The Later Roman Empire Crisis and Continuity from Constantine to Justinian

3 credits · Undergraduate

In this course meet the Late Roman Empire as it transitions from the Classical Era into “Late Antiquity.” We begin with the Reforms of Diocletian in response to the near fatal “crisis of the third century.” We study the Roman Empire shifting its center of balance from Italy and the West to the urbanized and Greek speaking East. With the conversion of Constantine and the coming of Imperial Christianity the basic structures of Byzantine civilization arise. The reign of Justinian and Theodora represent the acme of early Byzantium with the codification of the Roman Law, the building of Hagia Sophia and Justinian’s gamble on the re-conquest of the lost provinces of the former western Roman Empire.