67 Diocletian divided the empire into halves

Diocletian judged the empire too vast for any one emperor to rule effectively, so he divided the empire among four vice-emperors, who were also military men. He postured as the exalted supreme ruler of the empire and proclaimed himself the earthly representative of Rome's supreme god, Jupiter. He claimed that he was responsible only to Jupiter. He surrounded himself with bureaucrats and a small army of bodyguards. And his court grew in size and did its business with elaborate ceremonies and fanfare

Diocletian ran his government as a general runs an army, giving orders and expecting them to be carried out. Diocletian tried to restore order in the ruined economy by governmental directives. He created a national budget that aimed at balancing expenses and revenues. In 301 he responded to rising prices with an edict that fixed prices on thousands of commodities and services. In response to soaring interest rates, he fixed them to between six and twelve percent, depending upon the amount of risk involved in the loan.

Peace and a degree of order followed. Impressed, some people looked to him with hope. But Diocletian's economic policies failed. Despite the death penalty for violations of his laws on prices, violations became so widespread that his government stopped trying to enforce them. Diocletian's increased taxation resulted in the owners of estates producing less for the open market, and these estates continued to expand and absorb poor peasants as laborers.

For the sake of law and order and collecting taxes, Diocletian renewed an attempt made earlier in the century to prohibit people from moving off the lands they worked. Everyone was ordered to remain at his present occupation. Tenant farmers were to inherit the obligations of their fathers and were becoming serfs, to be sold as property when the landowner sold his land.

Diocletian tried to create order in the realm of ideas. He outlawed astrologers and the alchemists of Egypt and had their writings burned. He viewed Manichaeanism as a Persian religion and ordered Manichaean writings burned and death for those of the Manichaean faith.

Before the rule of Diocletian, disgust with Rome had led many citizens to embrace an alternative to its gods. Christians in the eastern half of the empire had increased to 20 or more percent of the population. North Africa had become largely Christian, the result of Christian evangelists having learned the Coptic and Berber languages. Across the empire as a whole, Christians were about ten percent of the population – their number having doubled in about fifty years.

Trouble arose involving Christians during a religious ritual performed in the presence of Diocletian. One or more of Diocletian's Christian courtiers made a sign of the cross to ward off the demonic influences of the ritual. Diocletian ordered everyone in the palace to worship Rome's gods or be beaten. More trouble with Christians resulted in Christians ordered to sacrifice to the gods of the state or face execution. Christian assemblies were forbidden. Bibles were confiscated and burned, and churches were destroyed. But by now, Christians had become too numerous to be wiped out.  Moreover, because Christians could read and write – in an effort to study scripture – they had become an indispensable part of government. The purges slowly and intermittently dragged on into the year 305, when Diocletian retired because of ill-health.

The Western Roman Empire was the western part of the Roman Empirewhich, later, became known as The Holy Roman Empire. By 285 CE the Roman Empire had grown so vast that it was no longer feasible to govern all the provinces from the central seat ofRome. The Emperor Diocletiandivided the empire into halves with the Eastern Empire governed out ofByzantium (later Constantinople) and the Western Empire governed from Rome. Both sections were known equally as `The Roman Empire’ although, in time, the Eastern Empire would adoptGreek instead of Latin and would lose much of the character of the traditional Roman Empire.

THE DISSOLUTION OF THE EMPIRE

The two halves of the empire continued to prosper equally until the reign of the Emperor Theodosius I (379 – 395 CE) when internal and external forces exerted themselves to break the two halves apart. These forces included, but were not limited to: the excessive zeal of Theodosius I in spreading Christianity and stamping out pagan practices; corruption of the ruling class; incursions by Germanic tribes; and over-extension of boundaries and resources. The Gothic War of 376-382 CE severely weakened the Western Empire even though the battles were routinely fought by forces from the Eastern Empire. At the Battle of Adrianople in 378 CE, the Eastern Emperor Valens was defeated by Fritigern of the Goths and many historians agree that this marks the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire. A steady decline in power and prestige , however, had been on-going prior to the Roman defeat at Adrianople and other historians claim that this culminated in the last Roman Emperor, RomulusAugustus, being deposed by the Germanic king Odoacer on 4 September 476 CE, prior to Adrianople. Regarding the end of the empire, the historian Guy Halsall writes:

