country_of_citizenship stilicho
Flavius Stilicho ( occasionally written as Stilico ) ( c . 359 -- Ravenna , 22 August 408 ) was a high - ranking general ( magister militum ) in the Roman army who became , for a time , the most powerful man in the ___MASK8___ . Half Vandal and married to the niece of the Emperor Theodosius , Stilicho ' s regency for the underage Honorius marked the high point of German advancement in the service of Rome . After many years of victories against a number of enemies , both barbarian and Roman , a series of political and military disasters finally allowed his enemies in the court of Honorius to remove him from power , culminating in his arrest and subsequent execution in 408 . Known for his military successes and sense of duty , Stilicho was , in the words of historian Edward Gibbon , `` the last of the Roman generals . '' An emperor ( through Old French " empereor " from ) is a monarch , usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial ___MASK67___ . Empress , the female equivalent , may indicate an emperor ' s wife (" empress consort "), mother (" empress dowager "), or a woman who rules in her own right (" empress regnant "). Emperors are generally recognized to be of a higher honour and rank than kings . In Europe the title of Emperor was , since the Middle Ages , considered equal or almost equal in dignity to that of Pope , due to the latter ' s position as visible head of the Church and spiritual leader of Western Europe . The Emperor of Japan is the only currently reigning monarch whose title is translated into English as " Emperor ". The term tetrarchy ( from the , " tetrarchia ", " leadership of four [ people ]") describes any form of government where power is divided among four individuals , but in modern usage usually refers to the system instituted by Roman Emperor Diocletian in 293 , marking the end of the Crisis of the Third Century and the recovery of the ___MASK19___ . This tetrarchy lasted until c . 313 , when internecine conflict eliminated most of the claimants to power , leaving Constantine in control of the western half of the empire , and Licinius in control of the eastern half . A civil war , also known as an intrastate war in polemology , is a war between organized groups within the same state or country , or , less commonly , between two countries created from a formerly united state . The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region , to achieve independence for a region or to change government policies . The term is a calque of the Latin " bellum civile " which was used to refer to the various civil wars of the ___MASK35___ in the 1st century BC . The ___MASK34___ , also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire , was the continuation of the Roman Empire in the East during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages , when its capital city was Constantinople ( modern - day Istanbul , which had been founded as Byzantium ). It survived the fragmentation and fall of the ___MASK8___ in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 . During most of its existence , the empire was the most powerful economic , cultural , and military force in Europe . Both " ___MASK34___ " and " Eastern Roman Empire " are historiographical terms created after the end of the ___MASK67___ ; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the " Roman Empire " ( tr . ), or " Romania ", and to themselves as " Romans ". An empire is defined as " an aggregate of nations or people ruled over by an emperor or other powerful sovereign or government , usually a territory of greater extent than a kingdom , as the former ___MASK24___ Empire , ___MASK62___ , Brazilian Empire , Russian Empire , Ottoman Empire , Byzantine Empire or Roman Empire ." An empire can be made solely of contiguous territories such as the Austro - Hungarian Empire , or of territories far remote from the homeland , such as a colonial empire . Edward Gibbon FRS ( 8 May 173716 January 1794 ) was an English historian , ___MASK42___ and Member of Parliament . His most important work , " The History of the Decline and Fall of the ___MASK19___ ", was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788 and is known for the quality and irony of its prose , its use of primary sources , and its open criticism of organised religion . Magister militum ( Latin for " Master of the Soldiers ", plural " magistri militum ") was a top - level military command used in the later ___MASK19___ , dating from the reign of Constantine . Used alone , the term referred to the senior military officer ( equivalent to a war theatre commander , the emperor remaining the supreme commander ) of the Empire . In Greek sources , the term is translated either as " strategos " or as " stratelates ". Stratlats (" driver / leader of the army ") was a Greek term designating a general , which also became an honorary dignity in the ___MASK34___ . In the former sense , it was often applied to military saints , such as Theodore Stratelates . Old French (', ', ""; Modern French ) was the Gallo - Romance dialect continuum spoken from the 9th century to the 14th century . In the 14th century , these dialects came to be collectively known as the " langues d ' oïl ", contrasting with the " langue d ' oc " or Occitan language in the south of ___MASK43___ . The mid - 14th century is taken as the transitional period to Middle French , the language of the French Renaissance , specifically based on the dialect of the Île - de - ___MASK43___ region . The History of the Decline and Fall of the ___MASK19___ is a written by the English historian Edward