c. 6o0 BCE – c. 600 CE

KEY CONCEPT 2.2.3: END OF EMPIRE

IV. The Roman, Han, Persian, Mauryan, and Gupta empires created political, cultural, and administrative difficulties that they couldnot manage, which eventually led to their decline, collapse, and transformation into successor empires or states.

A. Through excessive mobilization of resources, imperial governments caused environmental damage and generated social tensions and economic difficulties by concentrating too much wealth in the hands of elites.

• Deforestation

• Desertification

• Soil erosion• Silted rivers

B. External problems resulted from security issues along their frontiers, including the threat of invasions.

The Gupta and the White Huns

In the 480's the Hephthalites, or White Huns, broke through the Gupta defenses in the northwest, and much of the empire in northwest was overrun by the Hun by 500. The empire disintegrated under the attacks of Toramana and his successor Mihirakula. It appears from inscriptions that the Guptas, although their power was much diminished, continued to resist the Huns. The Huns were defeated and driven out of India in 528 AD. In addition to the Hun invasion, the factors which contributed to the decline of the empire include competition from smaller kingdoms, and the rise of other regional powers.

The Roman Empire and the Germanic Tribes

The unity of the Roman Empire was from this point a fiction, as graphically revealed by Diocletian's division of authority among four "co-emperors", the Tetrarchy. Order was shaken again soon after, but was restored by Constantine, who became the first emperor to convert to Christianity, and who established Constantinople as the new capital of the eastern empire. During the decades of the Constantinian and Valentinian dynasties, the Empire was divided along an east-west axis, with dual power centres in Constantinople and Rome. The reign of Julian, who attempted to restore Classical Roman and Hellenistic religion, only briefly interrupted the succession of Christian emperors. Theodosius I, the last emperor to rule over both East and West, died in 395 AD after making Christianity the official state religion.

The Roman Empire began to disintegrate in the late 4th and early 5th century as invasions overwhelmed the capacity of the Empire to govern and mount a coordinated defense. Most chronologies place the end of the Western Roman empire in 476, when Romulus Augustulus was forced to abdicate to the Germanic warlord Odoacer. The empire in the East—known today as the Byzantine Empire, but referred to in its time as the "Roman Empire" or by various other names—ended in 1453 with the death of Constantine XI and the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks.[18]

The Roman Empire and the Germanic Tribes