In a reversal of the former persecutions, several of Constantine's successors actively discriminated against believers in the old religion, whom they now condemned as pagans (PAY-guhnz). The term pagan simply refers to someone who worships many gods, but in newly Christianized Rome, it became a term of severe disapproval. Paganism made a last stand under the emperor Julian (r. a. d. 361-363), who tried to bring back the old religion, but it was a doomed effort. Romans had stopped believing in the old gods long before, as the popularity of the Mithra cult had proved.
Soon after Julian's death, the empire gave up claims to Persia. This move freed its soldiers to deal with a more immediate challenge, that of the Germans. The problem of the barbarian tribes reached a new level with the appearance of the Huns in about a. d. 355. Setting in motion a domino effect that would ultimately bring down the empire, they pushed the Sar-matians out of the Caucasus and into the Balkan Peninsula, which in turn pushed a Germanic tribe called the Visigoths (VIS-i-gahths) into the eastern part of the empire.
As early as Diocletian's time, it had already been clear that the empire could no longer be ruled effectively from a single center in Rome. Therefore he had reduced the number of provinces, and divided the empire into eastern and western halves. The Spaniard Theodosius (thee-uh-DOH-shuhs; r. a. d. 379-395) became the last emperor to rule both halves; from then on, there was a western empire based in Rome, and an eastern empire ruled from the city of Constantinople (kahn-stan-ti-NOH-puhl). Constantinople sat astride the Bosporus, and had already existed for a thousand years as Byzantium (bi-ZAN-tee-uhm) when Constantine renamed it for himself in a. d. 330.
With the empire thus divided, the eastern empire became stabilized and increasingly cut off from the western half, which continued to decline rapidly. The Visigoth chieftain Alaric (AL-uh-rik; c. a. d. 370-410), driven out of the east in 401, marched his troops into Italy. On August 24, a. d. 410, the Visigoths sacked Rome, an event that some historians consider the true end of the Roman Empire. Certainly the people of the time viewed it as a crisis much greater than the “official” end of the empire 66 years later. For thoughtful people such as the early Christian philosopher Augustine (a. d. 354-430), the sacking of Rome caused deep soul-searching, and in Augustine's case resulted in the writing of The City of God, one of the most important works of early Christianity.
Under their new leader Attila (a. d. 406?-453), the Huns were on the move again. Rome could not prevent them from invading Gaul in 451. Rome had meanwhile given up Britain, which would soon be invaded by a number of Germanic tribes, including the Angles; hence the name England. Spain had been overrun by a tribe called the Vandals, who in the 430s took over Carthage and other Roman possessions in North Africa—except for Egypt, safely under the control of the eastern empire. In a. d. 455, the Vandals sacked Rome, and their destruction of property was so severe that their name, too, became a part of the language.
After the Vandals came through, the western empire dwindled quickly. Power was in the hands of generals, and the so-called emperors controlled little more than their palaces, if that. In A. D. 475, a Roman official named Orestes, who had formerly served as secretary to Attila, put his son on the throne and gave him a magnificent title that called to mind both Rome's mythical founder and its first emperor: Romulus Augus-tulus. He “ruled” for a year: then on August 23, 476, a barbarian chieftain named Odoacer (oh-do-AY-suhr; c. a. d. 433-493),
World History
