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That I definitely do not know any names for, I've never read a dedicated history of the third century. The lack of written sources would make it a tough thing to put together, but I bet you could make something that at least gives a reasonable outline of what happened.
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Oct 15, 2014 14:08
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A brief summary of the Crisis of the Third Century: Alexander Severus was the last male Severian standing after his family had, for two generations, stabbed the poo poo out of each other. He bribed some Germanic tribes to go away so that he could refocus on the Sassanids, who had just come to power in Persia and were significantly more threatening than the stagnant Parthians had been. Unfortunately, his troops took exception to pragmatic cowardice and killed him in 235, ushering in an endless succession of barracks emperors with an average reign of two years. The strain of effectively having no emperor and an endless civil war for thirty years, combined with plagues and a generally awful economy, led the far Western and far Eastern provinces to essentially declare that they weren't going to even bother listening to whatever jackass was calling himself Emperor at the moment and to instead rally behind local leaders; these were the areas of the Empire that had to worry about actually defending the borders and they had no time for GRRM poo poo with the Germanic tribes and Sassanids on the march. The Gallic Empire, consisting of Gaul, Britannia, and Rome's foothold across the Rhine, rallied behind Postumus, governor of Germania and thus the man in control of the border legions. The king of Palmyra, Septimius Odaenathus, initially attempted to side with the Sassanids but was refused; as a result he attacked the Sassanid army and allowed Rome to retain the far East. In recognition of that and killing an "usurper" he was granted a janky sort-of-junior-emperorship by Gallienus, emperor of the hour, and he became the governor of Syria as well as de facto ruler of everything near Syria as well. Unfortunately for him, not too long afterward he was killed by his nephew and his wife Zenobia came to power. Unlike her husband Zenobia gave no shits about Rome and decided that now was the perfect time to break off Egypt from the Empire in addition to Syria and bring Palmyra, ever the tiny neutral-ish trading city-state squashed between Rome and Persia, eternal glory and so on. All of this happened over the course of the 260s, with various Emperors of the central Empire dying in gruesome ways in the background of this narrative, and in 270 Aurelian came to power. Aurelian, being a guy who actually had his poo poo together, got the central "real" Empire into a semblance of order and then just rolled into the Palmyrene Empire with almost no resistance. Zenobia fought him a couple of times but the cities opened their gates to him basically immediately. After securing the East he went to the West and got in touch with Postumus's successor, Tetricus, who was willing to rejoin the Empire peacefully if Aurelian would give him the dignity of a show-battle. And thus, the mighty legions of the Roman and Gallic Empires met in a field in Champagne and Tetricus immediately went over to the Roman camp while Aurelian routed the now-leaderless "rebel" army. Aurelian, "Restituor Orbis", Restorer of the World, then promptly died and left the Empire to a bunch of squabbling generals for another ten years before Diocletian came to power and radically revamped the imperial system into the Tetrarchy. Aurelian had managed to pull the Empire back together and nobody was interested in taking a shot at independence immediately after the central government had basically proven that the only reason the citizens of the fringe provinces had gone along with independence was border security, so the Empire weathered 275-284 without any more total existential threats. If anyone has any questions about anything in particular to do with the Crisis then I can take a shot at answering. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Oct 15, 2014 |
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Oct 15, 2014 20:35
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How did Diocletian hold on to power long enough to enact his reforms? What made him different to every other general out there?
