<P> The success of Augustus in establishing principles of dynastic succession was limited by his outliving a number of talented potential heirs . The Julio - Claudian dynasty lasted for four more emperors--Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero--before it yielded in 69 AD to the strife - torn Year of Four Emperors, from which Vespasian emerged as victor . Vespasian became the founder of the brief Flavian dynasty, to be followed by the Nerva--Antonine dynasty which produced the "Five Good Emperors": Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and the philosophically - inclined Marcus Aurelius . In the view of the Greek historian Dio Cassius, a contemporary observer, the accession of the emperor Commodus in 180 AD marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron"--a famous comment which has led some historians, notably Edward Gibbon, to take Commodus' reign as the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire . </P> <P> In 212, during the reign of Caracalla, Roman citizenship was granted to all freeborn inhabitants of the empire . But despite this gesture of universality, the Severan dynasty was tumultuous--an emperor's reign was ended routinely by his murder or execution--and, following its collapse, the Roman Empire was engulfed by the Crisis of the Third Century, a period of invasions, civil strife, economic disorder, and plague . In defining historical epochs, this crisis is sometimes viewed as marking the transition from Classical Antiquity to Late Antiquity . Aurelian (reigned 270--275) brought the empire back from the brink and stabilized it . Diocletian completed the work of fully restoring the empire, but declined the role of princeps and became the first emperor to be addressed regularly as domine, "master" or "lord". This marked the end of the Principate, and the beginning of the Dominate . Diocletian's reign also brought the empire's most concerted effort against the perceived threat of Christianity, the "Great Persecution". The state of absolute monarchy that began with Diocletian endured until the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire in 1453 . </P> <P> Diocletian divided the empire into four regions, each ruled by a separate emperor, the Tetrarchy . Confident that he fixed the disorders that were plaguing Rome, he abdicated along with his co-emperor, and the Tetrarchy soon collapsed . Order was eventually restored by Constantine the Great, who became the first emperor to convert to Christianity, and who established Constantinople as the new capital of the eastern empire . During the decades of the Constantinian and Valentinian dynasties, the empire was divided along an east--west axis, with dual power centres in Constantinople and Rome . The reign of Julian, who attempted to restore Classical Roman and Hellenistic religion, only briefly interrupted the succession of Christian emperors . Theodosius I, the last emperor to rule over both East and West, died in 395 AD after making Christianity the official religion of the empire . </P> <P> The Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate in the early 5th century as Germanic migrations and invasions overwhelmed the capacity of the Empire to assimilate the migrants and fight off the invaders . The Romans were successful in fighting off all invaders, most famously Attila, though the empire had assimilated so many Germanic peoples of dubious loyalty to Rome that the empire started to dismember itself . Most chronologies place the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476, when Romulus Augustulus was forced to abdicate to the Germanic warlord Odoacer . By placing himself under the rule of the Eastern Emperor, rather than naming himself Emperor (as other Germanic chiefs had done after deposing past emperors), Odoacer ended the Western Empire by ending the line of Western emperors . </P>

When did the roman empire reached its peak
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