1.73 to 1.74

The decline of Rome was complete when Constantine moved his capital to the Greek city of Byzantium on the Black Sea in 330. He renamed it Constantinople in his own honor. The transfer of the capital meant a real division of the Empire. As the long history of the Byzantine Empire began, the old Roman Empire fell into weakness and decline. Gradually the northern barbarians came down into Italy to invade the Empire. Romulus Augustulus, whose name combined the name of Rome's legendary founder and that of its first emperor, was the last ruler of the West. In 476 he was deposed by the barbarian leader Odoacer. The Roman Empire was at an end, and the barbarian kingdoms of the Middle Ages took its place; but the Eastern, or Byzantine, Empire lasted another 1,000 years. (Encyclopaedia Britannica Article)