13e: Conclusions

1. All quiet on the limes.
The Roman military was the key to the Principate's security, and therefore the limes, or boundary area, became a higher and higher priority. The Roman empire was not a great big fortified camp; wherever possible the Romans relied on natural boundaries like deserts or major rivers. Still, massive amounts of men and money were required to keep things safe all along the limes. There was no guarantee that either the soldiers or their generals would remain loyal. Julius Caesar had begun his rise to glory commanding a client army on the Gallic frontier. During the time of the Five Good Emperors, the limes was fairly quiet, but Marcus Aurelius's wars on the Danube gave a dangerous foretaste of Rome's future. The barbarians got knocked down, but they got up again.

2. National gutcheck
The dynasty of Septimius Severus, which ruled from 193 AD to 235 AD, kept Rome's impending crisis at arm's length. Severus's personal contribution was to all but trash the Principate: the republican forms still existed but Severus ignored them. He was more concerned with keeping his army paid and trained: so much for the common good of humankind. The Roman social security rotted away, but Severus assumed that the salus generis humani wouldn't be worth much with barbarians traipsing along the roads of the Empire. Nor was it worth much with Roman armies traipsing along the roads of the Empire on their way to install their commanders as Emperor. The government crumbled to the extent that it didn't accept its own coinage in payment of taxes - the world's greatest superpower went back to a barter economy. This national gutcheck made Hannibal at the doors look like a trick or treater.

3. Blame the Christians
Not that the Christians (or anyone else for that matter) deserved to be persecuted, of course, but in a time as wretched as the Crisis of the Third Century, it was somewhat understandable. As the  Second Coming  seemed less and less imminent the Christians had to organize or else. Yet the Christian message never really changed: the current world with its Caesars and civil wars was only transitory, a rehearsal for the eternal heavenly life to follow the Second Coming. Not only was this an especially attractive message in especially difficult times, the Christian church had a good track record for meeting the physical needs of the less fortunate members of their community.  Consequently the Christian church tended to provoke two drastically different reactions during these times: either wholehearted acceptance or desperate fury at this affront to the mos maiorum.

4. Cult of Personality
The cult of the emperor's personality had always been an important part of the Principate. But the good old mos maiorum would never have accepted a Princeps who carried himself as a god during his lifetime - around Romans, at any rate. Yet the Crisis of the Third Century had so crippled the Roman Empire that the elaborate pretenses of the Principate were no longer necessary. What mattered most by Diocletian's time was security. At any cost. As long as the Roman Empire was ruled by a man, any man could challenge him. But if it was ruled by a god - so Diocletian must have believed - men would be afraid to challenge him. This was not the same sort of god as that promoted by the "emperor cult" during the Principate.  Diocletian adorned his self-appointed divinity with a wide range of rituals and rules designed to enhance his status as dominus et deus: lord and God. Even his Christian successors (after dropping the "God" part, of course) retained the rituals and passed them down. They exist to this day.