The Split Of The East And West (dec 16, 285 – jul 23, 330)

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The Roman Empire was massive, in fact it was actually too big. They had conquered so many places and so much land that it was starting to negatively affect them. There was simply too much space for one Empire to run effectively. Emperor Diocletian’s solution was to split the Empire in two, with an Eastern and a Western half (Mark, 2011). A little while later the Emperor Constantine came around, and once he assumed power he decided to reunite the two halves again. At least, sort of. He built his new capital city Constantinople in the East, pretty much finishing off the West. He realised that Western Rome was pretty much a lost cause, and instead focused his energies on improving the East. This was a huge contribution to the fall of Western Rome, after Diocletian and Constantinople they pretty much had no chance. The West had dissolved into virtual chaos, with 41 different people claiming to be Emperor from 235-284 (Greene, 2015). After that kind of instability the West was pretty much done in, so it was completely unable to withstand the events that came after.