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Author: Paul N. Pearson
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1399090984
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 471
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Book Description
“A clear, brisk writer, Pearson is also quite thorough, taking a holistic attitude to the many facets of a confused, turbulent period.” —NYMAS Review This book is a narrative history of a dozen years of turmoil that begins with Rome’s millennium celebrations of 248 CE and ends with the capture of the emperor Valerian by the Persians in 260. It was a period of almost unremitting disaster for Rome, involving a series of civil wars, several major invasions by Goths and Persians, economic crisis, and an empire-wide pandemic, the “plague of Cyprian.” There was also sustained persecution of the Christians. A central theme of the book is that this was a period of moral and spiritual crisis in which the traditional state religion suffered greatly in prestige, paving the way for the eventual triumph of Christianity. The sensational recent discovery of extensive fragments of the lost Scythica of Dexippus sheds much new light on the Gothic Wars of the period. The author has used this new evidence in combination with in-depth investigations in the field to develop a revised account of events surrounding the great Battle of Abritus, in which the army of the emperor Decius was annihilated by Cniva’s Goths. The Roman Empire in Crisis, 248-260 sheds new light on a period that is pivotal for understanding the transition between Classical civilization and the period known as Late Antiquity.
Author: Paul N. Pearson
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1399090984
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 471
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Book Description
“A clear, brisk writer, Pearson is also quite thorough, taking a holistic attitude to the many facets of a confused, turbulent period.” —NYMAS Review This book is a narrative history of a dozen years of turmoil that begins with Rome’s millennium celebrations of 248 CE and ends with the capture of the emperor Valerian by the Persians in 260. It was a period of almost unremitting disaster for Rome, involving a series of civil wars, several major invasions by Goths and Persians, economic crisis, and an empire-wide pandemic, the “plague of Cyprian.” There was also sustained persecution of the Christians. A central theme of the book is that this was a period of moral and spiritual crisis in which the traditional state religion suffered greatly in prestige, paving the way for the eventual triumph of Christianity. The sensational recent discovery of extensive fragments of the lost Scythica of Dexippus sheds much new light on the Gothic Wars of the period. The author has used this new evidence in combination with in-depth investigations in the field to develop a revised account of events surrounding the great Battle of Abritus, in which the army of the emperor Decius was annihilated by Cniva’s Goths. The Roman Empire in Crisis, 248-260 sheds new light on a period that is pivotal for understanding the transition between Classical civilization and the period known as Late Antiquity.
Author: Charles River Editors
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781796923001
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 98
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Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading The 50 years following the assassination of Severus Alexander on March 19, 235 CE has been generally regarded by academics as one of the lowest points in the history of the Roman Empire. This stands in stark contrast to the previous 150 years, which included the reigns of the Five Good Emperors and has been universally praised as one of the high points of the empire. Severus Alexander was the last of the Severan emperors, and the subsequent years of crisis (235-285 CE) were characterized by a series of short reigns, usually ending in the violent death of the reigning emperor. At the same time, this period of time also saw the empire beset by threatening forces on all sides. The Romans faced a newly resurgent Persia in the east, as well as significant forces from German tribes on the Rhine and Goths along the Danube. The various conflicts would result in the unprecedented death of a sitting emperor in battle, which took place in 251 with Emperor Decius, and Emperor Valerian was captured in 260 CE. Despite the disasters, there was at least some good news for the Romans. Aurelian and Probus both managed to recover lost territory, and they recovered some of Rome's prestige in doing so. The final turning point came with the accession of Diocletian in 284 CE. From that point on, the empire embarked upon a period of restoration, but before reaching that stage, the empire had no fewer than 20 emperors in those 50 years, even with the exclusion of an additional five Gallic "emperors" who set themselves up as independent rulers between 260 and 274 CE. Diocletian's reign would see reforms put into place to achieve the desired end of the Imperial Crisis, and several of the emperors before him may well have had the ability to manage the reform process, but the army's power and willingness to use and abuse power ensured that few of them truly had a chance to really make their marks. It was the worst period in the