Title: The History of the City of Rome
Headings: A Brief History of Rome
A Brief History of Rome
The History of Rome, Italy
The Origins of Rome
The Roman Republic and Empire
The Fall of Rome and the Rise of the Papacy
Decline and Renaissance
The Early Modern Era
Capital City

Content: Secondly, he built a new imperial capital, Constantinople, in the east, from where Roman rulers would increasingly run just the eastern half of the empire. Indeed, after Constantine no emperor made Rome a permanent home, and as the western empire declined in size, so did the city. Yet in 410, when Alaric and the Goths sacked Rome, it still sent shocks across the ancient world. The Fall of Rome and the Rise of the Papacy
The final collapse of Rome’s western power—the last western emperor abdicated in 476—occurred shortly after a Bishop of Rome, Leo I, was stressing his role as direct heir to Peter. But for a century Rome declined, passing between warring parties including Lombards and Byzantines (Eastern Romans), the latter trying to reconquer the west and continue the Roman empire: the draw of the homeland was strong, even though the eastern empire had been changing in different ways for so long. The population shrank to perhaps 30,000 and the ​senate, a relic from the republic, vanished in 580. Then arose the medieval papacy and a reshaping of western Christianity around the pope in Rome, initiated by Gregory the Great in the sixth century. As Christian rulers emerged from across Europe, so the power of the pope and the importance of Rome grew, especially for pilgrimages. As the wealth of the popes grew, Rome became center of a grouping of estates, cities, and lands known as the Papal States.