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Oct 15, 2014 21:29
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Octy posted:How did Diocletian hold on to power long enough to enact his reforms? What made him different to every other general out there? Well, to be honest Aurelian had stabilized things enough that the next general with the Eastern legions at his back who lived long enough, no matter who it had been, would have been able to at least hold on to the office of emperor for a while I think, if not have the vision and ability to implement the kinds of reforms that Diocletian did. All of the Emperors between Aurelian and Diocletian were either really unlucky or angered their troops; Tacitus and Carus died of natural causes, Probus killed Florianus before angering his troops and being killed, and Carinus and Numerian were killed as part of Diocletian's coup. Aside from all of that, Diocletian was exactly what the army had been looking for in an emperor - a highly capable man, loyal to the state and army but caring nothing for the Senate. He also began his reforms immediately, having come to the conclusion maybe even before he seized power that the Empire had always prospered under co-emperorships, with the prototypical example being Augustus and Agrippa, while sole rule had a more mixed track record. Diocletian deliberately sought a similar dynamic and chose Maximian for his military prowess, to be the Agrippa to his Augustus, shortly after Carinus's death, which itself occurred only months after Diocletian (most likely) killed Numerian and was elevated by the Eastern legions. Within two years the idea was circulating that such a relationship between co-emperors was a sacred thing, paralleling the relationship between Jupiter and Heracles. That Diocletian and Maximian had such a sacred partnership was proof enough of their divine right to rule. That, and they were reversing the territorial losses and general state of ruin that had been Rome's experience for the last fifty years, using the full might of the legions against external enemies in cooperation with one another rather than fighting each other. Diocletian took a pretty big risk trusting Maximian and ultimately the Tetrarchy would degenerate into a huge squabble that included Diocletian being pulled out of his cabbage-farming retirement to scream at his former junior emperors, Maximian, and everyone involved in the gigantic murderous clusterfuck that was the kind of thing that he had just devoted twenty years to trying to keep from ever happening again which happened as soon as he and Maximian retired...but it was pretty stable with Diocletian at the helm. The short answer to your question is that he was perfectly suited for the diplomatic and administrative manuevering that almost none of his recent predecessors had been any good at, but which was necessary to calm everything down and reestablish order and also not be stabbed in the night. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Oct 15, 2014 |
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Oct 15, 2014 23:30
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Thanks! Now, for my silly question. Who was the biggest dickhead emperor in the third century?
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Oct 16, 2014 00:23
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Wow... I had never realised by joining his forum that I would find so much knowledge about Rome. Must have read over 40 pages already, my eyes burn. I've always wondered why the Domus Aurea was buried. To me, it makes no sense to bury a palace after all the hardship and cost of building it, no matter how much the emperor had hosed up and even considering how much real estate it took. Wouldn't they have been able to use it in other ways than as foundations for other buildings?
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Oct 16, 2014 00:51
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Octy posted:Thanks! Now, for my silly question. Who was the biggest dickhead emperor in the third century? A lot of people would probably say Decius, who issued an edict that was supposed to be a real morale-booster that required all citizens of the Empire to sacrifice to the gods on behalf of the Emperor in hopes that somebody's pantheon was listening and would do the Empire a solid. In reality everybody did their boring duty except the Christians, many of whom publicly refused to sacrifice. Pope Fabian, who had supposedly been selected to be Pope by a Holy Spirit-infused dove in the middle of the election and who had recovered the bones of previous Popes from the Sardinian prison-mines they had been exiled to, died in prison himself due to his refusal to sacrifice. For my money it's gotta be Maximinus Thrax. I can't believe I left him out of my summary entirely! He's the real force behind the initial explosion into civil war, as he was elected emperor by the very troops that had just murdered Alexander Severus and probably led the plot to kill him. Unlike the later times that this happened, when it had just become typical, this was still a very outrageous thing to an Empire that hadn't seen a true civil war in a very long time; however, everyone kind of went along with it at first because he had the legions. That is, until the province of Africa went into revolt and proclaimed its governor, the saddest man in imperial history, Gordian I and his son Gordian II, co-emperors. The Senate liked Gordian because he was an old respectable Roman versus Maximinus, who was a rough Thracian that the Senate considered perhaps