The Crisis of the Third Century

Podcast Transcript

The Roman Empire, at its height, was a juggernaut.

However, during the third century, almost everything fell apart. In fact, for a brief period of time, it arguably did.

It suffered from invasions, plagues, a collapsing economy, lower agricultural productivity, and numerous political assassinations.

They eventually solved their problems, but in the process, the Empire was changed forever.

Learn more about the Crisis of the Third Century and how the Roman Empire almost collapsed on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Before I start the episode, let me give you a fair warning. This period in Roman history had a lot of imperial turnover, and most of the emperors were not ones that you have probably heard of.

Most of them had unusually short tenures, came to power through their predecessor’s assassination, and were assassinated themselves. Other than getting some coins made with their faces on them, few of them had any lasting impact on Roman civilization.

Historians have dubbed the period in Roman history from 235 to 284, a forty-nine-year span that saw the empire almost fall apart, the Crisis of the Third Century.

Before this period kicked off, several macro-level problems paved the way for the crisis, some of which continued to take place during the crisis, which made this period so bad.

The first was the Antonine Plague.

Although the Antonine Plague didn’t occur during the Crisis of the Third Century, it devastated the population, dramatically weakened the Roman army, and damaged the economy.

Then came the Plague of Cyprian, which lasted from 249 to 262. The Plague is believed to have caused the population of Alexandria, the second-largest city in the empire, to drop by 60%.

Another major problem was inflation. During the reign of Augustus, the Roman silver coin, the denarius, had a silver content of about 98%. However, starting with Emperor Nero, emperors began reducing the silver content of the coins.

At the start of the crisis, the silver content of the denarius was about 50% and dropped precipitously during the crisis.

The debasement of the currency was mostly to pay for armies. They could effectively raise money by using the same amount of silver to make more denari coins.

By the same token, the Aureus, the Roman gold coin, was also debased, going from 95% gold during Augustus to 38% gold during the middle of the crisis.

Debasing the currency caused prices to rise, which caused economic chaos.

The third century also saw the beginning of the end of the Roman climate optimum. This was a period of warm temperatures that saw increased agricultural productivity. It would be several centuries before this period would be considered over, but the third century marked an increase in variability in temperatures.

Perhaps most important was the Roman political system. Ever since Augusts established the empire, there was never a system of succession which was put in place. Every time one emperor replaced another, things were up in the air. When things were stable, succession plans were made well in advance.

However, when an emperor died unexpectedly or was assassinated, things were thrown into chaos and it usually became a matter of who had the bigger army.

The Crisis is usually said to have begun in the year 235 with the assassination of Emperor Alexander Severus.

Severus ascended to the imperial throne in the year 222 with the assassination of his cousin Elagalabus. He was only 14 years old when he became emperor.

Elagalabus was one of, if not the worst, emperors in Roman history, something I covered in my episode on the worst emperors.

Severus’s 13-year reign was the longest since Antonius Pius, who died in 161.

This period of stability was broken with his assassination at the hands of his own troops. The soldiers grew discontent with Alexander Severus’s policies, particularly his attempts to negotiate with the Germanic tribes rather than confront them militarily. Severus was also dominated by his mother who had cut spending on the military.

So, they got rid of Severus and turned to a military leader by the name of Maximinus Thrax.

By all accounts, Maximinus was a large and strong man who had worked his way up the ranks and was respected by the army.

However, those are traits that do not necessarily carry over to being a good emperor.

Maximinus was the first of what would be called barracks emperors—men who came up through the army.

Unlike Severus, who tried to buy off German tribes, Maximinius kept Rome in an almost constant state of war. He was never popular with the Senate or the people who considered him an outsider. He raised taxes and was considered a despot.

In 238, the empire experienced what became known as the Year of Six Emperors. Maximinus was the first that year.

An uprising erupted in North Africa after locals killed a tax collector. The regional governor, Goridan, declared himself and his son co-emperors, and the Senate ratified their claim in March. They were emperors two and three, Gordian I and Gordian II.

Maximinus was still alive, and forces loyal to him were fighting against the Gordians and the Senate.

Twenty-two days after being declared emperor, Gordian II was killed in combat fighting forces loyal to Maximinus, and when he heard the news, his father, Gordian I, killed himself.

Maximinus was declared a public enemy by the senate, and in April they turned to two elderly senators, Pupienus and Balbinus, who they declared co-emperors. They were numbers four and five.

In June, Maximinus was killed by soldiers in his army, and in July, both Pupienus and Balbinus were killed by the Praetorian Guard in Rome.

The Senate then declared the son of Gordian I and the nephew of Gordian II as emperor. He is known as Gordian III.

Gordian III was the sole emperor at the age of 13, the youngest sole emperor to ever rule over a united empire.

However, five years and seven months later, in 244, he, too, was killed at the age of 19. He died under mysterious circumstances while at war with the Persians. He was widely believed to be murdered, most probably at the hands of the leader of the praetorian guard and the man who succeeded him as emperor, Philip the Arab.

