ABSTRACT
The power of Rome, imperium Romanum, lasted from the traditional foundation date of the city in 753 Bc until Ad 476, the conventional date of its end in the west, and until the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in Ad 1453 in the east. The documents in this book show the Empire at its greatest extent, and at its most confident, during the three centuries from the permanent establishment of one-man rule in 27 Bc to the onset of acute problems, military, political and economic, in the third century Ad. The establishment of the Principate at the end of the Civil Wars of 49–30 made it possible to adapt existing institutions to the needs of the Empire and to set up new ones, and it was able to emerge through another period of reform and renewal into the fourth century.
