Originally Posted by Praxus

It was called the Roman Empire to my knowledge, for one reason and one reason only, because the Government was in Rome. The official name was of course the Senate and the People of Rome (that is to say, the city of Rome). So it seems that you can't seperate Rome from the Roman Empire. I may be wrong though. I believe a more acurate term would be, "an offshoot" to the Roman Empire.

Thanks for the brief summary however, I don't know to much about late Roman History.