History of the Roman Empire founder of the brief Flavian dynasty, to be followed by the Nerva–Antonine dynasty which produced the "Five Good Emperors": Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and the philosophically inclined Marcus Aurelius. In the view of the Greek historian 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. In 212, during the reign of Caracalla, Roman citizenship was granted
Senate of the Roman Empire register that the Senate acclaimed new statues of Emperor Phocas and Empress Leontia in 603. The institution must have vanished by 630 when the Curia was transformed into a church by Pope Honorius I. The Senate did continue to exist in the Eastern Roman Empire's capital Constantinople, however, having been instituted there during the reign of Constantine I. The Byzantine Senate survived until at least the mid-14th century, before the ancient institution finally vanished from history. </div> Senate of the Roman Empire The Senate of the Roman Empire was a political institution in the ancient Roman Empire. After the fall