13c: Crisis of the Third Century AD

Marcus Aurelius, last of the Five Good Emperors, died in 180 AD. The empire had enjoyed a century of enlightened rule and a veritable golden age of prosperity. Its future looked bright, but serious problems lay just on the horizon. Up until this point, Rome had risen to and surpassed every challenge. Whether the trouble came from the Etruscans or rampaging Roman client armies, from Asian terrorism or a broken down Republic, Rome always found an answer. On the other hand, Rome was hard pressed to find solutions for the problems of the third century AD.

The Roman economy had essentially come to a halt. Agriculture had reached the point of diminishing returns; science could not bring the tired farmland back to life and the army could not conquer more.  The concentration of wealth was in the hands of a few, and even these few were feeling pressed by the government's tax demands. True, the government was becoming more bloated all the time, but an empire the size of Rome's was an expensive proposition even in the best of times. Now the tax base was dwindling, both in the cities and in the countryside. Poor people fled from the cities, where there was no work and no charity, to the countryside where they at least stood a chance of eating. Worst of all, enemies were pressing at the borders. Marcus Aurelius had spent most of his reign fighting the Parthians in the East and then the tribes on the Danube frontier in Dacia. More invaders were on the way. The Parthian Empire itself frittered out, only to be replaced around 220 AD by the stronger and more aggressive Sassanid Persian Empire. Out on the western edge of the Empire, Britain once more became a flashpoint. Commodus's accession to the throne was a disaster and the one serious blot on his father Marcus Aurelius's record. But even if Commodus had been a clone of his father, he likely wouldn't have made any headway against these issues. As it was, Commodus proved to be one of the top five lunatics to rule the Roman Empire, which is no small distinction. A conspiracy led by the Praetorian Prefect put him out of Rome's misery in 192 AD, and once again threw Rome's future into doubt.

The Roman Senate was in no shape to restore the Republic. Instead, the Praetorian Guard auctioned off the Empire (more precisely, its promise of support) to the highest bidder. The winner was a deluded soul named Didius Julianus whose reign lasted mere days. At once a ferocious three-cornered civil war broke, the first in more than a century. In Britain, the general Clodius Albinus was declared imperator by his legions, and the legions of Syria declared their general Pescennius Niger as imperator. From the Danube frontier came the forces of the third wannabe imperator and eventual winner, Septimius Severus (193-211 AD). As an soldier, Severus naturally saw Rome's greatest problem as the Empire's physical security. Social concerns suffered accordingly. No longer did the emperor see his job as maintaining the salus generis humani. Severus had his hands full - first stamping out Clodius and Pescennius, and then maintaining the borders. His major contributions were hiking the soldiers' pay and employing more lawyers to run the Imperial bureaucracy. The "Severan" dynasty he founded survived him for not quite two decades, and was better known for its weak males and domineering females than anything else. But at least it maintained the frontiers. When Alexander Severus was murdered - by the Praetorian Guard - in 235 AD, Rome entered the Crisis of the Third Century AD. The telltale sign of this crisis was the thirty-odd emperors (and some were odd indeed) who claimed the title imperator in the half century before the emperor Diocletian restored order for good. Some of these emperors held office simultaneously, some stunk and others were actually promising. Most had risen from humble peasant status up to the rank of general when their soldiers proclaimed them imperator. Once that happened, there were only two choices: taking the purple or instant death.

While the Roman generals led their armies against each other, the Roman frontiers crumbled in all directions. From the north, Gothic tribes invaded Gaul, Spain, and even Italy itself. In the east the Persians conquered Mesopotamia and Syria. Since the Roman armies in the areas were too weak to do anything about the invaders, the emperor du jour resorted to buying them off. Sometimes Roman provincial administrators seceded from the empire, as did Postumus in Gaul,  or even established their own empire, as Odenathus and Zenobia did on the fringes of western Syria. During this time, plague swept large areas of the empire, bringing starvation and economic chaos in its wake. Paying the soldiers and buying off invaders  became even more expensive, and the economy continued to plummet. The very richest Romans in the cities dodged their share of the burden by purchasing tax exemptions, which helped the government in the short run but were disastrous in the long run. New sources of revenue were desperately needed. To raise funds, coinage was debased from its actual value, causing inflation so bad the government would not accept its own money in payment of taxes.  This in turn made the tax burden fall even more heavily upon those least able to bear it. What money the cities could keep for themselves after paying the central government went for walls and other fortifications, not social services. Life in the countryside was even worse, as invaders roamed the frontier regions almost at will and marauders roamed the internal regions. Oddly, the luckiest peasants were those working on a latifundium-style farm: even though they had become little better than serfs, at least their employers - that is, their masters - could afford to protect them.

This crisis of the Third Century AD was a bigger gut check for Rome than Hannibal had ever caused. Rome had never been in such dire straits.  Some emperors won quick popularity by announcing widespread persecutions of the Christian Church, which was growing by leaps and bounds in these troubled times while simultaneously being blamed for wrecking the pax deorum. Otherwise capable emperors, like Valerian (253-260) and Aurelian (270-275) got control of the state only to lose their lives in ill-advised attempts to take out the Persians. Aurelian was murdered on his way out to fight the Persians; he got off lightly compared to Valerian, who was taken alive by the Persian emperor Shapur I. Supposedly, Valerian lived out his days as Shapur's personal footstool, although this is likely an urban legend spread by the Christians whom Valerian eagerly persecuted. Regardless of its truth, the footstool anecdote provides a very vivid image of how far Rome's prestige had fallen. No Roman would have dared whisper a story like that about Augustus, or Vespasian, or Trajan, or even Septimius Severus.