Question

how did the roman empire expand and divide?

Answer 1

The Roman Empire emerged from the Roman Republic when Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar transformed it from a republic into a monarchy. Rome reached its zenith in the 2nd century, then fortunes slowly declined with many revivals and restorations along the way. The reasons for the decline of the Empire are still debated today, and are multiple.

The Roman Empire was an ancient empire centered around the Mediterranean Sea, commonly dated from accession of the Emperor Augustus in 27 BC through the abdication of the last emperor in 476 AD. It was the successor state to the Roman Republic, and constituted the final period of classical antiquity.

The 500-year-old Roman Republic, which preceded it, had been weakened through several civil wars. Several events are commonly proposed to mark the transition from Republic to Empire, including Julius Caesar's appointment as perpetual dictator (44 BC), and the Battle of Actium (2 September 31 BC), though the Roman Senate's granting to Octavian the honorific Augustus is most common (16 January 27 BC).

The first two centuries of the empire were characterized by the Pax Romana, which was a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Though Roman expansion was mostly accomplished under the republic, it continued under the emperors. Notably, parts of northern Europe were conquered in the 1st century AD, while Roman dominion in Europe, Africa and especially Asia was strengthened during this time. Numerous uprisings were successfully put down, notably those in Britain and Judea, though the latter uprising triggered the suicide of the unpopular Emperor Nero and a brief civil war.

The empire would reach its greatest territorial extent under the emperor Trajan in 117 AD, though most of his gains were given up under his successor. In the view of Dio Cassius, a contemporary observer, the accession of the Emperor Commodus in 180 AD marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron" - a famous comment which has led some historians, notably Edward Gibbon, to take Commodus' reign as the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire. A succession of unsuccessful emperors followed, and then a period of civil wars and social unrest during the Crisis of the Third Century.

In the late 3rd century, the emperor Diocletian stabilized the empire and established the practice of dividing authority between four co-emperors (known as the tetrarchy). Disorder began again soon after his reign, but order was resorted by Constantine, who was the first emperor to convert to Christianity and who established the new capital of the eastern empire, Constantinople. During the following decades the empire was often divided along an East/West (Constantinople/Rome) axis.Theodosius I was the last emperor to rule over east and west, and died in 395 AD after making Christianity the official religion of the empire.

Beginning in the late 4th century, the empire began to disintegrate as barbarians from the north overwhelmed Roman control. The crumbling Western Roman Empire ended in 476 when Romulus Augustus was forced to abdicate to the Germanic warlord Odoacer.

The empire in the east (known today as the Byzantine Empire but referred to in its own day as simply the "Roman Empire") continued in various formed until 1453 with the death of Constantine XI and the capture of Constantinople by Mehmed II, leader of the Ottoman Turks. Because of the Empire's vast extent and long endurance, the institutions and culture of Rome had a profound and lasting influence on the development of language, religion, architecture, philosophy, law, and forms of government in the territory it governed, particularly Europe, and by means of European expansionism throughout the modern world.
Hope tjis helps