The Roman Empire was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterized by an autocratic form of government. It succeeded the 500 year-old Roman Republic (510 BC - 1st century BC), which had been weakened by the conflict between Gaius Marius and Sulla and the civil war of Julius Caesar against Pompey the Great. From the time of Augustus to the Fall of the Western Empire, Rome's dominion covered most of Europe west of the Rhine and south of the Alps, northern Africa, England, the Balkans and the Black Sea, Asia Minor, and the Levant; the people living there called themselves Romans, and lived under Roman law. Roman expansion began long before the state was changed into a monarchy and reached its zenith under Emperor Trajan with the conquest of Dacia in AD 106 and Mesopotamia in 116....more >> Rome's influence upon the culture, law, technology, arts, language, religion, government, military, and architecture of the civilizations that arose from this ancient ancestor continues to this day.