Civil wars and proscriptions continued, eventually culminating in the victory of Octavian over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. In the middle of the 1st century BC, Julius Caesar was appointed as dictator perpetuo ('dictator in perpetuity'), and then assassinated in 44 BC. The predecessor state of the Roman Empire, the Roman Republic, became severely destabilized in civil wars and political conflicts. Because of these events, along with the prevalence of Greek instead of Latin, some historians distinguish the medieval Roman Empire that remained in the Eastern provinces as the Byzantine Empire. The adoption of Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire in AD 380 and the fall of the Western Roman Empire to Germanic kings conventionally marks the end of classical antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. The imperial seat moved from Rome to Byzantium and following the collapse of the West in AD 476, it became its sole capital as Constantinople. The Empire was later ruled by multiple emperors who shared control over the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. From the accession of Caesar Augustus as the first Roman emperor to the military anarchy of the 3rd century, it was a Principate with Italia as the metropole of its provinces and the city of Rome as its sole capital. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, and was ruled by emperors. The Roman Empire was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome.

Free Roman Empire Free