THE DIVISION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE INTO EAST AND WEST - HISTORY - 2025

The last division of the Roman Empire arises from the death of the Emperor Theodosius I. The Empire was divided to improve communications and the military response against external threats.

The Tetrarchy imposed by Diocletian brought the Crisis of the Third Century to an end. His sons Arcadius and Honorius ruled the Eastern and Western Roman Empire after their father's death.

Background to the division of the empire

As the Roman Republic expanded, it reached a point where the central government based in Rome could not effectively govern the distant provinces. Communications and transportation were especially problematic given the vast expanse of the empire.

News of invasions, riots, natural disasters or epidemic outbreaks were carried by ship or by post, which often took a long time to reach Rome. It is for this reason that the provincial governors had a de facto government on behalf of the Roman Republic.

Before the establishment of the Empire, the territories of the Roman Republic had been divided in the year 43 AD among the members of the Second Triumvirate, these were Marco Antonio, Octavio and Marco Emilio Lepido.

Marco Antonio received the provinces of the East: Achaia, Macedonia and Epirus (currently Greece, Albania and the Croatian coast), Bithynia, Pontus and Asia (currently Turkey), Syria, Cyprus and Cyrenaica.

These lands had been previously conquered by Alexander the Great and therefore a large part of the aristocracy was of Greek origin. The whole region, especially the big cities, had been largely assimilated into Greek culture, this being the language that was spoken.

Octavian for his part, obtained the Roman provinces of the West: Italy (modern Italy), Gaul (modern France), Gaul Belgium (parts of modern Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg) and Hispania (modern Spain and Portugal). These lands also included Greek and Carthaginian colonies in the coastal areas, although Celtic tribes such as the Gauls and Celtiberians were culturally dominant.

Marco Antonio Lepido for his part, received the minor province of Africa (modern Tunisia) but Octavian quickly took it at the same time that he joined Sicily (modern Sicily) to his dominions.

After the defeat of Marco Antonio, Octavio controlled a united Roman Empire. Although it offered many different cultures, all of them gradually experienced gradual Romanization.

Although the predominantly Greek Eastern culture and the predominantly Latin Western culture functioned effectively as an integrated whole, political and military developments would eventually align the Empire along those cultural and linguistic lines.

The Crisis of the Third Century

The situation of the Roman Empire was very serious in the year 235, when Emperor Alexander Severus was assassinated by his own troops.

Many Roman legions had been defeated during a campaign against the invasion of Germanic peoples across the borders, while the emperor concentrated mainly on the dangers of the Persian Sassanid Empire.

Leading his troops personally, Alexander Severus resorted to diplomacy and paid tribute in an attempt to quickly pacify the Germanic leaders. According to Herodian, this cost him the respect of his troops, who may have felt that they should punish the tribes that were invading the territory of Rome.

In the years that followed the death of the emperor, the generals of the Roman army fought for control of the empire and neglected their duties to defend it from outside invasions.

The peasants were the victims of frequent raids along the Rhine and Danube rivers by foreign tribes such as the Goths, Vandals and Alamanni and the attacks of the Sassanids in the east.

On the other hand, climatic changes and rising sea levels ruined agriculture in what is now the Netherlands, forcing tribes to emigrate; Coupled with this in AD 251, a plague (possibly smallpox) broke out causing the death of large numbers of people, possibly weakening the Empire's ability to defend itself.

Aurelian reigned from 270 to 275 through the worst of the crisis, defeating the Vandals, the Visigoths, the Persians, and then the rest of the Gallic empire. At the end of 274, the Roman Empire was reunited into one entity and the frontier troops were back in place.

It would be more than a century before Rome again lost military dominance over her external enemies. However, dozens of previously prosperous cities, especially in the Western Empire, had been ruined, their populations scattered and with the disintegration of the economic system could not be rebuilt.

Finally, although Aurelian had played a significant role in restoring the Empire's borders from external threat, the most fundamental problems remained. In particular, the right of succession that had never been clearly defined in the Roman Empire, leading to continuous civil wars.

The Senate and other parties also presented their favorite candidate for the office of Emperor. Another issue was the size of the Empire that made it difficult for a single autocratic ruler to effectively handle multiple threats at the same time. Later with the tetrarchy system, Diocletian would put an end to the Crisis of the Third Century.

Reasons for division

In theory at least, the Empire was divided to improve communications and the military response to external threats.

The Romans had a difficult problem, indeed an insoluble problem to deal with: For centuries, powerful generals had used the backing of their armies to compete for the throne.

This meant that any emperor who wanted to die in his bed had to maintain a tight reign in these armies. On the other hand, key strategic borders such as the Rhine, the Danube and the border with Parthia (present-day Iran), were far from each other and further still from Rome.

Controlling the western border of Rome was reasonably easy, because it was relatively close and also because of the disunity between the Germanic enemies.

However, the control of both borders during the war was difficult since if the emperor was close to the border in the east, it was very likely that an ambitious general would rebel in the West and vice versa.

This opportunism of war plagued many ruling emperors and paved the way to power for several future emperors.