an inch above a barbarian, so they defected to the Gordians as well. Gordian I knew as soon as people started yelling "Augustus!" outside his window that he was totally dead and begged the crowd not to do this poo poo to him. They didn't listen and the Senate didn't listen, so the Gordians were now a dynasty! For all of about three seconds, as the governor of Numidia, who had a grudge against (a/the) Gordian(s) marched in with the only legion this side of the Mediterranean and slaughtered Gordian II and the provincial militia. Gordian I tied his belt into a noose and hung himself shortly after. The Senate lost their poo poo because they had just done exactly the dumbest thing possible and they began furiously sacrificing at the Altar of Victory, exhorting the people of Rome to flock to the temples so that their Emperor might never see his capital city, elected Pupienus and Balbinus, two Senators that were a sort of super-elderly Augustus and Agrippa style pair, as their new imperial candidates, and waited. Eventually Maximinus Thrax's army came marching up to Rome...with his head on a spike after the siege of Aquileia went poorly, his troops having decided that they didn't give any more of a poo poo about Maximinus than they did about Alexander Severus. As a side-note shortly afterward Balbinus decided that Pupienus was trying to kill him, while in actuality the Praetorian Guard was plotting to kill them both. The two were seized by the Guard, as they argued about the reality of the threat (as Pupienus had discovered the plot) and whether Pupienus was actually the bad guy, and killed. As for why he's the biggest dick in my book, it's because he opened the can of worms. All of the senseless violence that follows is traceable to him because he began the endless cycle of ambition and usurpation that defined the Crisis. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 01:09
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I remember for mike tompkins podcast there was an incident when the legions revolted and killed their emperor, and then basically realized that was the worst idea ever and killed the guy who convinced them to do it. Was that Aurelian?
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Oct 16, 2014 01:29
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Also it should be mentioned that the only reason Aurelian died is because one of his secretaries hosed up and feared punishment so he forged a fake list of names Aurelian supposedly wanted executed, which included the names of many of his officers. Spooked, they killed Aurelian. Then they killed the secretary when they found out it was a fake. And that's why "The Restorer of the World" was assassinated. God drat.
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Oct 16, 2014 01:50
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Grand Fromage posted:That I definitely do not know any names for, I've never read a dedicated history of the third century. The lack of written sources would make it a tough thing to put together, but I bet you could make something that at least gives a reasonable outline of what happened. Not to sound like a broken record, but Goldsworthy's Fall of Rome begins with Commodus and has a pretty detailed history of the Crisis of the Third Century.
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Oct 16, 2014 02:13
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Restitutor Orbis is a fantastic name. Also disproves all flat earthers in a two word phrase.
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Oct 16, 2014 02:15
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Mustang posted:Also it should be mentioned that the only reason Aurelian died is because one of his secretaries hosed up and feared punishment so he forged a fake list of names Aurelian supposedly wanted executed, which included the names of many of his officers. Spooked, they killed Aurelian. Then they killed the secretary when they found out it was a fake. There's a story from I think Romance of the Three Kingdoms where a general orders his officers to make him a white suit of armor for some thing he wanted to do tomorrow. In Chinese "white" and "hundred" are homophones, and the officers decided that the only explanation for this irrational request to have a hundred new suits of armor ready by tomorrow was to give the general an excuse to execute them, so they killed him. I really don't think it's a credible story though. It has the sort of pants-on-head-retarded decision making and the suspicious verbatim recording of private conversations that characterize historical fiction.
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Oct 16, 2014 04:06
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Jazerus posted:A lot of people would probably say Decius, who issued an edict that was supposed to be a real morale-booster that required all citizens of the Empire to sacrifice to the gods on behalf of the Emperor in hopes that somebody's pantheon was listening and would do the Empire a solid. In reality everybody did their boring duty except the Christians, many of whom publicly refused to sacrifice. Pope Fabian, who had supposedly been selected to be Pope by a Holy Spirit-infused dove in the middle of the election and who had recovered the bones of previous Popes from the Sardinian prison-mines they had been exiled to, died in prison himself due to his refusal to sacrifice. Yeah, I've heard of Maximinus Thrax, but I wasn't sure where exactly he was placed in Roman history or what he did. I think he's a contender for the most badass name, though.
