The Crisis of the Third Century

In 200 CE the Roman Empire is at the tale end of a period of relative internal peace and stability across the empire known as the Pax Romana. No one could imagine that within 30 years the empire would begin to crumble with almost nightmarish speed.

The first non-Roman emperor, Maximinus finds his moment at the very pinnacle of Roman power by virtue of the Edict of Caracalla which only a few decades earlier made all free people in the empire Roman citizens. Maximinus Thrax, a Thracian with a name that would make any comic villain jealous, is thrust into ultimate power and yet powerless to stop the revolts springing up around him.

This is just the start of a period of convulsion and transformation of the Roman Empire as Franks, Goths, and other Germanic tribes threaten the western provinces, while a transformed Persian Sassanian Empire under Shapir I seek to retake ancient lands in the East. As successive emperors try and fail to tackle the problem of how to be in multiple places at one time provincial governors take the defense of their homelands into their own hands breaking free from Roman control in an attempt to preserve precious soldiers needed to defend their lands.

The Roman senate is left completely powerless and feeling like the wallflower at the prom as legions thousands of km from Rome take it upon themselves to elect competing emperors.

Events reach a low point in 260 as the empire finds its own emperor a prisoner of foreign powers, multiple provinces have declared independence, piracy runs rampant in the black seas, the Germanic tribes always a perpetual psychological fear of the Romans are raiding freely, and Persia is retaking ancient lands that have been Roman possessions for 200 years.

Such a succession of events leads to an average turnover rate of one emperor every 2.8 years. It is a period of time referred to as The Crisis of the Third Century. It is into the apex of this crisis that Saint George (if he existed at all) would have been born. Growing up in, and then becoming apart of the Roman machine that stitches back together the shattered empire. But before we tell that story, we look at Crisis of the Third Century.

Sources Used in this episode

Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine - Patricia Southern

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.