AD 193 -- AD 211: Septimius Severus After a short period of confusion after the Dominate, Septimius Severus seized the throne. He was born in Africa, and was successful as a general. Before he died, he told his sons Caracalla and Geta to trust no one except for themselves and the army.

AD 211 -- AD 217: Caracalla One of the fist things Caracalla did after rising to the throne was to kill his brother Geta. He won the army's liking by giving them a large bonus. However, this made Rome in debt. He started raising taxes to extravagent levels and allowed all free born people in the Roman empire to become citizens to enlarge the tax base. He was later murdered by the Praetorian guard.

AD 218 -- AD 222: Heliogabalus Heliogabalus received his name after being the priest of the Syrian sun god. He was made emperor at age 14. His mother attempted to rule in Heliogabalus' name. They were both later murdered by the praetorian guard.

AD 222 -- AD 235: Alexander Severus Alexander Severus was the cousin of Heliogabalus. He was a good ruler and well liked among the Romans. Unfortunately, he was killed by mutinous soldiers.

AD 233 to AD 294: Fall and Rise of Rome For a while due to poor economy, constant warring, the empire fell. After a continuous string of good emperors however, the Roman empire united.

AD 284 -- AD 304: Diocletian Diocletian was born in Yugoslavia. He made many reforms, such as lowering taxes and encouraging sons to take up the profession of their father. This brought about more organization, but meant that the poor had little chance of rising to success.

AD 306 -- AD 337: Constantine Constantine "the great" became emperor after a civil war. He built Constantinople, a city in Thrace(currently Istanbul). He supported Christianity, which soon became the dominant religion in the empire. As Christianity grew more popular, pagan religions such as Mithraism declined. The economic and military state of the empire worsened.

AD 378 -- AD 395: Theodosius Theodosius "the Great" ended the long history of pagan religions by banning them in AD 392. He closed the famous Delphic oracle in Greece, and ended the Olympic games. He realized that the empire was too large for one man to rule alone, and divided the Roman Empire into two, the Western empire and the Eastern empire.