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}} In historiography, the Western Roman Empire 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 "Western Roman Empire" 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. A Western Roman Empire existed intermittently in several periods between the 3rd and 5th centuries, after Diocletian's Tetrarchy and the reunifications associated with Constantine the Great and Julian the Apostate (331/2–363). Theodosius I divided the Empire upon his death (in 395) between his two sons. Finally, eighty-five years later, Emperor Zeno of the Eastern Court recognized the reality of the Western Empire's reduced domain (Imperial control had been lost over even the Italian Peninsula) after the death of Western Emperor Julius Nepos, and proclaimed himself sole emperor of the Roman Empire. The rise of Odoacer of the Foederati to rule over Italy in 476 was popularized by eighteenth-century historian Edward Gibbon as a demarcating event for the end of the Western Empire and is sometimes used to mark the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Imperial rule was reimposed in large parts of the West in the sixth century by the armies of the Eastern Roman Empire but political upheaval in the East Roman heartlands saw the Western provinces slip away once more, this time for good. Doctrinal issues in the eighth century saw a major breakdown in relations between the Eastern Emperor and the Pope, eventually leading the latter to unilaterally declare the Frankish King Charlemagne to be the true successor of the Western Emperors in 800. This new imperial line would evolve in time into the Holy Roman Empire, which revived the imperial title but was otherwise in no meaningful sense an extension of Roman traditions or institutions. ==Background== As the Roman Republic expanded, it reached a point where the central government in Rome could not effectively rule the distant provinces. Communications and transportation were especially problematic given the vast extent of the Empire. News of invasion, revolt, natural disasters, or epidemic outbreak was carried by ship or mounted postal service, often requiring much time to reach Rome and for Rome's orders to be realized in the province of origin. For this reason, provincial governors had de facto rule in the name of the Roman Republic. Prior to the establishment of the Empire, the territories of the Roman Republic had been divided in 43 BC among the members of the Second Triumvirate: Mark Antony, Octavian and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. Antony received the provinces in the East: Achaea, Macedonia and Epirus (roughly modern Greece, Albania and the coast of Croatia), Bithynia, Pontus and Asia (roughly modern Turkey), Syria, Cyprus, and Cyrenaica. These lands had previously been conquered by Alexander the Great; thus, much of the aristocracy was of Greek origin. The whole region, especially the major cities, had been largely assimilated into Greek culture, Greek often serving as the lingua franca. Octavian obtained the Roman provinces of the West: Italia (modern Italy), Gaul (modern France), Gallia Belgica (parts of modern Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg), and Hispania (modern Spain and Portugal). These lands also included Greek and Carthaginian colonies in the coastal areas, though Celtic tribes such as Gauls and Celtiberians were culturally dominant. Lepidus received the minor province of Africa (roughly modern Tunisia). Octavian soon took Africa from Lepidus, while adding Sicilia (modern Sicily) to his holdings. Upon the defeat of Mark Antony, a victorious Octavian controlled a united Roman Empire. While the Roman Empire featured many distinct cultures, all were often said to experience gradual ''Romanization''. While the predominantly Greek culture of the East and the predominantly Latin culture of the West functioned effectively as an integrated whole, political and military developments would ultimately realign the Empire along those cultural and linguistic lines. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Western Roman Empire」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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