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Oct 16, 2014 05:10
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Arglebargle III posted:There's a story from I think Romance of the Three Kingdoms where a general orders his officers to make him a white suit of armor for some thing he wanted to do tomorrow. In Chinese "white" and "hundred" are homophones, and the officers decided that the only explanation for this irrational request to have a hundred new suits of armor ready by tomorrow was to give the general an excuse to execute them, so they killed him. I did like the story where Cao Cao overheard some servants saying "tie him up before you kill him", so he burst in with his own sword and killed them all. Only to discover they were talking about killing a pig for dinner... oops.
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Oct 16, 2014 05:46
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Hgh
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Oct 16, 2014 06:32
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Hgh
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Oct 16, 2014 06:32
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sullat posted:I did like the story where Cao Cao overheard some servants saying "tie him up before you kill him", so he burst in with his own sword and killed them all. Only to discover they were talking about killing a pig for dinner... oops. And of course, they are his uncle's servants so rather than explain the problem to his uncle he just kills his uncle to avoid the awkwardness. "I would rather betray the world than let the world betray me" etc. You just need to separate Cao Cao the novel character who does ridiculous stuff like murder his uncle over a misunderstanding about a pig from Cao Cao the historical figure. I do like the famous line "in times of peace an able servant...in times of chaos a crafty hero." In normal times Cao Cao could not make it out of middle management due to his heritage (his father was the adopted son of a eunuch etc.), but when the fabric that holds society together rips, Cao Cao's natural abilities and sheer ruthless ambition carry him straight to the top of the heap over pampered and soft top dogs of the old regime like Yuan Shao. In many ways, novel Cao Cao and Liu Bei are mirror image characters in that neither would have a real place in a peaceful Han Dynasty but float straight to the top when the social order collapses due in large part to their innate talents, charisma, and willingness to overlook social background in recruitment. Look at the effort Cao Cao exerts trying to woo Guan Yu from Liu Bei's service, despite Guan Yu being an ex-convict and a nobody in terms of his social status. Yuan Shao wouldn't have lifted a finger to get a lowborn criminal like Guan Yu into his service despite Guan Yu's near-superhuman abilities.
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Oct 16, 2014 06:53
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Cao Cao may have been the grandson of a eunuch, but he was the grandson of a highly placed eunuch who left his adoptive sons a wealthy and powerful little clan. Cao Cao may have been a great leader but he was also an official earlier in life and a not so minor general at the time of the crisis, and able to raise an army from his family lands. Liu Bei is the real unlikely king, having started life as a cobbler and risen to power by historical accident and brazen audacity. Guan Yu didn't do even half the things that are attributed to him in Romance btw.
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Oct 16, 2014 11:01
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Did he at least have a beard magnificent enough to make people surrender to it?
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Oct 16, 2014 11:28
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Octy posted:Yeah, I've heard of Maximinus Thrax, but I wasn't sure where exactly he was placed in Roman history or what he did. I think he's a contender for the most badass name, though. Max Thrax is definitely a comic book villain name. Thrax (i.e. Thracs) just means "Thracian" though.
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Oct 16, 2014 14:28
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Octy posted:Thanks! Now, for my silly question. Who was the biggest dickhead emperor in the third century? Most beloved by the Roman people in the 3rd century is without a doubt Claudius Gothicus.
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Oct 16, 2014 14:37
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Octy posted:Thanks! Now, for my silly question. Who was the biggest dickhead emperor in the third century? If you mean the whole of the century, it's undoubtedly Caracalla: murdered his brother in front of his mother; initially claimed to not have done it, which didn't stop him from persecuting his brother's supporters and damning his memory, then claimed it was self-defense; massacred Alexandrians when they mocked him for it; stayed in power through massive bribery; negotiated a peace with Parthia which included a royal marriage, which turned out to be a ruse for massacring the wedding party.
