Talk:History of the Constitution of the Roman Empire

Strangely limited scope
Why does this article stop at the accession of Diocletian (284 AD)? The earliest obvious stopping point would be when the succession arrangements for the Western and Eastern halves diverged. Although Diocletian's division of the empire implied such a divergence, Constantine I ("the Great") re-united the empire and then set up a similar "2+2" division of authority. I suggest the earliest reasonable stopping point would be either the death of Diocletian, with a description of his constitutional arrangements, or the death of Constantine I, with a description of his constitutional arrangements. Personally I'd go for Constantine I, and outline the history of the Empire up to the point where the split between Western and Eastern became permanent - and link to articles on the separate successor empires. However I notice that History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire mentions the "abolition of the Principate around 300 AD" (11 years before Diocletian's death), so an explanation of this change and its effects (i.e. why it marks the transition from the "the Roman Empire" to "the Late Roman Empire") might be a suitable stopping point. All of this material is covered any any decent book on the history of the Empire. BTW the current stopping point struck me as odd simply on the basis of my background knoweldge, without any research.

Diocletian should be linked.

OTOH congratulations on highlighting the importance of the succession issue. -- Philcha (talk) 12:33, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The dividing line between the History of the Constitution of the Roman Empire and the History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire is the formation of the tetrarchy under Diocletian, which was also the approximate time that the Principate transformed into the Dominate. An article on the history of the Roman Empire might use Constantine as a dividing line, although this article is about the political history of the Roman Empire. Diocletian's formation of the tetrarchy, and his division of the empire into four administrative units, is more politically significant than, say, Constantine's army reuniting the empire (temporarily anyway). At best, Constantine’s political and administrative reforms were a restoration, or slight modification, of what Diocletian had left behind. The point of the entire Roman Constitution series is to discuss the political development of Rome, from the founding of the Roman Kingdom in 753 BC until the fall of the western Roman Empire in 476 AD. This political development is easy to distinguish from the ordinary history, throughout most of this time. After the early Principate, however, it becomes more difficult. RomanHistorian (talk) 04:14, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

History of the Roman Constitution
Are these two articles related? They seem to be on the same subject. &mdash; Mattisse (Talk) 21:56, 2 November 2008 (UTC)


 * And there's a lot of duplication of text. If you look at History of the Roman Constitution you'll also see that it refers to "main" articles on both "Constitution of the Roman Kingdom / Roman Republic / Roman Empire / Late Roman Empire"and "History of the Constitution of the Roman Kingdom / Roman Republic / Roman Empire / Late Roman Empire" - and the histories suggest these were all written by the same group of authors. I suggest some of them should explain this proliferation of articles. -- Philcha (talk) 22:27, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * They are related. History of the Roman Constitution is a summary of History of the Constitution of the Roman Kingdom, History of the Constitution of the Roman Republic, History of the Constitution of the Roman Empire, and History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire. History of the Roman Constitution is simply more condensed, and at a broader level, than those other articles. RomanHistorian (talk) 04:21, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

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