[RobbyS]

Gibbon rightly begans his story in the late 2nd Century, at ther end of the Pax Romana. The 3rd century found the empire on the point of collapse, largely because the barbarians who had been held at bay, were now pressing in. The Christians, who was now becoming numerous and prosperous, became scapegoats more or less for the same reasons that the Jews became scapegoats in Germany. Diocletian stopped the collapse, reformed the monarchy, and sought to end the Christian problem once and for all. Constantine completed Diocletian's revolution but instead of treating Christianity as an enemy decided that it should serve as a means of revitalizing a dying Roman society. The work of Diocletian and Constantine gave the Western Empire another hundred years of life, bit finally could not ward off the pressure caused by the movement of people that began as far away as China. But it should not be forgotten that the barbarians who collased the western Empire were peoples who were to a considerable extent being reshaped by Roman values,who when they forciblky entered the limits of the empire were already adopting Constantine's new imperial religion, and in the course of time, a German-Roman empire appeared that was to survive, at least as its shadow, to the time of Napoleon.
Is there any more remarkable, ironic picture than the portrait of Napoleon I garbed as a Roman emperor, the irony being complete in the uncanny physical resemblence of Napoleon to Augustus Caesar?

[ffusco]

Excellent synopsis. Though the top heavy, overtaxed Roman govermnebt collapsed but not Roman ideals which were recycled by every kingdom in Europe up till Napoleon then the ideals of the Roman Republic found a home in America. Even Russia thought herself the 3rd Rome ( imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but an absurd notion)