Year: 2002
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: Until weIl into the seventies of the last century the third century AD. was perceived as aperiod of crisis, a crisis which was already announced under the emperor Marcus Aurelius A.D. 161-180), whose reign was characterised by warf are and epidemics.Many observers saw the third century crisis as a decisive period of transition to Medieval History.In a highly rhetorical and suggestive passage in his Birth 0/ the Western Economy, Robert Latouche describes the second and third quarters of the third century AD. as " .. a sinister age, the least known of the whole history of Rome .. " and he teIls us: "After the reign of the Severi we seem to plunge into a long tunnel, to emerge only at the beginning of the Late Empire under Diocletian, and when we step out again into daylight unfamiliar country lies all about US".IIn later decades the third century crisis was seen as a complex historical process, brought about by the interaction of many different factors.Geza Alföldy summarlses the various aspects of the crisis that dominated the history of the Roman empire from 249 to 284 in nine points: the switching from the rule of an emperor to that of a military despot, the general instability, the growing power of the armies, the increasing influence of the military provinces such as those along the Danube, social shifts, economic problems, the decrease in and unequal distribution of the population, a religious and moral crisis and invasions of foreign peoples in practically all border regions and even beyond, into the heartlands of the empire.2 He could have added the collapse of the existing monetary system, problems about the legitimacy and the ideological basis of imperial power, the decay of small and medium-size towns and the decay of local euergesia and public services.One of Alföldy's factors, the invasions, were emphasised by Ramsay MacMuIlen.On the first two pages of his Roman Government 's Response to Crisis MacMullen says: IR.Latouche, The Birth olthe Western Economy (London 1961),6. 2 G. A1fiildy, 'The Crisis of the Third Century as Seen by Contemporaries', Greek.Roman.and Buzantine Studies 15 (1974), 98-103 (= Idem, Die Krise des römischen Reiches.Geschichte.Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsbetrachtung.
Source: BRILL eBooks
Author: LUKAS DE BLOIS
Language: English
Topic: Classical Antiquity Studies
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W2980728819