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Oct 16, 2014 14:47
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Patter Song posted:but when the fabric that holds society together rips, Cao Cao's natural abilities and sheer ruthless ambition carry him straight to the top of the heap over pampered and soft top dogs of the old regime like Yuan Shao. In many ways, novel Cao Cao and Liu Bei are mirror image characters in that neither would have a real place in a peaceful Han Dynasty but float straight to the top when the social order collapses due in large part to their innate talents, charisma, and willingness to overlook social background in recruitment. Pretty much Chinese history in a nutshell, right? The Han and Ming dynasties are both founded by peasants who rise straight outta the hood to become the emperor when poo poo be falling to pieces around them.
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Oct 16, 2014 15:14
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Octy posted:Yeah, I've heard of Maximinus Thrax, but I wasn't sure where exactly he was placed in Roman history or what he did. I think he's a contender for the most badass name, though. They also claimed he was eight feet tall and could crush rocks in his bare hands.
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Oct 16, 2014 15:34
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homullus posted:Max Thrax is definitely a comic book villain name. Thrax (i.e. Thracs) just means "Thracian" though. Still sounds like a villain name. They had a supervirus villain named Thrax in that cartoon about antropomorphic cells. But probably because it's sounds like anthrax. Speaking of the third century, what made the Sassanids such a capable threat compared to the previous Parthians?
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Oct 16, 2014 15:45
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I have a dumb Grecian question... That I could never ask a teacher without fear of ridicule. Is the Iliad pure fiction or did Ajax and Diomedes really exist and successfully 86 as many dudes as fabled? Are all Greek hero's followed by an asterisk? Its hard to keep the real ones and the myths apart which is where I get lost in translation. So a follow up question if I am as silly as I think... If Ajax and Diomedes are Grecian comic book hero's who is the Audie Murphy of Grecco/Roman history.
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Oct 16, 2014 15:51
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What's the difference between the Sassanids and the Parthians?
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Oct 16, 2014 16:40
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Enikad posted:I have a dumb Grecian question... That I could never ask a teacher without fear of ridicule. Calling The Iliad "pure fiction" would be unfair, in that Troy did exist and no doubt there was the occasional conflict between it and Greek states. Saying anything beyond that is a reach.
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Oct 16, 2014 16:47
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Enikad posted:I have a dumb Grecian question... That I could never ask a teacher without fear of ridicule. Don't feel silly, please. 19th-century proto-archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann (who also found what we suppose is Troy of the Trojan War) thought he had found Agamemnon during his digging at Mycenae. The Iliad has real geography and some other real elements of historicity, and while there's no smoking gun (there almost never is, in ancient history), there's reason to believe that the story of the Trojan War has some elements of truth to it. I find it hard to believe it's even close to half true, though.
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Oct 16, 2014 16:47
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Grand Fromage posted:They also claimed he was eight feet tall and could crush rocks in his bare hands. Here's to Bill Thrax-sky! He's a son of a bitch!
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Oct 16, 2014 17:32
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homullus posted:Don't feel silly, please. 19th-century proto-archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann (who also found what we suppose is Troy of the Trojan War) thought he had found Agamemnon during his digging at Mycenae. The Iliad has real geography and some other real elements of historicity, and while there's no smoking gun (there almost never is, in ancient history), there's reason to believe that the story of the Trojan War has some elements of truth to it. I find it hard to believe it's even close to half true, though. So Ajax and Diomedes likely not to have actually been the skull crushing heart throbs of the time and more likely to have been superman comic figures. The world feels less magical. So of grecco/romans who are verifiable who was the most like Ajax/Diomedes.
