The Roman Empire emerged from the Roman Republic when Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar transformed it from a republic into a monarchy. Rome reached its zenith in the 2nd century, then fortunes slowly declined with many revivals and restorations along the way. The reasons for the decline of the Empire are still debated today, and are multiple.
The 500-year-old Roman Republic, which preceded it, had been weakened through several civil wars. Several events are commonly proposed to mark the transition from Republic to Empire, including Julius Caesar's appointment as perpetual dictator (44 BC), and the Battle of Actium (2 September 31 BC), though the Roman Senate's granting to Octavian the honorific Augustus is most common (16 January 27 BC).
The first two centuries of the empire were characterized by the Pax Romana, which was a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Though Roman expansion was mostly accomplished under the republic, it continued under the emperors. Notably, parts of northern Europe were conquered in the 1st century AD, while Roman dominion in Europe, Africa and especially Asia was strengthened during this time. Numerous uprisings were successfully put down, notably those in Britain and Judea, though the latter uprising triggered the suicide of the unpopular Emperor Nero and a brief civil war.
The empire would reach its greatest territorial extent under the emperor Trajan in 117 AD, though most of his gains were given up under his successor. In the view of Dio Cassius, a contemporary observer, the accession of the Emperor Commodus in 180 AD marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron" - a famous comment which has led some historians, notably Edward Gibbon, to take Commodus' reign as the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire. A succession of unsuccessful emperors followed, and then a period of civil wars and social unrest during the Crisis of the Third Century.
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