Philip and his son, Philip II, also ruled for five years and seven months. A usurper named Decius claimed the throne and started a civil war.

In 249, both Philip and his son were killed at the Battle of Verona by the forces of Decius, and Decius was then declared emperor.

I think you probably realize that the third century was a very bad time to be a Roman emperor.

In 251, less than two years after becoming emperor, Decius is killed in battle against the Goths, marking the first time a Roman emperor dies in combat against a foreign enemy.

The senate then taps Decius’s son, Hostilian, as emperor. In a shocking turn of events, Hostilian wasn’t assassinated or killed in combat. About four months after he became emperor, he died of the plague.

The death of Hostilian probably wasn’t a bad thing insofar as the Danubian legions declared someone else as emperor: Trebonianus Gallus.

Trebonianus Gallus lasted for a little over two years before his troops assassinated him in favor of a provincial governor named Aemilian.

Aemilian lasts two months before, surprise, he’s murdered by his own troops.

In 253, the Rhine legions declared for another provincial governor named Valerian. Valerian declares his son, Gallienus, co-emperor. However, Valerian does something that hasn’t been done before. He split the empire between him and his son, with the son taking the west and he the east.

There was a reason for this….everything was starting to fall apart.

The Persians were invading Roman lands in the east. They or their vassal states had conquered Antioch and Armenia.

Valerian set about taking the Roman lands back, which he was initially successful in doing.

However, in 260, while fighting the Persians, Valerian was not killed in combat or assassinated. Something worse happened. He was captured alive by the Persian King Shapur I.

The reason why his capture was worse than death was because it was a huge sign of weakness for Rome. Valerian ended up dying in captivity, and there were many rumors as to how he was killed. These included being forced to drink molten gold and being flayed alive, but there is nothing conclusive either way.

Gallienus was now the sole emperor, but he faced a crisis. Provinces in both the east and the west declared their independence from Rome.

In the west, the Gallic Empire was declared in the western provinces of Gaul, Britannia, and Hispania under Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus,

In the east, Queen Zenobia established the Palmyrene Empire in the eastern provinces, including Syria and Egypt.

For another eight years, Gallienus ruled as emperor, unable to runify the empire. In fact, it got worse because in 267, the Goths broke through defensive lines to sack Roman towns in the Balkans and Greece, including Athens.

Finally, in 268, Gallienus received the rewards that most third-century emperors received when his own troops assassinated him.

He is replaced by the successful general Claudius, known as Claudius II.

Soon after becoming emperor, Claudius finally delivered some good news for the Romans when he defeated the Goths at the Battle of Naissus. The battle earns him the name Gothicus.

However, Claudius was old for a Roman, sixty, and died about a year later from the plague. He was replaced by his brother Quintillus. It isn’t quite clear what happened to him. Historians put his rule somewhere between 17 and 77 days. His death was probably murder.

In 270, the Danubian Legions declared Aurelian emperor.

Aurelian was the first truly competent emperor in decades. Aurelian defeated the Gallic and Palmyrene breakaway empires, reuniting the Roman Empire and earning the title “Restitutor Orbis” (Restorer of the World).

He ordered the construction of new defensive walls around Rome to protect against external threats, and he attempted to stabilize the economy by reforming the currency and addressing hyperinflation.

In 275, for all of Aurelian’s hard work, he got what every other emperor did…..assassinated.

For the next nine years, the conveyor belt of emperors actually got faster.

After a few months without an emperor, where it was quite possible Aurelian’s wife actually ruled, the elderly Tacitus became emperor. He ruled for only nine months before either dying of natural causes or being assassinated, depending on which historian you believe.

He was replaced by his brother Florianus, who ruled for three months before being…..assassinated.

He was replaced by Probus, who actually managed to rule for six years before being…..assassinated.

He was replaced by Carus, who ruled for ten months before being…..killed by lightning.

He was replaced by his sons, Numerian and Carinus. Numerian was assassinated in 284, and Carinus was killed in battle in 285 by the man who finally ended the Crisis of the Third Century, Diocletian.

Diocletian is not assassinated or killed in combat. He went on to become one of the most important Roman emperors in history, completely overhauling the economic, military, and political structure of the Empire.

He ruled for 21 years until he voluntarily abdicated so he could retire and grow cabbages, which he did for four years until dying of natural causes….a highly unnatural way for a Roman Emperor to die during this period.

The story of Diocletian will be for a future episode as there were so many reforms that he instituted.

If everything I just went over seems really confusing and a giant mess, that is because it was. There were people in the outer fringes of the empire who had no clue who the emperor was for much of this period because the job was being changed so frequently.

If things had gone slightly differently, the Roman Empire might have ended in the third century, almost 200 years before it actually did fall in the west. The only reason it didn’t fall apart was really due to luck that the right emperors came along at just the right time.