After the death of Julius Caesar, the Roman Empire was born. His successor was Octavian, his adopted son, who was titled Augustus. The tradition was to keep the position in the family. However, this was not always a wise move. Chosen as Emperor at age seventeen, Nero was the last Emperor of the Julio-Claudian family (Gibbon-1776-pg. 63). "He brought the Julio-Claudian dynasty to an ignominious end." (Brooks-1972-pg.147) His reign was officially stricken from the record by members of the Roman Senate, and his descenda

Nardo, Don. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. California: Lucent Books, 1998.

The date that historians agreed on for the actual fall of Rome was in 476 AD. There were too many conflicts and disunities to continue. Since the emperor was the center of the Roman government, the whole Roman government deteriorated with the faulty leadership of the emperors. The military condition was beyond repair, so the Empire did not have any defenses. Barbarians constantly bombarded the Empire on the frontier. The social conditions were not acceptable; there were conflicts between the government and between the different social classes. The Empire had been hanging by a thread, and on one summer day in 476 AD, the thread finally snapped. In just three-hundred years, the status of the emperor went from a highly revered, God-like Augustus Caesar (Octavian), to Romulus Augustulus, the final Roman Emperor who watched the Empire fall apart before his very eyes. This new emperor was not able to defend Rome against the invaders (Grant-1978-pg.461). Augustus was regarded as a deity, while Romulus Augustulus was an inexperienced youth unaware of his responsibilities. Nevertheless, in its prosperous times Rome was an example for many governments today. Many aspects of American Government today are branched off from Republican Rome. Overall, the success of the Romans can be summed up in the words of Julius Caesar:

Asimov, Isaac. The Roman Empire. Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin, 1967.

Another problem the Empire experienced with unpracticed emperors was the economy. Because the army elected most emperors, the army requested more and more money and expected more attention. Many were even bribed to remain loyal to the Empire. The foolish and inexperienced emperors spent money on spies, secret police, and bribes. This caused taxes to greatly increase, which caused tension between society and the Emperor (Grant-1990-pg.193). However, to further complicate things, this economic drought occurred around 275 AD, which was a time of a great decline in trade for the Romans (Cairns-1974-pg.95). The trade was bad and the Roman Public could not afford to compensate for the loss of money with heavy taxes (Cairns-1974-pg.95). These actions of heavy taxes and secret police increased the gap between the emperor and the people, which raised doubts as to his credibility. Of course, most of these doubts were within good reason and logical. "But now each successive Emperor continued to turn the screw a little tighter still." (Grant-1978-pg.441) Because of the inflation, emperors such as Constantine and Diocletian attempted to pull Rome out of the economic drought. They enforced laws restricting the amount of pa

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