The most ironic thing of all is that during the preceeding century it is almost impossible to identify a single figure who had actually tried to cause its demise. All the decisive acts in bringing down the Empire were carried out by people attempting to create a better position for themselves within the sorts of imperial structures that had existed in the fourth century. In a famous dictum, Andre Piganiol wrote that `Roman civilisation did not die a natural death; it was assassinated.' Neither althernative seems correct. The Roman Empire was not murdered and nor did it die a natural death; it accidentally committed suicide (283).

THE KINGDOM OF ITALY

While 476 CE is the traditionally accepted date for the end of the Western Roman Empire, that entity did continue on under the rule of Odoacer who, officially anyway, was simply ruling in place of the deposed emperor Julius Nepos (who had been deposed by the general Orestes who had placed his son, Romulus Augustulus, on the throne). Therefore, there are still other historians and scholars who date the end of the Roman Empire to the assassination of Julius Nepos in 480 CE. After Nepos' death, Odoacer annexed the region of Dalmatia to his own lands which concerned the emperor of the eastern part of the empire, Zeno, by whose authority Odoacer had been allowed to rule. In Zeno's view, Odoacer was acting with too much independent authority and was beginning to pose a significant threat.

His suspicions were confirmed when Odoacer was found to be backing Zeno's rival, the general Illus, in a revolt. Zeno employed the Gothic leader Theodosius to defeat Illus but then Theodosius turned his formidable army on Zeno and Constantinople. Halsall writes, "the Goths theatened Constantinople and ravaged the Balkans but could not take the capital, whilst Zeno, secure behind the city's famous triple line of walls, was unlikely to drive the latter completely from his territories. A solution was required, agreeable to both parties, and found: for Theodoric's Ostrogoths to move to Italy and dispose of the `tyrant' Odoacer" (287).  Theodoric invaded Italy at the head of his army in 488 CE and battled the forces of Odoacer across the region for the next four years. A compromise was finally brokered by John, Bishop of Ravenna, by which Odoacer and Theodoric would jointly rule but, at the feast to celebrate the end of hostilities in 493 CE, Theodoric assassinated Odoacer and claimed the kingship for himself. From Odoacer to Theodoric and onwards, the Western Roman Empire became the Kingdom of Italy, fully under the control of Germanic or Frankish rulers.

66-1 Diocletian

Diocletian

284 – 305 AD

Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus was born to a poor family in Dalmatia (ILLYRICUM) during the mid-3rd century AD. Diocletian entered military service where he displayed a talent for leadership prompting his career to advance. By 284 AD, Diocletian became a member of the legions under the Emperor Carus and continued to advance in the ranks reaching the position of the prestigious commander of the elite protectores domestici upon the succession of the Emperor Numerian. It was through this position that the won the trust and loyalty of the legions in the imperial army stationed near Nicomedia. When Numerian died under very suspicious circumstances, the soldiers turned to Diocletian demanding vengeance. It is said that many years before, a druidess had once predicted that Diocletian would one day become emperor. However, she also warned that first he would have to slay the boar (aper). Whether this tale is true or not, it is impossible to say with such a distance in time. Nevertheless, the assassin of Numerian was Prefect of the Guard Arrius Aper who was brought before Diocletian, pronounced guilty and executed. According to tradition, once the prophesy was fulfilled (slaying of the “boar”) Diocletian was proclaimed Emperor by the troops.

Diocletian thus began on the road to solidify his claim to the throne. He crossed over the Bosporus in order to confront Numerian’s brother, Carinus. Victory came swiftly 285 AD, and Diocletian emerged as the sole ruler of the entire Roman Empire.

