hand-picked group of men called the Praetorian Guard, who later became a powerful voice in choosing the new Emperor or Rome and its provinces, protected Augustus. In A.D. 14, Augustus died. His nephew Tiberius became the next in a long line of emperors for the next 400 years. In 69 A.D. to 180 A.D., the Roman Empire was at its highest point. The reason for this is because strong Emperors governed it. They did the same thing that Augustus did; made sure that the senate remained equal with the people and made the military be small forces and kept far away from Rome and their power in check. Rome had a weakness though, emperor wise. Some of the Emperors ruled to weakly or died too soon. So that left little areas for invaders to come and attack. Provinces were lost because of this. Franks and Alemanni in the west, and Persians attacked in the east. The armies in the surrounding provinces took advantage of Rome's weakness and had the commander of their armies to become a soldier-emperor. They rose up against Rome but they all faced a bitter death. Perhaps one of the strongest of these soldier-emperors was a Roman general named Diocletian. He went repairing the empire and divided it into to halves. He controlled the Latin speaking side, and appointed his friend Maximinanus to the Greek speaking side. Rome was finally divided into 2 zones where 2 emperors ruled over 2 different areas but were still under the Roman Rule. The 2 emperors brought all of the provinces back together and under Roman Rule once again. In every town, the Romans worshipped the gods and mostly all of Rome's provinces spoke Latin. The Roman Gods were: ☼ Jupiter- King of the Gods and controller of weather. ☼ Neptune- God of the sea and Jupiter’s brother. ☼ Juno- Wife of Jupiter. ☼ Minerva- The Goddess of good judgment and crafts. ☼ Mars- The God of war and father or Romulus and Remus . ☼ Venus- The Goddess of Love. ☼ Diana- A ...
