Fall of the Western Roman Empire collapse. Since 1776, when Edward Gibbon published the first volume of his "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", Decline and Fall has been the theme around which much of the history of the Roman Empire has been structured. "From the eighteenth century onward," historian Glen Bowersock wrote, "we have been obsessed with the fall: it has been valued as an archetype for every perceived decline, and, hence, as a symbol for our own fears." The Fall is not the only unifying concept for these events; the period described as Late Antiquity emphasizes the cultural continuities
History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire The History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire is a study of the ancient Roman Empire that traces the progression of Roman political development from the abolition of the Roman Principate around the year 200 until the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE. When Diocletian became Roman Emperor in 284 CE, he inherited a constitution that was no longer functioning, and so he enacted the most significant constitutional reforms in over three-hundred years. His reforms, much like those three-hundred years before, were intended to correct the