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Oct 16, 2014 18:03
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Falukorv posted:Still sounds like a villain name. They had a supervirus villain named Thrax in that cartoon about antropomorphic cells. But probably because it's sounds like anthrax. Max Thrax is actually a shortened form of Maximus Anthrax, the lead singer of the very first Roman Metal Band, Rex Thrax, hugely successful at the time. It all went downhill from there in the Roman music scene (and well, the whole empire), as Pax Glam bribed the Praetorian Guards (the metal/rock mangement union, not to be confused with the military organisation) to have all members of Rex Thrax, and Max Thrax in particular, killed. Of course, this being the Roman music scene, Pax Glam ended up all stabbed to death by the Orbis Grunge movement just a few years later 
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Oct 16, 2014 19:22
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Hogge Wild posted:What's the difference between the Sassanids and the Parthians? The Parthians were a steppe dynasty, like the Yuan dynasty in China, and were probably Scythians, while the Sassanids were native Iranians. Falukorv posted:Still sounds like a villain name. They had a supervirus villain named Thrax in that cartoon about antropomorphic cells. But probably because it's sounds like anthrax. The Parthians had been the only rulers of Persia that the Romans had ever really dealt with and the two powers had had three hundred years to hash out a border that everybody could basically live with, though of course neither side would refrain from taking advantage of the other (see: Trajan) if they could. The Sassanids toppled the Parthians just before the Crisis of the Third Century got going and were very eager to push the Romans out of territory that they had picked up in the years immediately pre-Crisis by taking advantage of the Parthian internal weakness that led to the Sassanid coup in the first place. They had a newly-united and centralized Persia behind them instead of the openly rebellious feudal vassals that the Parthians had been dealing with. Basically, the short version is that Persia in the last years of the Parthians was undergoing its own Crisis of the Third Century and Ardashir, the first Sassanid, was its Diocletian.
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Oct 16, 2014 20:27
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:If you mean the whole of the century, it's undoubtedly Caracalla: murdered his brother in front of his mother; initially claimed to not have done it, which didn't stop him from persecuting his brother's supporters and damning his memory, then claimed it was self-defense; massacred Alexandrians when they mocked him for it; stayed in power through massive bribery; negotiated a peace with Parthia which included a royal marriage, which turned out to be a ruse for massacring the wedding party. I went to see the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, but now Wikipedia tells me they were probably started by Septimius Severus and just opened by Caracalla who took the credit.
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Oct 16, 2014 21:35
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Ras Het posted:Calling The Iliad "pure fiction" would be unfair, in that Troy did exist and no doubt there was the occasional conflict between it and Greek states. Saying anything beyond that is a reach. The way I phrase it is that there was a Trojan War, but probably not the Trojan War. It's interesting to note, however, that Achilles is a real Mycenaean name attested in Linear B tablets.
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Oct 16, 2014 21:52
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Octy posted:Yeah, I've heard of Maximinus Thrax, but I wasn't sure where exactly he was placed in Roman history or what he did. I think he's a contender for the most badass name, though. My cat is named Thrax because he is large for the kind of cat he is and also more fierce than smart.
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Oct 16, 2014 21:54
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By the way, anyone who likes Palmyrene history should be extremely alarmed right now, as Palmyra is currently the front line between ISIS and Assad's forces. ISIS has been systematically plundering Syrian historical sites to fuel their war machine through the black market antiquities trade and ancient Palmyra may well be completely destroyed in the process.
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Oct 16, 2014 23:41
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Destroying ancient historical sites? I wasn't sure before, but that seals it. ISIS is no good.
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Oct 16, 2014 23:59
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Jazerus posted:By the way, anyone who likes Palmyrene history should be extremely alarmed right now, as Palmyra is currently the front line between ISIS and Assad's forces. ISIS has been systematically plundering Syrian historical sites to fuel their war machine through the black market antiquities trade and ancient Palmyra may well be completely destroyed in the process. God drat it. I had plans to visit Palmyra that were scrapped by the beginning of the civil war. Was hoping to go once it settles down. Not that my personal vacation plans are that important but argh. There aren't very many well preserved and reasonably complete Roman cities left. (Since someone will probably ask: Palmyra, Leptis Magna, Cyrene, Ostia, and Pompeii are the most complete ruins as far as I remember)
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Oct 17, 2014 00:19
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Grand Fromage posted:God drat it. I had plans to visit Palmyra that were scrapped by the beginning of the civil war. Was hoping to go once it settles down. Nothing stopping you from going to the other Palmyra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmyra,_Western_Australia. I understand it's in about the same state of preservation.
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Oct 17, 2014 00:31
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