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
The Fall of the Roman Empire (film) historical events. However, in the long-established view of Roman history, Marcus Aurelius is considered as the last of the Five Good Emperors whose time is considered the best of Roman imperial history. Commodus is generally considered to have fallen far below the standard set by his father and the four earlier Emperors, and his reign is considered as the beginning of the decline - though that would still take several centuries. In the winter of 180 A.D., the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius fights to keep Germanic tribes from invading his northern territories on the Danube frontier (a war which in