2.

 What events began to occur at the start of the fifth century which would finally sever the unity of the empire?

            The barbarian invasions took place. Following them and the carving up of most of the West among barbarian chieftains, the Greek East and Latin West were driven further apart, and political unity was never again restored on a permanent basis. For all the Christians of the period, and for Europe's heathen barbarians as well, the Christian Emperor of the East stood out as the world's supreme ruler, and Constantinople as the world's most preeminent and fabulous city. The East during this time never forgot the ideals of Rome under Augustus and Trajan, and it still saw the empire as in theory universal. The Emperor Justinian attempted to bridge the gulf between this theory and actual fact by his campaigns to gain back the Western part of the empire from the barbarian invaders, yet in spite of his bold and tenacious efforts to do so, he ended in failure. After Justinian, no succeeding emperor made any serious attempts to bridge the gulf between the theory and fact that the empire was universal.