The Tetrarchy

Diocletian through the recognition of the fact that an emperor located in Rome could not effectively administer all the provinces and the wide borders with their external threats, tried to reduce the problem through the establishment of the tetraarchic system.

Through this system, two emperors would control four great regions of the empire supported by a strong army of professional soldiers.

In the year 285, he promoted Maximiano to the rank of Augustus and gave him control of the western regions of the Empire and later in the year 293 Galerius and Constantius I, were designated as Caesars thus creating the first tetrarchy.

This system effectively divided the empire into four main regions and created separate capitals in addition to Rome, in order to avoid the civil unrest that had marked the Third Century Crisis. In the West, the capitals for Maximiano were Mediolanum (present Milan) and for Constantino Trier; in the east the capitals were Sirmio and Nicomedia.

On May 1, 305, the two August elders resigned and their respective Caesars were promoted to Augustos, naming two new Caesars in turn and thus creating the Second Tetrarchy.

Unfortunately Diocletian established a solution to the empire's problems that created a very dangerous dynamic, as he tried to impose centralized control of the economy to reinforce the empire's defenses.

Unfortunately his plans that included price controls, forcing workers into hereditary professions and aggressive taxes, also exaggerated the divide between east and west.

Theodosius I

The two halves of the empire continued to prosper equally until the reign of Emperor Theodosius I from AD 379 to 395. It is here that internal and external forces strove to divide the two halves.

These included the excessive impetus of the Emperor in the spread of Christianity, the sacrifice of pagan practices, the corruption of the ruling class, the incursions of the Germanic tribes and of course, the excessive extension of limits and resources.

The Gothic War that arose between 376 and 382 severely weakened the Western Empire and later in the Battle of Adrianople in 378, the Eastern Emperor Flavius ​​Julius Valente was defeated by Fritigerno of the Tervingian Goths, which marks the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire.

After Gratian's death in 383, Theodosius I's interests turned to the Western Roman Empire, where the usurper, Great Clement Maximus, had taken all those provinces except Italy.

This self-proclaimed threat was hostile to the interests of Theodosius the Great, since the reigning Emperor Valentinian II, enemy of Maximus, was the ally of Theodosius I.

The latter however, was unable to do much against Maximo due to his still inadequate military capabilities. For his part, Maximus hoped to share the Empire with Theodosius I, but when he began an invasion of Italy in 387, Theodosius felt compelled to take action. Both sides raised large armies that included many barbarians.

The armies of both leaders fought in the Battle of Salvation in 388, in which finally the usurper Máximo was defeated. Later on August 28 of that same year, he was executed.

Theodosius the Great celebrated his victory in Rome on June 13, 389 and remained in Milan until 391, installing his loyalists in high positions including the new Magister Militum of the West, General Flavio Arbogastes.

Valentinian II, who was restored to the throne after the death of Máximo, was a very young man and Arbogastes was the one who was truly in power behind the throne.

The problem arose again after Valentinian II had a public fight with Arbogastes and was later found hanging in his room. Arbogastes then announced that this had been a suicide.

Unable to assume the role of emperor because of his non-Roman origin, he chose Eugene, a former professor of rhetoric who made some limited concessions to Roman religion. As Maximo conceived it, he sought the recognition of Theodosius I in vain.

Later in January 393, Theodosius I granted his son Honorius the full rank of Augustus in the western part of the empire.

The last division

Theodosius I, was the last emperor of a united Roman Empire. He died in early 395, probably of dropsy or heart failure. On his deathbed, he divided the Roman Empire between his two sons Arcadius and Honorius.

The Roman general Flavio Estilicón, was appointed by the emperor before his death as guardian of his son Honorius, since he was still very young. Stilicho was a great ally of Theodosius I, who saw him as a worthy man who could ensure the security and stability of the empire.

The army of Theodosius I was quickly dissolved after his death, with the Gothic contingents breaking into Constantinople.

His heir in the Eastern part of the Empire left Arcadio, who was about eighteen years old, and in the Western part Honorius, just ten years old. None of them showed signs of aptitude to rule and their reigns were marked by a series of disasters.

Honorius was placed under the tutelage of the Magister Militum Flavio Stilicón, while Rufino, became the power behind the throne of Arcadio in the eastern part of the Empire. Rufinus and Stilicho were rivals and their disagreements were exploited by the Gothic leader Alaric I, who rebelled again after the death of Theodosius the Great.

Not half the Empire could raise enough forces to even subdue Alaric I's men, and both tried to use it against each other. In parallel, Alaric I tried to establish a long-term territorial and official base, but was never able to do so.

Stilicho for his part tried to defend Italy and have the invading Goths under control but to do so, he stripped the frontier of the Rhine of the troops and the Vandals, Alanos and Suevi invaded Gaul.

Stilicho then became a victim of judicial intrigue and was later assassinated in 408. While the eastern part of the Empire began a slow recovery and consolidation, the western part began to completely collapse. Later in 410 the men of Alaric I sacked Rome.

References

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