Title: The decline of Roman Britain
Headings: 
The decline of Roman Britain
The Decline of Roman empire in Britain
Final collapse
Post Imperial Britain
The Roman legacy to Britain

Content: The lack of complaint within Britain at the usurpation of power by Carausius and Allectus gave some sign of the shape of things to come, and suggests that Britain's interdependence with Rome was already weakening. The Emperor Diocletian, who ruled from 284 to 305 AD was able to suppress the rebellion, but the reforms he instituted - in particular, expanding the army and introducing the tetrarchy (dividing imperial power between four rulers who each controlled a prefecture) - tended to increase the economic weakness and political divisions that were already dogging the Empire. Diocletian tried to check inflation by replacing the debased coinage with real silver and establishing a Price Edict mandating price levels. Unfortunately, the Empire's fundamental economic problems went unsolved, as the high taxation required to fund the military fueled inflation, the Price Edict was unenforceable, and output continued to decline. Constantine the Great, who was Emperor from 307 AD, had strong ties to Britain and was with his father Constantius at York when the latter died in 306. In Britain as elsewhere, he strongly encouraged the improvement of roads and fortifications. Constantine was far more sympathetic to Christianity than his predecessors - supposedly because in 312, on the eve of an important battle at the Milvian Bridge, Constantine saw a vision of a (chi rho) cross with the words " In hoc signo crucis vinces " [In this sign of the cross, you will conquer]. The historian, Edward Gibbon saw the invidious influence of Christianity behind the decline of Roman martial boldness. However, Mithraism - a very butch and bloodthirsty religion - remained popular in the army. The appeal of Christianity's rewards in the next world might have been as much a consequence as a cause of imperial failure.