history of the Roman Empire to that point, even as it forced the Romans to deal with belligerent foreign powers and problems created by the emergence of increasingly powerful and populous provinces. The pressures created by population growth, both within the empire and outside of it, have been thoroughly researched, but more recently, issues created by climate change have also commanded attention. The previously held assumption was that population increases in modern Germany and further east pushed hostile groups into Roman territory, and it is now believed that in the 2nd century CE, climate change led to significant rises in sea levels that caused massive flooding and the destruction of crops in Eastern Europe. This may have given people the impetus to migrate south and west, at the very time Rome was focused on containing the Sassanid Persian Empire. It is often overlooked that the Persian Empire was every bit as large as that of the Romans and equally well developed militarily during this period, which explains the difficulty Rome had in their relations. As Roman leaders vied with each other for power and constantly fought civil wars, Rome's famous roads fall into disrepair, the economy was crippled, the continent-wide trade system that had flourished in the previous years was replaced with a basic barter system, and there was a reduction in international trade. People became ever more fearful for their personal safety, and the Imperial Crisis saw an increasing trend toward sacrificing personal liberties and rights in return for guarantees of safety from wealthy landowners. All of this foreshadowed the emergence of the European feudal system and serfdom. These were obviously turbulent times, and given the volatility, many historians have debated how the Roman Empire managed to survive in any form at all, let alone remain robust enough to allow Diocletian to restore order.
Author: Patricia Southern
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317496949
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 520
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Book Description
The third century of the Roman Empire is a confused and sparsely documented period, punctuated by wars, victorious conquests and ignominious losses, and a recurring cycle of rebellions that saw several Emperors created and eliminated by the Roman armies. In AD 260 the Empire almost collapsed, and yet by the end of the third century the Roman world was brought back together and survived for another two hundred years. In this new edition of The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine, Patricia Southern examines the anarchic era of the soldier Emperors that preceded the crisis of AD 260, and the reigns of underrated and sometimes maligned Emperors such as Gallienus, Probus and Aurelian, whose determination and hard work reunited and re-established the Empire. Their achievements laid the foundations for the absolutist, sacrosanct rule of Diocletian, honed to ruthless perfection by Constantine, whose reign transformed the pagan Empire into a Christian state. The successes and failures of the rulers of the Roman world of the third century, and the role of the armies and the civilians, are re-assessed in this revised and expanded edition of The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine, which incorporates the latest thinking of modern scholars and has been extended to cover the reign of Constantine and the foundations he laid on which the Christian empire was built. This is a crucial volume for students of this fascinating period in Roman history, and provides invaluable background for anyone interested in the "fall of Rome", the adoption of Christianity, and the establishment of the Byzantine Empire.
Author: Impact of Empire (Organització). Workshop
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004160507
Category : History
Languages : de
Pages : 465
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Book Description
This volume presents the proceedings of the seventh workshop of the international thematic network Impact of Empire, which concentrates on the history of the Roman Empire. It focuses on the impact that crises had on the development and functioning of the Roman Empire from the Republic to Late Imperial times.
Author: Catherine Steel
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748629025
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
In 146 BC the armies of Rome destroyed Carthage and emerged as the decisive victors of the Third Punic War. The Carthaginian population was sold and its territory became the Roman province of Africa. In the same year and on the other side of the Mediterranean Roman troops sacked Corinth, the final blow in the defeat of the Achaean conspiracy: thereafter Greece was effectively administered by Rome. Rome was now supreme in Italy, the Balkans, Greece, Macedonia, Sicily, and North Africa, and its power and influence were advancing in all directions. However, not all was well. The unchecked seizure of huge tracts of land in Italy and its farming by vast numbers of newly imported slaves allowed an elite of usually absentee landlords to amass enormous and conspicuous fortunes. Insecurity and resentment fed the gulf between rich and poor in Rome and erupted in a series of violent upheavals in the politics and institutions of the Republic. These were exacerbated by slave revolts and invasions from the east.
