Another important act of Constantine’s reign, besides his proclamation of toleration for Christianity (A. D. 321), was his removal of the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople. Not long after this was effected, Constantine died at the age of sixty, leaving the Empire divided among his three sons. One of them, Constantius, ultimately acquired the whole, and transmitted it to his successors; but in the year 395, Theodosius, one of these successors, effected a permanent separation between the East and the West. From that date, the history of Rome divides itself into two distinct histories――that of the Western or Latin and that of the Eastern or Greek empire. The latter protracted its existence till A. D. 1453, when Constantinople was taken by the Turks: the former crumbled to pieces much earlier, before the attacks of the northern barbarians, who finally destroyed it in 476. DOWNFALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. From an early period, the Empire had been assailed on its northern frontier by the German and Sclavonian races living east of the Rhine and north of the Danube. Partly by force, and partly by negotiation, the authorities of the Empire had been able to keep these barbarian populations in check; but towards the end of the fourth century, the growing decrepitude of the Empire tempted invasion, and hordes of barbarians from Scandinavia, Russia, and Tartary, rolled themselves toward the Danube. At first, it seemed as if the eastern empire would be the first to fall before them; but the tide of invasion was at length decisively diverted towards the west. Province after province was torn away by Goths, Alans, Huns, Vandals, and others: Italy itself was ravaged several times; and at length, A. D. 476, Romulus Augustus, the last sovereign, was dethroned, and Italy became a prey to the Germans. The various steps in this gradual disintegration of the Empire, the heroic deeds of the two chief agents in the dismemberment――Alaric, king of the Goths, and Attila, king of the Huns――and the gradual formation of Romano-Germanic kingdoms out of fragments of the shattered Roman society, cannot here be detailed. HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES.