On This Day: 50 years of Roman Empire civil war, invasions, economic collapse begin - Mar. 22, 235

(edited from Wikipedia)
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Severus Alexander

Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (208 – 21/22 March 235) was Roman emperor from 222 until 235. The last emperor from the Severan dynasty, he succeeded his slain cousin Elagabalus in 222, at the age of 13. Alexander himself was eventually assassinated, and his death marked the beginning of the events of the Crisis of the Third Century, which included nearly fifty years of civil war, foreign invasion, and the collapse of the monetary economy.

Alexander was the heir to his cousin, the 18-year-old Emperor Elagabalus. The latter had been murdered along with his mother Julia Soaemias by his own guards, who, as a mark of contempt, had their remains cast into the Tiber river. Alexander and his cousin were both grandsons of Julia Maesa, who was the sister of empress Julia Domna and had arranged for Elagabalus's acclamation as emperor by the Third Gallic Legion.

Alexander's peacetime reign was prosperous. However, Rome was militarily confronted with the rising Sassanid Empire and growing incursions from the tribes of Germania. He managed to check the threat of the Sassanids. But when campaigning against Germanic tribes, Alexander attempted to bring peace by engaging in diplomacy and bribery. This alienated many in the Roman army, leading to a conspiracy that resulted in the assassination of Alexander, his mother Julia Avita Mamaea, and his advisors. After their deaths, the accession of Maximinus Thrax followed. Alexander's death marked the epoch event for the Crisis of the Third Century.

Germanic War

While Alexander was being educated in the Christian doctrines, the northern portion of his empire was being invaded by Germanic and Sarmatian tribes. A new and menacing enemy started to emerge directly after Alexander's success in the Persian war. In 234, the barbarians crossed the Rhine and Danube in hordes that caused alarm as far as Rome. The soldiers serving under Alexander, already demoralized after their costly war against the Persians, were further discontented with their emperor when their homes were destroyed by the barbarian invaders.

As word of the invasion spread, the emperor took the front line and went to battle against the Germanic invaders. The Romans prepared heavily for the war, building a fleet to carry the entire army across. However, at this point in Alexander's career, he still knew little about being a general. Because of this, he hoped the mere threat of his armies would be sufficient to persuade the hostile tribes to surrender. Severus enforced a strict military discipline in his men that sparked a rebellion among his legions.

[Considered dishonorable]

Due to incurring heavy losses against the Persians, and on the advice of his mother, Alexander attempted to buy the Germanic tribes off, so as to gain time.

It was this decision that resulted in the legionaries looking down upon Alexander. They considered him dishonorable and feared he was unfit to be Emperor. Under these circumstances the army swiftly looked to replace Alexander.

Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus was the next best option. He was a soldier from Thrace who had a golden reputation and was working hard to increase his military status. He was also a man with superior personal strength, who rose to his present position from a peasant background. With the Thracian's hailing came the end of the Severan Dynasty, and, with the growing animosity of Severus' army towards him, the path for his assassination was paved.

Assassination

Alexander was forced to face his German enemies in the early months of 235. By the time he and his mother arrived, the situation had settled, and so his mother convinced him that to avoid violence, trying to bribe the German army to surrender was the more sensible course of action. According to historians, it was this tactic combined with insubordination from his own men that destroyed his reputation and popularity. Alexander was thus assassinated together with his mother on 21 or 22 March, in a mutiny of the Legio XXII Primigenia at Moguntiacum (Mainz) while at a meeting with his generals. These assassinations secured the throne for Maximinus.

Legacy

Alexander's death marked the end of the Severan dynasty. He was the last of the Syrian emperors and the first emperor to be overthrown by military discontent on a wide scale. After his death his economic policies were completely discarded, and the Roman currency was devalued; this signaled the beginning of the chaotic period known as the Crisis of the Third Century, which brought the empire to the brink of collapse.

Alexander's death at the hands of his troops can also be seen as the heralding of a new role for Roman emperors. Though they were not yet expected to personally fight in battle during Alexander's time, emperors were increasingly expected to display general competence in military affairs. Thus, Alexander's taking of his mother's advice to not get involved in battle, his dishonorable and unsoldierly methods of dealing with the Germanic threat, and the relative failure of his military campaign against the Persians were all deemed highly unacceptable by the soldiers. Indeed, Maximinus was able to overthrow Alexander by "harping on his own military excellence in contrast to that feeble coward". Yet by arrogating the power to dethrone their emperor, the legions paved the way for a half-century of widespread chaos and instability.