Author: Plutarch
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141959738
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 893
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Book Description
Bringing together nine biographies from Plutarch's Parallel Lives series, this edition examines the lives of major figures in Roman history, from Lucullus (118-57 BC), an aristocratic politician and conqueror of Eastern kingdoms, to Otho (32-69 AD), a reckless young noble who consorted with the tyrannical, debauched emperor Nero before briefly becoming a dignified and gracious emperor himself. Ian Scott-Kilvert's and Christopher Pelling's translations are accompanied by a new introduction, and also includes a separate introduction for each biography, comparative essays of the major figures, suggested further reading, notes and maps.
Author: Pat Southern
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781134553785
Category : Rome
Languages : en
Pages : 401
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Book Description
It might have been thought that the Roman Empire should have collapsed in the 260s - yet it did not. Pat Southern shows how this was possible by providing a chronological history from the end of the second century to the beginning of the fourth.
Author: Peter Heather
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199978611
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 605
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Book Description
The death of the Roman Empire is one of the perennial mysteries of world history. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Peter Heather proposes a stunning new solution: Centuries of imperialism turned the neighbors Rome called barbarians into an enemy capable of dismantling an Empire that had dominated their lives for so long. A leading authority on the late Roman Empire and on the barbarians, Heather relates the extraordinary story of how Europe's barbarians, transformed by centuries of contact with Rome on every possible level, eventually pulled the empire apart. He shows first how the Huns overturned the existing strategic balance of power on Rome's European frontiers, to force the Goths and others to seek refuge inside the Empire. This prompted two generations of struggle, during which new barbarian coalitions, formed in response to Roman hostility, brought the Roman west to its knees. The Goths first destroyed a Roman army at the battle of Hadrianople in 378, and went on to sack Rome in 410. The Vandals spread devastation in Gaul and Spain, before conquering North Africa, the breadbasket of the Western Empire, in 439. We then meet Attila the Hun, whose reign of terror swept from Constantinople to Paris, but whose death in 453 ironically precipitated a final desperate phase of Roman collapse, culminating in the Vandals' defeat of the massive Byzantine Armada: the west's last chance for survival. Peter Heather convincingly argues that the Roman Empire was not on the brink of social or moral collapse. What brought it to an end were the barbarians.
Author: Clifford Ando
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748629203
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
The Roman empire during the period framed by the accession of Septimus Severus in 193 and the rise of Diocletian in 284 has conventionally been regarded as one of 'crisis'. Between 235 and 284, at least eighteen men held the throne of the empire, for an average of less than three years, a reckoning which does not take into account all the relatives and lieutenants with whom those men shared power. Compared to the century between the accession of Nerva and the death of Commodus, this appears to be a period of near unintelligibility. The middle of the century also witnessed catastrophic, if temporary, ruptures in the territorial integrity of the empire. At slightly different times, large portions of the eastern and western halves of the empire passed under the control of powers and principalities who assumed the mantle of Roman government and exercised meaningful and legitimate juridical, political and military power over millions. The success and longevity of those political formations reflected local responses to the collapse of Roman governmental power in the face of extraordinary pressure on its borders. Even those regions that remained Roman were subjected to depredation and pillage by invading armies. The Roman peace, which had become in the last instance the justification for empire, had been shattered. In this pioneering history Clifford Ando describes and integrates the contrasting histories of different parts of the empire and assesses the impacts of administrative, political and religious change.
Author: Rita J. Markel
Publisher: Twenty-First Century Books
ISBN: 0822559196
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 164
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Book Description
Examines the period of the decline of the Roman Empire, discussing the economic, social, political, religious, and military factors which led to its final downfall.
