Roman changes and continuities Essay Example for Free

Roman changes and continuities Essay Roman civilization had some continuities and changes of their political and cultural systems, during the decline of the classical era. An example of continuity would be that the Western European church still used Latin as the language of the church. However the religion was changed during the reign of Emperor Constantine. Rome started out as most class systems with an upper, middle, and lower classes. After a period of great peace and prosperity known as the â€Å"pax Romana† is when the Roman Empire started to decline, because the wealthy were becoming more and more wealthy and the middle and lower classes were becoming poorer and poorer. The lack of money circulated caused the majority of Roman citizens who were poor to become depressed and careless. This carelessness from the citizens caused them to stop participating in serving the country and doing Civil services as well as stopping them from being creative with arts and science. The Roman government was an absolute monarchy in which the Emperor was worshiped as a god. Before the decline there was no official religion that everyone had to believe in, the government had religious tolerance as long as the people believed the Emperor was a god. However during the reign of Emperor Constantine he declared Christianity the official religion of Rome. Although even before Constantine declared Christianity the official religion some people already practiced it. The polytheistic religion that many Roman’s believed in did not give hope to the people for something better after they died. Christianity did if the followers lived by the simple moral ethics by working hard and doing good deeds. Another change that Christianity brought was about having sexual relationships with others, and that you should only have relations with your spouse. Also Christianity made them believe that everyone was equal and so slavery almost disappeared in Western Europe. However Latin was, and still is, the main language of the Western European churches. Also because architecture was considered as art, the architectural styles of the Roman civilization are still used today. The myths of the polytheistic religion that Rome once had were inspiration for many renaissance artists such as Michaelangelo Buonorroti and Sandro Botticelli. As you can see the Roman Empires decline brought about some changes and continuities. The changes either helped or hurt Rome and some of the continuities are still used today.