Talk:Roman Empire

message: User: Rheskouporis, that date there in the infobox is very much a mistake, unfortunately. Constantinople becoming a new capital, a "new Rome" in the East, is not equivalent to the old Rome being stripped of its capital status. It's important to understand what the word "capital" ("caput imperii"=capital of the empire; "caput mundi" or "caput orbis"=capital of the world) meant to the Romans. Rome, as the city that originated the Romans, as the place where the Senate was based, as the most populated urban centre, as a community that was fed and supplied by the rest of the empire by law, etc. etc. was "capital" by definition. Even if the Emperor was elsewhere Rome was not stripped of its capital status and of all the privileges associated with it. This is why Constantinople, to be a new capital, had to be a "New Rome", had to have its own Senate, had to have its own 7 hills, had to have grain supplies specifically designed to feed the city like Rome etc. Rome lost its status as Imperial capital because the Empire there fell, leaving only the Eastern Roman Empire and hence only Constantinople as capital.
So I think the better dates for the capital should be: Rome "(27 BC-476 AD)", even though 476 is conventional as one could say Odoacer pretended to be a Patrician for the Emperor in Constantinople, but that is not a point I am raising; whereas for Constantinople we can mantain "(330-1453)", even though that's another convention as for example it's 357 the year in which the Senate of Constantinople was put on par with that in Rome, but this is not a point I am raising either.
A proof that Rome continued to be considered "capital of the empire" after 330 is that, when it is sacked in 410, ancient authors explicetely say that "the capital of the empire" was sacked. Let me quote Saint Jerome, Letter 128 (text here: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001128.htm), on the sack of 410: 
 The world sinks into ruin: yes! But shameful to say our sins still live and flourish. The renowned city, the capital of the Roman Empire, (in Latin: Romani imperii caput) swallowed up in one tremendous fire.
Barjimoa (talk) 19:09, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: The various capitals of the Western Roman Empire were Rome, Mediolanum, Ravenna, Salona, and Spalatum. Dimadick (talk) 17:48, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: But these were not made official capitals of the Roman empire; rather they were, altough it's still significant, seats of the Western Roman Emperor. The presence of the Emperor by itself was not what made a city the capital. And even if we consider these cities capitals as well, their role did not strip Rome of its official capital status either. Barjimoa (talk) 18:30, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Capital

message: Title says it all. According to Montesquieu, "monarchy" does not do justice to the despotic and autocratic Cæsars.
In Spanish it's called "Autocracia", check out the Spanish wikipedia. 190.141.81.136 (talk) 02:42, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not our job to point fingers and moralise. However, I see no justification for keeping "semi-elective", and "monarchy" neglects the periods within the scope of this article when the empire had two emperors - and of course there was the tetrarchy. I'd favour simply changing  to Autocracy, a term which does encompass single and multiple autocrats and isn't (unlike "autocratic") loaded. NebY (talk) 12:40, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Community Consensus: Change semi-elective absolute monarchy (de facto) to Despotism (de facto) 

message: I saw this on the citation hunter in Wikipedia. While the Diocletian Persecution has its own article, it has no citation yet in this article.
Shouls we cite "Gaddis, 24" and "Eusebius: The History of the Church (1989)" there?
I'm a new user, so I can't edit the article and still asking for advice RFNirmala (talk) 04:36, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation needed on Diocletian's Great Persecution