REVIEWS FAULT LINES
The Tragedy of Empire: From Constantine to the Destruction of Roman Italy
By Michael Kulikowski Harvard University Press, 2019. $35.
Reviewed by Marc G. DeSantis
Some 15 centuries after Germanic leader Flavius Odoacer deposed Flavius Romulus Augustus in 476 CE and became the king of Italy, the dissolution of the Roman Empire continues to fascinate. In The Tragedy of Empire: From Constantine to the Destruction of Roman Italy, Michael Kulikowski, a professor of history and classics at Penn State University, traces the long slide of the Roman Empire from the era of restored greatness it enjoyed under Emperor Constantine in the fourth century to the gloom of a ruined Italy in the sixth.
The Late Empire, divided
