Who was the first emperor of Eastern Rome?

Answer 1

The first emperor of the eastern part of the Roman Empire was Diocletian who created a eastern and a western part of this empire in 286. However, it has to be noted that these were administrative units of a single Roman Empire, which, Diocletian stressed, was indivisible. He created a co-emperorship with himself in charge of the east and Maximian in charge of the west. After Diocletian there were alternations between periods of sole emperorship with one emperor in charge of the whole empire and periods with co-emperorships with one co-emperor in charge of the east and one in charge of the west.

Historians consider the eastern and western parts of the Roman Empire to have become split after the death of Theodosius I, the last sole emperor, in 395. He gave the western part to his son Honorius, and the eastern part of his other son Arcadius. The empire became split for two reasons. One was that the co-emperors were young and inexperienced and powerful politicians in the east and the west took advantage of this to conspire against each other. There was also a plot in the west to seize some of the land of the east. The other reason is that the Germanic invasions of the western part of the empire begun soon afterwards, in 406. These invasions were the beginning of the fall of the western part of the Roman Empire.