The Empire from the Third-Century Crisis to Justinian The major factor that brought about the weakening and eventual destruction of the Empire is the defect of Augustus' political arrangement. Augustus never created a system that involved political succession after the death of an Emperor. The inability to guarantee imperial succession to any person is conceivably dangerous and very risky. Meaning, that any person, provided they are supported by a certain group, can take the throne, …showed first 75 words of 1053 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1053 total…Rome's behalf. A series of emperors controlled by barbarian chiefs succeeded one another until a Gothic commander, Odoacer, was elected king. Odoacer, who was the first Germanic ruler of the empire, returned the imperial capital to Constantinople. It was at this point in A.D. 476 that the political structure initially established by Augustus had come to an end and that the unified state of the Roman empire had now become a collection of Germanic kingdoms.