Crisis of the Third Century

The Crisis of the Third Century was a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed. The crisis ended due to the military victories of Aurelian and with the accession of Diocletian and his implementation of reforms.

The crisis began in 235 with the assassination of Emperor Severus Alexander by his own troops. During the following 50-year period, the empire saw the combined pressures of barbarian invasions and migrations into Roman territory, civil wars, peasant rebellions and political instability, with multiple usurpers competing for power. This led to the debasement of currency and economic collapse, with the Plague of Cyprian contributing to the disorder. Roman troops became more reliant over time on the growing influence of the barbarian mercenaries known as foederati. Roman commanders in the field, although nominally working for Rome, became increasingly independent.

[Roman Empire split into three]

By 268, the empire had split into three competing states: the Gallic Empire (including the Roman provinces of Gaul, Britannia and, briefly, Hispania); the Palmyrene Empire (including the eastern provinces of Syria Palaestina and Aegyptus); and, between them, the Italian-centered Roman Empire proper.

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 same number of men became accepted by the Roman Senate as emperor during this period and so became legitimate emperors. Later, Aurelian (270–275) reunited the empire militarily. The crisis ended with Diocletian and his restructuring of Roman imperial government in 285. This helped to stabilize the empire economically and militarily for a further 150 years.

The crisis resulted in such profound changes in the empire's institutions, society, economic life, and religion that it is increasingly seen by most historians as defining the transition between the historical periods of classical antiquity and late antiquity.

[Bribery]

The army required larger and larger bribes to remain loyal. Septimius Severus raised the pay of legionaries, and gave substantial donativum to the troops. The large and ongoing increase in military expenditure caused problems for all of his successors.

[Marauding enemies and civil war]

Instead of warring in foreign lands, the Roman empire was increasingly put on the defensive by marauding enemies and civil wars. This cut off the essential source of income gained from plundering enemy countries, while opening up the Roman countryside to economic devastation from looters both foreign and domestic. Frequent civil wars contributed to depletion of the army's manpower, and drafting replacement soldiers strained the labour force further. Fighting on multiple fronts, increasing size and pay of the army, increasing cost of transport, populist "bread and circuses" political campaigns, inefficient and corrupt tax collection, unorganised budgeting, and paying off foreign nations for peace all contributed to financial crisis. The emperors responded by confiscating assets and supplies to combat the deficit.

The situation of the Roman Empire became dire in 235. Maximinus marched on Rome but was assassinated by his Legio II Parthica, and subsequently Pupienus and Balbinus were murdered by the Praetorian Guard.

In the following years, numerous generals of the Roman army fought each other for control of the empire and neglected their duties of defending it from invasion. There were frequent raids across the Rhine and Danube frontier by foreign tribes, including the Carpians, Goths, Vandals, and Alamanni, and attacks from Sassanids in the east.

[Climate change and plague as well]

Climate changes and a sea level rise disrupted the agriculture of what is now the Low Countries, forcing tribes residing in the region to migrate into Roman lands. Further disruption arose in 251, when the Plague of Cyprian (possibly smallpox) broke out. This plague caused large-scale death, severely weakening the empire. The situation was worsened in 260 when the emperor Valerian was captured in battle by the Sassanids (he later died in captivity).

Throughout the period, numerous usurpers claimed the imperial throne. In the absence of a strong central authority, the empire broke into three competing states. The Roman provinces of Gaul, Britain, and Hispania broke off to form the Gallic Empire in 260. The eastern provinces of Syria, Palestine, and Aegyptus also became independent as the Palmyrene Empire in 267. The remaining provinces, centered on Italy, stayed under a single ruler but now faced threats on every side.

