The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire

by Michael Grant

Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire presents a study of third century Rome, which is lavishly illustrated and a lucid read, typical of Michael Grant's inimitable style.
In Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire , Michael Grant asserts that the fact that the Roman empire of the third century AD did not collapse is one of the miracles of history. He argues that at that time the empire seemed ripe for disintegration and expresses amazement that it continued, in the west, for another two hundred years, and in the east, for far longer. Michael Grant examines the reasons for collapse, including analyses of the succession of emperors, the Germans and the Persians and also, the reasons for its remarkable recovery, including discussions of strong emperors, a reconstituted army, finance and coinage and state religion.

Genres: History

140 pages, Hardcover

First published March 31, 1999

About the author

Michael Grant was an English classisist, numismatist, and author of numerous popular books on ancient history. His 1956 translation of Tacitus’s Annals of Imperial Rome remains a standard of the work. He once described himself as "one of the very few freelances in the field of ancient history: a rare phenomenon". As a popularizer, his hallmarks were his prolific output and his unwillingness to oversimplify or talk down to his readership.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Duncan]

The main body of this book is short and to the point, if not particularly illuminating. Readers would be better served by reading the Cambridge Ancient History’s section on the 3rd Century. What is interesting, though, is Grant’s appendix. There is some interesting ancillary information that might not be worth a full chapter (comments on ancient sources, for example), the whole appendix is a rather rambling thesis on why we ought to study the classics. There are some interesting, if dated (it was written in the 90s), takes on how “we” are the so-called inheritors of the Greco-Roman world. Merits of that argument aside, however, it feels sorely disconnected from the rest of the book.

Not sure if it’s worth the hour and a half it took me to read, but it was at least thought provoking.

[Abraham]

Of all the cheap stunts... This book makes me mad, partly because it retails for $30 and partly because it is so utterly devoid of content. Grant recycles a lot in this book, quoting heavily from his previous works -- and to such an extent that I doubt the original writing amounts to more than 20 pages. Worst yet, the book is poorly organised and left me feeling no smarter, staring at the back cover. It is merely a collection of notes, thrown together and called a book, and only held so by the author's reputation.

For my own part, I only found this lurking amongst the much bigger books in the Roman History section of my local library. Thinking to fill a gap between aforementioned mega-books, I am lucky to have wasted only time and not money.

It earns one star for its lovely warmth while burning.

[Nathan Albright]

The third century was a period of remarkable stress for the Roman Empire, and as someone who reads a lot about Roman history [1], it was pretty obvious that I would be interested in turning my attention to this particular period.  And this book is a pretty good work to look at for that period.  For one, the book is short (at just over 100 pages) and so it will not tax the patience of the author.  Perhaps it is best to view this book as an introduction to an obscure and often-neglected part of Roman history, namely the part between the peak of the Roman Empire during the "good emperors" and the following recovery under the Severan emperors of the early third century and the revival of Roman fortune under Diocletion and Constantine, and then to use this book as encouragement to read other books that cover the same subject matter in greater detail if one prefers.  If one is interested in the economic crisis of the times or the instability of government or the issues of internal and external relations, there are plenty of places this book will encourage one on in terms of reading material.

This work is divided, like Gaul, into three parts.  The first part of the book, divided into three short chapters, looks at the collapse of the Roman empire (I) under the internal loss of stability and the frequent overthrow of Roman emperors (1) under the pressure of military defeats against the Germans (2) and Persians (3) on the frontiers.  The author then looks at the recovery (II) of the Roman Empire towards the end of the third century through a variety of strong emperors (4) who reconstituted the army and allowed it to hold its own against its opponents (5) and who increased central control like Diocletian (6) with reforms in coinage and finance (7) and efforts to reform the state religion (8).  The third part of the book then looks at life away from politics (III) by looking at philosophy and personal religion with a focus on Plotinus (9) and the fiction of Helopdorus (10), after which the book contains a short epilogue and a lengthy appendix that sets the third century within the larger and more comprehensive sweet of Roman history that the reader may not know but which is important in understanding the time period in question.

There are a few elements of this book that are particularly interesting.  The author's comments about Christianity are those of a scholar and not (lamentably) a believer, and the author seems somewhat interested in both mystery religions as well as sun worship as worthy challengers to Christianity, and not someone who is afraid to point out aspects of heathen practice that were (and are) part of Christianity even to this day.  The author also talks about one of the more poignant aspects of third century Roman society that is important and relevant in our own lives, and that is the way that the survival of the empire as a whole was combined with a great loss of liberty on the part of the people of Rome in the face of massive internal and external pressures.  Regimes that are thought of as being threatened with destruction can sometimes find the strength to survive at the cost of the well-being of ordinary people, but those costs are likely to be very heavy indeed, and we would do well not to put such strain on our societies that they are tempted to seek survival at our expense, something that could easily happen in much of the west right now in the face of our own internal and external pressures and the general crisis of legitimacy that exists in our political orders.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

[Mike]

Terribly short book. There is an extensive Appendix, some of which is worth reading. Lots of notes. The book is basically a compilation of others' works to prove his point that the Roman Empire lasted a bit longer after the Collapse. Most of the illustrations were pictures of the author's Roman coin collection.

[Douglas Welch]

I was excited that my library had a copy of this book, but it turned out to be disappointing. Admittedly, this phase of Roman history is the least covered by existing ancient literary sources. This book was written late in Grant's career and as I understand it, much of this book is based on articles he wrote for an encyclopedia on Late Rome. The era between the assassination of Alexander Severus and the accession of Diocletian (235-284 AD) is a very dark half century where not a single Roman Emperor died in bed- each and every one was killed by Roman troops. The closest thing to a contemporary source is something called the Historia Augusta and it starts off pretty close to factual but as that book proceeds, it becomes more and more fantastical- some modern scholars think it was supposed to be a joke! The illustration on the cover is a Persian cameo featuring Shapur personally capturing Emperor Valerian- a key moment of humiliation for the Roman Empire in this era. Compared to Grant's two books on eras preceding this one (The Antonines and The Severans) this book is paltry and deserved more content. I think this might have been Grant's last book on Roman history, but I wish it were much more substantial. This book reads more like a collection of scholarly articles and lacks a lot of the thematic connective tissue those two earlier ones provide. I cannot condemn this book, even the best scholars have a difficult time putting all the calamities that happened to the Roman Empire into a coherent chronology.

[Laura Leilani]

A quick overview of a tumultuous time. Other readers complained that it seems patched together. It is. Others complained that the photos are mainly the authors coin collection. They are. It’s still a helpful read to get an overview of what was happening.

[Peter Harrison]

Although this book does have some value, it's very brief, very expensive (for what it is) and largely made up of extensive quotes from other writers.

[Jari Havela]

An High school essay.

[Hongyu Sun]

It is a strange book.... Most of its content are quotations. And in the appendix, the author writes about the conflict of the west and other parts of the world. But it is helpful as an introduction to the third century crisis, at least I have remembered the names of a lot of emperors after reading.

[Dustin Simmons]

Basically a cut and paste job from many of his previous books, I felt a little cheated. Most pages consisted of block quotes from other sources, with only introductory or explanatory original material.

The information was good, but fairly traditional, with little to no new insight or perspective.

[Mike]

I've read about, studied and for a few years translated Roman history. This was just another book in along chain of those covering the Republic and then Empire. Of the kingdom, there is little to say or write.

[Patrick]

Good but very brief study of the near-collapse of the Roman Empire during the crisis of the Third Century