East V West

[Guest spartacus]

In the latter stages of the Roman Empire, it was divided - east and west with 2 Emporers

 

Was this really such a wise thing to do ?

 

Certainly a Topic for Debate

[Primus Pilus]

Arguably, it had its roots in the foundation of the empire in the first place.

 

Octavian and Antonius.

 

Augustus and Agrippa

 

Augustus and Tiberius

 

Tiberius and Germanicus

 

etc.

 

Most weren't that well defined such as Augustus and Agrippa where Agrippa essentially had full imperium in the east, but a precedent was set. Later emperors sometimes used their heirs (Caesars) to fill the role of 'ruling' the farthest reachest (Vespasian and Titus for example). Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus split the empire a century before it became the norm. However one can easily debate the official capacity of these arrangements as having nothing to do with the later complete split and I will grant that without argument. What it did do is establish a natural governing division to go along with the cultural division that was already there. In essence these earlier conditions made the later split easier.

[Guest spartacus]

In the later years it would prob have been safer to rule the Eastern Empire, though it would pay to have reliable sources in the West

[Ursus]

The Empire was honestly always too big to rule from one capitol. And there had always been a cultural divide as PP said. The union of East and West had always been somewhat artificially imposed by the military hegemony of the Romans, but economically and culturally they were always two distinct spheres. Whenever the military forces holding them together started weakening, they became rapidly unglued.

 

During the Crisis of the Third Century it nearly divided into the Gallic Empire of the West and the Palmyrine Empire of the East, along with other odds and ends. The Palmyrine Empire probably would have fallen under the shadow of the Parthians. Would the West have somehow survived against the Germanic hordes? I don't know, but if they had and Western Europe had remained united under a "Roman" government, how history would have been different. :-)

 

If Antony had won over Augustus, the Empire would have been ruled from Alexandria. I suspect once the Germanic hordes on the Western frontier became too much, the Alexandrian government might simply have conceeded the West and left them to their own devices. I can't prove the last would have happened, but most of the wealth and culture was in the East, and the East was in a more defensible position anyway. So it makes sense. The major problem of an Alexandrian East would have been an endless border war with Parthia.

 

However you slice it, it seems like the divide was inevitable. But it didn't have to take the exact form as we know it from history. I wonder how the West would have faired under the Gallic Empire....

[dnewhous]

When was the empire officially split? Was that under Constantine?

[Primus Pilus]

The 'official' and permanent split follows the death of Theodosius the Great in AD 396 but the empire was effectively split (and ruled by co-emperors) long before that. Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus 'split' the empire as co-emperors in the 160's AD, but this was not necessarily a split of east and west.

 

There was long a practice of sons of emperors 'Caesars' ruling on part of the empire while the father was elsewhere, but it seems to have taken on a more official capacity in the late 3rd century. By AD 283, the Emperor Carus died, leaving one son (Carinus) to rule in the West and a second son (Numerian) to rule in the east. From that point on through to Constantine (including the reign of Diocletion) there are a multitude of co-emperors and 'Caesar's' (or heirs) ruling east and west separately. Constantine re-united the empire for a short time but effective government required his own heirs to rule other parts.