Gothic raids in the 3rd century

Fundamental problems with the empire still remained. The right of imperial succession had never been clearly defined, which was a factor in the continuous civil wars as competing factions in the military, Senate, and other parties put forward their favored candidate for emperor. The sheer size of the empire, which had been an issue since the late Roman Republic three centuries earlier, continued to make it difficult for a single ruler to effectively counter multiple threats at the same time. These continuing problems were addressed by the radical reforms of Diocletian, who broke the cycle of usurpation. He began by sharing his rule with a colleague, then formally established the Tetrarchy of four co-emperors in 293. However the trend of civil war would continue after the abdication of Diocletian in the Civil wars of the Tetrarchy (306–324) until the rise of Constantine the Great as sole Emperor. The empire survived until 476 in the West and until 1453 in the East.

Foreign invasions

The defensive battles that Rome had to endure on the Danube since the 230s, however, paled in comparison to the threat the empire faced in the East. There, Sassanid Persia represented a far greater danger to Rome than the isolated attacks of Germanic tribes. The Sassanids had in 224 and 226 overthrown the Parthian Arsacids, and the Persian King Ardashir I, who also wanted to prove his legitimacy through military successes, had already penetrated into Roman territory at the time of Severus Alexander, probably taking the strategically important cities of Nisibis and Carrhae in 235/236.

Economic impact

Internally, the empire faced hyperinflation caused by years of coinage devaluation. As each of the short-lived emperors took power, they needed ways to raise money quickly to pay the military's "accession bonus" and the easiest way to do so was by inflating the coinage severely, a process made possible by debasing the coinage with bronze and copper.

This resulted in runaway rises in prices, and by the time Diocletian came to power, the old coinage of the Roman Empire had nearly collapsed.

Breakdown of the internal trade network

One of the most profound and lasting effects of the Crisis of the Third Century was the disruption of Rome's extensive internal trade network. Ever since the Pax Romana, starting with Augustus, the empire's economy had depended in large part on trade between Mediterranean ports and across the extensive road systems to the Empire's interior. Merchants could travel from one end of the empire to the other in relative safety within a few weeks, moving agricultural goods produced in the provinces to the cities, and manufactured goods produced by the great cities of the East to the more rural provinces.

Large estates produced cash crops for export and used the resulting revenues to import food and urban manufactured goods. This resulted in a great deal of economic interdependence among the empire's inhabitants.

With the onset of the Crisis of the Third Century, however, this vast internal trade network broke down. The widespread civil unrest made it no longer safe for merchants to travel as they once had, and the financial crisis that struck made exchange very difficult with the debased currency. This produced profound changes that, in many ways, foreshadowed the very decentralized economic character of the coming Middle Ages.

[Size of cities change]

Even the Roman cities began to change in character. The large cities of classical antiquity slowly gave way to the smaller, walled cities that became common in the Middle Ages. These changes were not restricted to the third century, but took place slowly over a long period, and were punctuated with many temporary reversals.

The balance of power clearly shifted eastward during this period, as evidenced by the choice of Diocletian to rule from Nicomedia in Asia Minor, putting his second in command, Maximian, in Milan. This would have a considerable impact on the later development of the empire with a richer, more stable eastern empire surviving the end of Roman rule in the west.

While imperial revenues fell, imperial expenses rose sharply. More soldiers, greater proportions of cavalry, and the ruinous expense of walling in cities all added to the toll. Goods and services previously paid for by the government were now demanded in addition to monetary taxes. The empire suffered from a crippling labour shortage.

The steady exodus of both rich and poor from the cities and now-unprofitable professions forced Diocletian to use compulsion; conscription was made universal, most trades were made hereditary, and workers could not legally leave their jobs or travel elsewhere to seek better-paying ones. This included the unwanted middle-class civil service positions and under Constantine, the military. Constantine also tried to provide social programs for the poor to reduce the labour shortage.

Increased militarization

All the barracks emperors based their power on the military and on the soldiers of the field armies, not on the Praetorians in Rome. Thus, Rome lost its role as the political center of the empire during the third century, although it remained ideologically important. In order to legitimize and secure their rule, the emperors of the third century needed above all military successes.

The centre of decision-making shifted away from Rome and to wherever the emperor was with his armies, typically, in the east. This led to the transfer of the capital to the four cities Milan, Trier, Nicomedia, and Sirmium, and then to Constantinople. The Senate ceased to be the main governing organ and instead members of the equestrian class who filled the military officer corps became increasingly prominent.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severus_Alexander
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century

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