Rome Western Civilization: Society, Politics, and Religion

Rome Western Civilization
Name Course Instructor Date
4. What was the third-century crisis? How does it weaken the Roman Empire? How does the Roman Empire survive?
After the murder of Severus Alexander in 235 BCE, theRoman Empire plunged into a deep crisis, or the third-century crisis (235 - 284) which lasted 50 years as the empire nearly collapsed. During the period, the Emperor had lost power in favor of the Army whose generals were fighting to become emperors, and this set a stage for military anarchy. There were 26 emperors during this period and only one of them died a natural death. There was military anarchy in the period 238-268 and then the emergence of Illyrian emperors in 268-284. Restoring order, reuniting the empire, and reforms, economic reforms, and sharing power helped the Empire to survive.
The political crisis was characterized by the emergence of civil wars and power struggles between the pretenders to the empire, Septimius Severus, and Pescennius Niger. This led to a lack of central authority and the fragmentation of the Roman Empire into three: the Roman Empire, the Gallic Empire, and the Palmyrene Empire led by Zenobia and covering Egypt to Asia Minor. Challenges to the restoration of the empire were closely linked to the ...