ΙΣΤΟΡΙΑ ΤΟΥ ΜΕΣΑΙΩΝΙΚΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΥ ΝΕΟΤΕΡΟΥ ΚΟΣΜΟΥ (555-- 1815) Β'ΛΥΚΕΙΟΥ
Από την Αρχαιότητα στο Μεσαίωνα
Εισαγωγή: από τη Ρώμη στην Κωνσταντινούπολη
(από:40 maps that explain the Roman Empire,by Timothy B. Lee on August 19, 2014
https://www.vox.com/2014/8/19/5942585/40-maps-that-explain-the-roman-empire)
Η Άνοδος και η Πτώση της Ρώμης -The rise and fall of Rome
In 500 BC, Rome was a minor city-state on the Italian peninsula. By 200 BC, the Roman Republic had conquered Italy, and over the following two centuries it conquered Greece and Spain, the North African coast, much of the Middle East, modern-day France, and even the remote island of Britain. In 27 BC, the republic became an empire, which endured for another 400 years. Finally, the costs of holding such a vast area together become too great. Rome gradually split into Eastern and Western halves, and by 476 AD the Western half of the empire had been destroyed by invasions from Germanic tribes. The Eastern half of the empire, based in Constantinople, continued for many centuries after that.
Ο Κωνσταντίνος παίρνει την εξουσία και εκχριστιανίζει την Αυτοκρατορία / Constantine takes power and Christianizes the empire
Diocletian set up an imperial structure called a "tetrarchy," in which power was shared among four emperors. He wanted to provide more localized leadership for an empire that had become too sprawling and complex for any one man to manage. But after Diocletian's death in 311 AD, the tetrarchy became a bloody tournament bracket for choosing Rome's next emperor. The winner was Constantine, who made some profound changes to the empire after he became Rome's sole emperor in 324. He created a new imperial capital at Byzantium and renamed it Constantinople, laying the foundations for an Eastern Roman Empire that would endure long after the West fell. Even more important, Constantine was Rome's first Christian emperor. When he took the throne, he began the transformation of Rome into a Christian empire. While some of his subjects resisted Christianity, the change ultimately stuck. As a result, Christianity became the dominant religion of Europe for the next 1,500 years.
Η διαίρεση της Αυτοκρατορίας σε Ανατολικό και Δυτικό Τμήμα /The empire is divided between East and West
Constantine ruled over a unified Roman empire, but this would be increasingly rare. Upon Constantine's death in 337, the empire was divided among Constantine's three sons, who quickly began fighting among themselves. This cycle would repeat itself several times over the next half-century. It became clear that the empire was too big for any one man to rule. The last emperor to rule a united empire, Theodosius, died in 395. This map shows the result: an empire permanently divided between east and west. Why had the empire become too big to govern? The empire never fully recovered from the political crisis of the third century, or from a plague that began in 250 and killed millions of people. Rome's economy was hit hard. By 400, it simply wasn't possible for a single emperor to raise a large enough army to protect a domain that stretched from Spain to the Middle East.
Οι Γερμανικές εισβολές (η μεγάλη μετανάστευση των λαών) /Germanic invasions
As its financial health deteriorated, the empire became increasingly vulnerable to invasion. That started a vicious cycle. Rome's wealthy and weakly defended interior became a juicy target for raiders. Frustrated provincials began fortifying their towns and organizing their own local militias for self-defense. People were increasingly forced to stay close to fortified towns for safety, making them less productive and more dependent on local lords. Provincials became less willing and able to pay taxes to a central government that wasn't protecting them anyway. And so the Roman army grew weaker, and the empire as a whole became more vulnerable to barbarian attack. A symbolic turning point came in 410, when Aleric, king of the barbarian Visigoth tribe, sacked Rome for the first time in 800 years. It was a psychological blow from which the Western Empire would never really recover.
Το τέλος της Δυτικής Ρωμαϊκής Αυτοκρατορίας / The end of the Western Empire
Historians generally date the end of the Western Empire to 476 AD. That's the year that Emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed by the barbarian general Odoacer, who declared himself the King of Italy. But it's misleading to focus too much on any specific date. The last few emperors before Romulus Augustulus were increasingly emperors in name only. Starved of the tax revenues they needed to raise a serious military, their control over nominally Roman territory was increasingly tenuous. When Odoacer and other barbarian generals carved the Roman Empire up into kingdoms, they were largely just formalizing the de facto reality that the emperors had little actual power over their distant domains.
Η Ανατολική Ρωμαϊκή Αυτοκρατορία (Βυζαντινή Αυτοκρατορία) / The East becomes the Byzantine Empire
Historians generally refer to the Eastern Roman Empire after 476 as the Byzantine Empire. But this is an arbitrary distinction invented for the convenience of historians; it wouldn't have made sense to people living in Constantinople, the Eastern Capital, at the time. People in the Byzantine Empire continued to think of themselves as Romans, and their empire as the Roman Empire, for centuries after 476. In 527, the Emperor Justinian took power in the Byzantine Empire and began a campaign to reconquer the Western half of the empire. By his death in 565, he had made significant progress, retaking Italy, most of Roman Africa, and even some parts of Spain. While his successors wouldn't be able to hold these new territories, the Byzantine Empire would endure as a Christian empire for another thousand years, until it was finally overrun by the Ottomans in 1453.
Η εδαφική εξέλιξη της Ανατολικής Ρωμαϊκής Αυτοκρατορίας
