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Crisis of the Third Century (235-285)

I’m not going to attempt to tell the story of individuals here. A simple listing of the emperors will make the point:

There were a couple of decent emperors in that bunch, but mostly their reigns were brief and violent. The list scarcely does justice to the chaos, as in addition to those listed there were literally dozens of others who were acclaimed emperor by their troops but who were defeated before gaining any large control. It’s indicative of what was going on during these years that this group is sometimes known as the Barracks Emperors, for many of them were simply career soldiers whose troops hailed them as emperor.

This period, sometimes extended back to 218 or so, is known generally as the Crisis of the Third Century. In a very real sense, the Empire that Caesar Augustus created came to an end during this crisis and something rather new was created. During the crisis, the old forms were revealed to have fatal weaknesses. It was left to later emperors to come up with new solutions.

What caused the crisis?  This question is much debated, but it’s clear that there were multiple causes, manifested in almost every aspect of imperial society. External factors played a role: the third century saw large-scale movements of barbarian peoples who invaded repeatedly across the Rhine and Danube rivers, but there invasions also in Britain and revolts in Africa. The Parthian Empire finally collapsed but was replaced by a vigorous Persian Empire that created a constant need for a military presence in the East.

The fiscal demands of the military were added to a long-term inflation of currency that came to a head during the crisis. Some areas of the Empire saw a complete financial collapse at one time or another. New emperors traditionally gave donatives to troops and citizens; with so many emperors in so short a time, the temptation was to devalue the currency to meet urgent needs, and several succumbed to that temptation. Civil wars always disrupt the collection of taxes and lower overall productivity in the affected regions. In short, financial chaos followed in the wake of political case, each feeding on the other.

The central problems of the Empire, present from the very first, were revealed plainly in the crisis. Who gets to choose the emperor? The answer during these fifty years appeared to be: just about anybody with an army. And that was the other central problem: how to keep the army out of politics. The army was very much involved in politics during these fifty years and no one had the power to find a solution. As long as choosing an emperor was essentially a matter of victory on the battlefield, the problems of the Empire could never properly be addressed.