The Constitution of the Roman Empire was an unwritten set of guidelines and principles passed down mainly through precedent.[1] After the fall of the Roman Republic, the constitutional balance of power shifted from the Roman Senate to the Roman Emperor. Beginning with the first emperor, Augustus, the emperor and the senate were theoretically two co-equal branches of government. In practice, however, the actual authority of the imperial Senate was negligible, as the emperor held the true power of the state. During the reign of the second emperor, Tiberius, many of the powers that had been held by the Roman assemblies were transferred to the
Ultimately, the excommunication of Emperor Leo III of Syria led to major tensions between the East and West as it forced the issue between the Eastern and Western Churches of the veneration of icons. Ultimately, a truce did emerge but major tensions continued to exist between the two branches of what was originally the Roman Catholic Church.
