The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine

by Patricia Southern

The third century AD in the Roman Empire began and ended with Emperors who are recognised today as being strong and dynamic - Septimius Severus, Diocletian and Constantine. Yet the intervening years have traditionally been seen as a period of crisis. The 260s saw the nadir of Imperial fortunes, with every frontier threatened or overrun, the senior emperor imprisoned by the Persians, and Gaul and Palmyra breaking away from central control. It might have been thought that the empire should have collapsed - yet it did not.
Pat Southern shows how this was possible by providing a chronological history of the Empire from the end of the second century to the beginning of the fourth; the emergence and devastating activities of the Germanic tribes and the Persian Empire are analysed, and a conclusion details the economic, military and social aspects of the third century 'crisis'.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Military History, Roman History

414 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[John Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me an inordinately long time to read. I first cracked the cover about two years ago, and the same bookmark (an appointment reminder from my dentist, who no longer practices dentistry) had been sitting at page 24 or so ever since. My failure to pick it up again had essentially nothing to do with the quality of the book.

This is an excellent summary of the events of the so-called Crisis of the Third Century. For the uninitiated, all you need to know is that although the Roman Empire collapsed in 476 AD, it ought to have collapsed in 260 AD. That it didn't is due almost entirely to the vigorous and energetic leadership of a group of emperors from today's Balkans, usually called the Illyrians. As the Empire was assaulted from all sides by Sassanids, Franks, Alamanni, Visigoths, Iazyges and others, plague stalked the roads cities, inflation ran into the millionth percentage, usurpers rose up in every province and the empire split into four separate states, the Illyrians painstakingly met each problem, and welded the Roman Empire back together through what seems like sheer force of will.

It's almost miraculous that a nation could experience that kind of multi-crisis and survive, and although the Rome of the fourth century was very different from the Rome of the second century, Rome did survive. There are probably innumerable lessons to be learned from this period about leadership in crisis. Most people view emperors like Trebonianus Gallus, Valerian, and Gallienus as failures, but they had to make the best of terrible situations and continue to lead even as the empire burned down around them.

My only quibble with the book was the fact that there were several chapters tacked on at the end of the historical narrative that detailed broad conditions (the state of the northern frontier, the state of the eastern frontier, the religious, economic and social conditions). The material of those chapters should have been spread throughout the rest of the book, rather than stuck in a block at the end.

[Red · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fall of the Principate system occurs gradually and you can trace its demise in this book.

It is easy to believe the typical historian's categorization of Roman history, in which the Principate system ends and the Crisis of the Third Century begins with the murder of Alexander Severus. The author helps to do with away with such notions by showing how the transformation of Roman government from the Principate system to the Dominate one begins under Severus, gets much further developed by Gallienus, and then is fully completed by Diocletian and Constantine.

How does this gradual transformation occur? Primarily through two types of reforms: political (such as taking power away from the senators and delving it upon other interest groups, like the equites) and military (the creation of a Calvary army by Gallienus and a new frontier system by Diocletian and Constantine).

The catalyst for these reforms are Rome's enemies: the barbarians in the north and west (Southern hates that term) and the Sassanid empire in the east. She goes into detail about these two groups of enemies in two chapters towards the ends of the book.

The one big beef I have with this book is the SJW/liberal political correctness. She begins a whole chapter talking about why the term "barbarian" is evil. My goodness, I have no problem with anyone referring to the Germans as "the barbarians" since that is what the Romans called them and that is what they really were! (You could call the Romans barbaric, but they were never given that name by their enemies.)

I don't agree with all of Southern's analyses, but her work has helped me to develop my own understanding of what occurred during this transformational period of imperial Roman history. For that I thank her.

[Miroslav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Výborná sonda do diania v krízach impéria, ktorá sa ťahala väčšinu tretieho storočia. Krátke a krvavé vlády cisárov a uzurpátorov, čo sa na tróne striedali ako ročné obdobia (27 za 50 rokov), boli konfrontované inváziami Sasánovcov z Perzie a germánskych konfederácií na Rýne a na Dunaji. Často schopní cisári podľahli sprisahaniu len preto, aby ich nástupca padol niekde v bitke s ďalším, alebo bol odstránený pretoriánmi a tak stále dokola. Napriek turbulenciám však cisári ako Gallienus, Aurelian, či Probus, previedli ríšu problémami až k Diokletianovi a jeho tetrarchii, z ktorej vzišiel opäť jediný imperátor Constantinus.

[Marc Therrien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic read! Very informative and allows us to go deep into the third century crisis of the Roman Empire.

[Hans Kerrinckx · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives a good overview of the "Crisis of the third century", when the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of invasion, civil war, plague, and economic depression. The Crisis began with the assassination of Emperor Severus Alexander by his own troops in 235, initiating a fifty-year period in which there were at least 26 claimants to the title of Emperor, mostly prominent Roman army generals, who assumed imperial power over all or part of the Empire.
The book gives a description of these - sometimes obscure- Emperors, ending with the ascension and reforms of Diocletian in 284 and Constantine in the first half of the 4th century.
What I missed in this book is a decent analysis of the economic depression; it focuses in the first place on a rather dry enumeration of the emperors / usurpers and the military. The author also makes some mistakes when she is writing about the army; e.g. "vexillatio" (a detachment of a Roman legion formed as a temporary task force) is mentioned by the author as vexillation and in plural vexillations, while the correct plural is "vexillationes".
Conclusion: Patricia Southern gives a decent survey concerning this period in Roman imperial history, but I prefer "The Roman Empire at Bay, AD 180–395" (The Routledge History of the Ancient World), 2014 by David S. Potter.

[Cary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pat Southern has an easy to read and understand way of explaining Roman History. She has written many other books about Rome and the players involved. Ceasar, Cleopatra,Augustus. Interesting historic reading, with all the intriuges, and wars with which the Ancients were constantly dealing with.