Dr. David Gwynn

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906 appearances 4 recordings 1 series first heard Nov 2024 last heard 21 Dec

Dr. David Gwynn’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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The Ancients · Rome's Crisis of the Third Century · 9 Jan 2025 podcast

The standard Roman view is the one that Trajan famously said to Pliny the Younger, which is, if you meet a Christian who insists on being Christian and won't then back down, you can go ahead and execute them, but don't look for them. ist Trajan's explicit instruction. Don't go looking. We're just otherwise going to let them get on with it.

And it's interesting that it was in the heart of the third century crisis that they changed that, which does suggest that Christians are becoming higher profile, as well as this great concern with what the Romans called the Pax Deorum, the peace of the gods, which the Christians are disrupting, well, by going around saying the gods don't exist.

Wenn man sich eine Karte des Regens von Gallienus anschaut, 253 bis 268 bis zum Herzen der Krise, sieht es so aus, als ob die Empire losgeht. Gaul, Britannien, Spanien gehen einen Weg, Palmaire geht den anderen Weg, Gallienus ist im Mittleren. Gallienus in unseren Gründen ist größtenteils enttäuscht.

Nichtsdestotrotz, weil er nicht den kleinsten Eindruck gemacht hat, seinen Vater von Persien zurückzubekommen. Aber Gallienus ist eigentlich der Anfang der Rückkehr. Was er konzentriert war, war in seinen Territorien, die imperialistische Administration zu bauen und vor allem die Armee zu reorganisieren, um eine viel stärkere Kavalierarmee zu haben und viel mobiler zu sein.

Now, by the time the Goths are beaten back by Gallienus and Claudius Gothicus, you're beginning to reap the benefits of that, and then the man who sees it through is Aurelian. Now, Aurelian only rules from 270 to 275, so it's not a hugely long reign. Aber trotzdem, in dieser Zeit hat Aurelian die Gothen gewonnen und beide Ausbrechergruppen zerstört.

Es hat geholfen, dass in beiden Fällen der ursprüngliche Founder von diesem Punkt aus ermordet wurde. Aber trotzdem hat Aurelian nach dem Ende seines Reiches fast das gesamte Empire zurückgezogen. at least on a map, to look as it had at the beginning. Only one territory is actually abandoned. It's the region of Dacia. So roughly speaking, modern Romania.

So Trajan's conquest, the gold mines and everything, quite a rich province. Exactly. So the very last province that the Romans took and the only one beyond the Rhine and Danube. And basically Aurelian clearly decided you couldn't hold it. Not with the Goths moving into that region. So Dacia is the only region lost.

And then Aurelian gets murdered after what looks on paper like such a successful reign. The Historia Augusta simply summed up Aurelian by saying he was, quote, necessary rather than good, end quote, which suggests he was efficient, effective, and as soon as he'd done the job, enough people wanted him dead that he gets killed.

With the result that you then now get another six emperors in the space of about five years, you get a massive new series of murders, Und dann endlich, die Rückkehr, die Gallienus und Aurelian begannen, wird geöffnet. because the last emperors of the true third century crisis are Carus and his children, Carinus and Numerium.

Now, according to our sources, Carus and at least one of his sons were struck by lightning. Oh, wow. That seems statistically unlikely, which suggests we may be dealing with a euphemism. And interestingly, the guy who was technically responsible for their safety endet als nächster König. Sein Name war Diakles. Er war ein balkanischer Pflanzer. Er ist durch die Räume gestorben.

Und er wird König Diakles, der einer der größten Könige der ganzen Geschichte des römischen Welt.

I mean, it's one of the great things about the Praetorian Guard, the old imperial guard. They are responsible for the protection of the emperor and are directly responsible for more imperial deaths than any other single factor.

Und er hat diese Lektionen emphatisch gelernt. Und tatsächlich, die wichtige Lektion, die er gelernt hat, war ganz klar, bevor er die Macht erhielt. Wenn Dinge in Unruhe sind, ist das romische Empire einfach zu groß. You can't easily control it as one person. It doesn't matter where you are on the map. It's too big a map.

So the first thing he does is appoint a co-ruler, another Balkan soldier who's risen through the ranks, who Diocletian knows he can trust, a man named Maximian. And they're going to share power. Und dann, für die nächsten fast zehn Jahre, halten sie die Kontrolle, Diocletian im Osten, Maximilian im Westen. Und dann hat Diocletian entschieden, dass eigentlich auch das nicht genug ist.

Nicht, wenn es eine Revolte in Britannien gibt, was passiert ist, nicht, wenn die Perser eine Bedrohung sind. Also, was Diocletian geschaffen hat, was in der Geschichte von Rom einzigartig war, ist das, was wir die Tetrarchie genannt haben, die Regel der Vier. So you still have Diocletian and Maximian, the two senior emperors, but they each now appoint a junior emperor, a Caesar.

So Diocletian and Maximian are the Augusti, their title is Augustus, but Galerius is the Caesar to Diocletian and Constantius Chlorus is the Caesar to Maximian. Constantius Chlorus is the father of Constantine. And the reason he's done this is now you can have an imperial presence everywhere on the map.

Maximian kann den Rhein beobachten, während Konstantinus Chlorus den britischen Krieg von Carusius und Electus beobachten kann und sehr effektiv macht.

Diocletian kann sicherstellen, dass der Danube sicher bleibt und Galerius kann erreichen, was niemand im ganzen dritten Jahrhundert getan hat und die Sassanier gewinnen. For the first time, the Romans actually win a major pitched battle in 298. And that is in a sense the tribute to this organization. Because it's all now stabilized, they could give sufficient resources. The army had been built up.

But the Tetrarchy may be unique. Almost everything else Diocletian did is actually what worked earlier on, just made better organized. So he used Gallienus' development of the mobile army. Smaller legions, the old big 5,000 plus man groups, you don't need those. You need small groups of about 1,000 men. But you need more forts so the frontiers can be stabilized.

The tax system gets overhauled so that it's now effectively half barter. So it's half in kind, in goods, not just in coinage. So although the coinage is still a problem, the army supply system has been fixed. Die Regierungen, die Provinzen, werden verteilt. Diocletian hat die Anzahl der römischen Provinzen doppelt.

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