Numbers

The Crisis of the Third Century

"The Crisis of the Third Century" refers to a fifty-year period (235-285 CE) during which the Roman Empire suffered from a series of major problems that nearly destroyed it. "Between A.D. 235 and 285 the Roman world passed through a period of internal anarchy provinces were pillaged, towns destroyed, Roman armies fought one another, barbarian invaders ravaged the countryside, and the central power seem about to disintegrate."—William H. McNeill, History of Western Civilization. 6th ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1968), 182. The rise to the emperorship of two strong generals—first Aurelian (270-5 CE) and later Diocletian (285-305 CE)—saved the Empire and brought the "crisis" to an end.

How It's Used

"Our rabbis taught: Concerning those who hoard fruit, lend money on usury, reduce the measures and raises prices,... 'The Lord hath sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their works,' Who, for instance, may be classed among fruit hoarders?

"It seems that this development was a result of the great economic crisis of the third century, which affected the fabric of economic life at every level of society. The hoarding of food and various other products for speculation and other economic aims was encouraged. This tended to harm society, in Palestine as well as elsewhere in the Empire."

"Secondly, she overlooks the gradual displacement of the literary elite from the halls of power—a process that began well before the great crisis of the third century. The emperors increasingly looked to an illiterate army to supply policy and leadership skills that they did not find in the Senate."

"Beginning with the world of classical antiquity, Geary demonstrates that identity was multiple and malleable and that family, profession, and class were as or more important to a person's identity than the more formal dualities of Roman/barbarian or citizen/noncitizen. This was true even for 'barbarians' who, because of the empire's tendency to assimilate former enemies, often thought of themselves as, for example, both Frankish and Roman. Rome's efforts to overcome the crisis of the third century only exacerbated the contradictory pulls on people's allegiance to the empire, as did Constantine's elevation of Christianity."

"Henceforth the Empire would consist of the emperor, like a shepherd, the soldiers, like guard-dogs, and the flock, which the other two are responsible for guarding, as the emperor Julian lucidly expressed it; as for the Senate, it was ignored. 'Make the soldiers rich and to hell with the rest', was the advice Caracalla had received from his dying father; the patriotic emperors, who rose from the ranks having been born at the bottom of the social ladder, and who saved the Empire during the crisis of the third century, were as spectacularly and deservedly promoted as Napoleon's marshals, according to Peter Brown. 'A mere squaddie of humble origins who reached the summit of the military hierarchy', said Ammianus Marcellinus of one of the two chiefs-of-staff and an advisor to Constantius II."

"One highlight of this work is the detailed description of the political landscape of the late third and early fourth centuries. Chapters 2-5 provide a very thorough and useful description of the Crisis of the Third Century, the tetrarchy of Diocletian, and other events leading up to the emergence of Constantine as emperor in the west."

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