Augustus took power in 27 BCE and became the first Roman emperor. Then came roughly 70 more emperors over the following centuries. Theodosius I died in 395 CE and split the empire between his sons. Honorius ruled the western half, Arcadius the eastern. The west fell in 476 CE when Germanic leader Odoacer deposed the last emperor. The east survived another 977 years until the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453.
According to the map above, Greece tops the list. About 1,550 years under Roman rule. The Romans conquered Greece in 146 BC when they destroyed Corinth. Augustus wouldn’t become emperor for another 173 years. After the 395 split, Greece ended up in the eastern empire. The people living there never stopped identifying as Roman. Rhomaioi is what they called themselves in Greek. To them, their empire was simply Rome with a new capital in Constantinople. When you count the Eastern Roman Empire as Rome, Greece was Roman from 146 BC through 1453 AD.
Places like Italy, North Africa, and Asia Minor stayed Roman for 500 to 1,000 years. Latin changed over those centuries. In some regions it evolved into French, in others into Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian. Roman law sank deep roots. Building methods spread and stuck around.
North England got maybe 50 years of Roman rule. Germania had similar short stints. Same along the Danube frontier. Legions arrived, threw up roads and military camps, then pulled back when costs got crazy or locals fought too hard. Dig around those places and you’ll find Roman stuff, but the cultural footprint stayed pretty thin.
Rome left marks that lasted way past the empire itself. Eastern Roman legal codes influenced law in Europe, Russia, and Latin America. After Constantinople fell, scholars took their manuscripts and ran west. What they brought helped spark the Renaissance in Italy. Roman engineering shows up in buildings we construct today. Romance languages descended from Latin get spoken by close to a billion people.