Gibbon , which traces the trajectory of Western civilization ( as well as the Islamic and Mongolian conquests ) from the height of the ___MASK19___ to the fall of Byzantium . It was published in six volumes . Volume I was published in 1776 and went through six printings . Volumes II and III were published in 1781 ; volumes IV , V , and VI in 1788  89 . The original volumes were published in quarto sections , a common publishing practice of the time . The work covers the history , from 98 to 1590 , of the ___MASK19___ , the history of early Christianity and then of the Roman State Church , and the history of Europe , and discusses the decline of the ___MASK19___ in the East and West . Because of its relative objectivity and heavy use of primary sources , unusual at the time , its methodology became a model for later historians . This led to Gibbon being called the first " modern historian of ___MASK30___ ". In historiography , the ___MASK8___ consists of the western provinces of the Roman Empire at any one time during which they were administered by a separate independent Imperial court , coequal with ( or only nominally subordinate to ) that administering the eastern half . Both " ___MASK8___ " and " Eastern Roman Empire " ( or " Byzantine Empire ") are modern terms describing " de facto " independent entities ; however , at no point did Romans consider the Empire split into two , but rather considered it a single state governed by two separate Imperial courts out of administrative expediency . The view that the Empire was impossible to govern by one emperor was established by Diocletian following the disastrous civil wars and disintegration of the Crisis of the 3rd century , and was instituted in Roman law by his introduction of the Tetrarchy in AD 285 , a form of government which was legally to endure in one form or another for centuries . The Western Court was periodically abolished and recreated for the next two centuries until final abolition by the Emperor Zeno in 480 , by which time there was little effective central control left in the area legally administered by the Western Court . Historiography is the study of the methodology of historians in developing history as an ___MASK96___ discipline , and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject . The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians have studied that topic using particular sources , techniques , and theoretical approaches . Scholars discuss historiography by topic  such as the " Historiography of the United Kingdom ", the " Historiography of ___MASK17___ ", " Historiography of the British Empire ", the " historiography of early Islam ", the " historiography of ___MASK63___ "  and different approaches and genres , such as political history and social history . Beginning in the nineteenth century , with the ascent of ___MASK96___ history , there developed a body of historiographic literature . The extent to which historians are influenced by their own groups and loyalties  such as to their nation state  is a debated question . The ___MASK19___ ( Koine and Medieval Greek :    , tr . ) was the post - ___MASK35___ period of the ancient Roman civilization , characterized by government headed by emperors and large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe , Africa and Asia . The city of Rome was the largest city in the world BC AD , with Constantinople ( New Rome ) becoming the largest around 500 AD , and the Empire ' s populace grew to an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants ( roughly 20 % of the world ' s population at the time ). The 500 - year - old republic which preceded it was severely destabilized in a series of civil wars and political conflict , during which Julius Caesar was appointed as perpetual dictator and then assassinated in 44 BC . Civil wars and executions continued , culminating in the victory of Octavian , Caesar ' s adopted son , over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of ___MASK46___ . Octavian ' s power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power and the new title " Augustus ", effectively marking the end of the ___MASK35___ . Honour ( also honor in ___MASK47___ English , see spelling differences ) is an abstract concept entailing a perceived quality of worthiness and respectability that affects both the social standing and the self - evaluation of an individual or corporate body such as a family , school , regiment or nation . Accordingly , individuals ( or corporate bodies ) are assigned worth and stature based on the harmony of their actions with a specific code of honour , and the moral code of the society at large . The Emperor of ___MASK82___ is the head of the Imperial Family and is the ceremonial head of state of ___MASK82___ ' s system of constitutional monarchy . According to the 1947 constitution , he is " the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people ." Historically , he is also the highest authority of the Shinto religion as he and his family are said to be the direct descendants of the sun - goddess Amaterasu , and his importance also lies in dealing with heavenly affairs , including Shinto ritual and rites throughout the nation . In the history of Europe , the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century . It began with the fall of the ___MASK8___ and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery . The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history : classical antiquity , the medieval period , and the modern period . The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early , High , and Late Middle Ages .