Grade 6 Spring — The Classical World and Late Antiquity to ~500 CE: Late Rome and Byzantium, Han China, Mauryan and Gupta India, Sasanian Persia, Aksum and Early Ghana, Classical Maya and Teotihuacan — Whose 'Fall'? Whose Golden Age? Whose Living Descendants?
History · CUL
G6
hist.g6.s.cul.late_roman_diocletian_constantine
Analyze the Late Roman Empire through Diocletian (r. 284-305 CE) and Constantine the Great (r. 306-337 CE) — Tetrarchy, bureaucratic expansion, the Edict of Milan 313 CE, and the founding of Constantinople 330 CE — per Peter Brown's Late Antiquity framework
Analyze Diocletian's Tetrarchy reforms (Augusti and Caesars; split of empire into eastern + western administrative halves) AND Diocletian's Price Edict 301 CE (primary source) AND Constantine's victory at Milvian Bridge 312 CE + Edict of Milan 313 CE (toleration of Christianity) + Council of Nicaea 325 CE + founding of Constantinople 330 CE; refuses Gibbon's 'decline-and-fall' single-cause narrative in favor of Peter Brown's 'continuity-and-transformation' framing of Late Antiquity.
Mastery threshold
90%
Min instances
12
Typical minutes
45
Spaced intervals (days)
1, 3, 7, 14, 30, 60
Prereqs
- Analyze the Roman Empire under the Pax Romana (27 BCE - 180 CE) — including daily life across classes, Roman religion (polytheism + emperor cult + later spread of Christianity), Roman engineering (roads, aqueducts, concrete), AND Roman chattel slavery honestly per Walter Scheidel: ~30-40% of Italian population enslaved at the Pax Romana peak — the largest slave society of ancient Mediterranean
- Analyze the Punic Wars (264-146 BCE — Rome vs Carthage three wars) and the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire — Marius and Sulla, the First Triumvirate (60 BCE Caesar + Pompey + Crassus), the Caesarian civil war (49-45 BCE), Caesar's assassination (44 BCE), the Second Triumvirate, Octavian/Augustus's principate (27 BCE), and the structural reasons the Republic could not survive its empire
Common misconceptions
- Believing Constantine personally converted Rome to Christianity in 313 CE — the Edict of Milan tolerated Christianity but did NOT make it the state religion (that came with Theodosius 380 CE)
- Confusing the founding of Constantinople 330 CE with the 'fall of Rome' — the founding of the Eastern capital is part of Rome's continuation, not its end