and more power. The Roman Republic became an Empire with an Emperor. Most of europe (but definitely not all, much of German and slavic lands and all of Scandinavia were not conquered, but Rome was no stranger to much of today's Germany and the lands along the Danube river), all the land touching the Mediterranean Sea, and such points beyond like Crimea and England had been colonized or conquered. But over time, they grew tired, bored, and weak. Then in the 4th century AD the Roman empire divided. Constantine built a new capital near the Turkish city of Byzantium, called Istanbul today. Later rulers split the sheets and there were an eastern (Constantinople or Byzantium, two names for the same place to remember) and a western empire (Rome). In the 5th century, invading people defeated Rome in fairly regular succession and in the early 6th century the last emperor of Rome was defeated and deposed. The eastern or Byzantine empire persisted for quite a long while afterwards. European countries and Moslems often attacked it from both sides. Finally, it too fell. Much of the borders of present-day Turkey were at one time or another borders of that eastern Roman empire.

Answer 2

http://faculty.oxy.edu/horowitz/courses/Hist221/rise_and_fall_of_the_roman_empir.htm