From the outset, Diocletian set about reorganizing the state. He worked over the next several years to bring his vision of a new order to fruition. Diocletian named his old friend, the reliable Maximianus, to be first his Caesar junior partner and then raised him to the rank of Augustus (co-emperor) in 286 AD. Maximianus aided Diocletian in all matters, and the next six years were spent in repairing the frontiers, the state and above all the honor of the Roman Empire, which had been badly damaged by the chaos that dominated the previous 60 years.

66 Order under Diocletian, to Constantine

Order under Diocletian, to Constantine..

I

n the early 280s, another battle for power between rival Roman armies brought to power Gaius Diocletian. He went to Egypt and quelled a rebellion there. He restored Roman control in Britannia. And invasions of Roman territory by Goths subsided, enabling him to devote attention to reconstruction. He saw uncontrolled activity as godlessness, and he moved to create order.

With a threat of more disturbances, Diocletian judged the empire too vast for any one emperor to rule effectively, so he divided the empire among four vice-emperors, who were also military men. He postured as the exalted supreme ruler of the empire and proclaimed himself the earthly representative of Rome's supreme god, Jupiter. He claimed that he was responsible only to Jupiter. He surrounded himself with bureaucrats and a small army of bodyguards. And his court grew in size and did its business with elaborate ceremonies and fanfare.

Diocletian ran his government as a general runs an army, giving orders and expecting them to be carried out. Diocletian tried to restore order in the ruined economy by governmental directives. He created a national budget that aimed at balancing expenses and revenues. In 301 he responded to rising prices with an edict that fixed prices on thousands of commodities and services. In response to soaring interest rates, he fixed them to between six and twelve percent, depending upon the amount of risk involved in the loan.

Peace and a degree of order followed. Impressed, some people looked to him with hope. But Diocletian's economic policies failed. Despite the death penalty for violations of his laws on prices, violations became so widespread that his government stopped trying to enforce them. Diocletian's increased taxation resulted in the owners of estates producing less for the open market, and these estates continued to expand and absorb poor peasants as laborers.

For the sake of law and order and collecting taxes, Diocletian renewed an attempt made earlier in the century to prohibit people from moving off the lands they worked. Everyone was ordered to remain at his present occupation. Tenant farmers were to inherit the obligations of their fathers and were becoming serfs, to be sold as property when the landowner sold his land.

Diocletian tried to create order in the realm of ideas. He outlawed astrologers and the alchemists of Egypt and had their writings burned. He viewed Manichaeanism as a Persian religion and ordered Manichaean writings burned and death for those of the Manichaean faith.

Before the rule of Diocletian, disgust with Rome had led many citizens to embrace an alternative to its gods. Christians in the eastern half of the empire had increased to 20 or more percent of the population. North Africa had become largely Christian, the result of Christian evangelists having learned the Coptic and Berber languages. Across the empire as a whole, Christians were about ten percent of the population – their number having doubled in about fifty years.

Trouble arose involving Christians during a religious ritual performed in the presence of Diocletian. One or more of Diocletian's Christian courtiers made a sign of the cross to ward off the demonic influences of the ritual. Diocletian ordered everyone in the palace to worship Rome's gods or be beaten. More trouble with Christians resulted in Christians ordered to sacrifice to the gods of the state or face execution. Christian assemblies were forbidden. Bibles were confiscated and burned, and churches were destroyed. But by now, Christians had become too numerous to be wiped out.  Moreover, because Christians could read and write – in an effort to study scripture – they had become an indispensable part of government. The purges slowly and intermittently dragged on into the year 305, when Diocletian retired because of ill-health.

This was followed by more war for power. Maxentius, the son of a former vice-emperor under Diocletian, claimed himself emperor in the west. The son of another vice-emperor, to be known as Constantine the Great, challenged Maxentius and extended his rule to Gaul. Maxentius extended his rule to Hispania and to North Africa. Maxentius also warred against the emperor of the east, Galerius, while Constantine marked time. In 310, Galerius contacted a disease which he believed to be the retribution of the god of the Christians. As he lay dying he issued an edict ending his persecution of the Christians and asked Christians to pray for him so that he might live. He died anyway, in 311, and Constantine was impressed by what he believed was the victory of Christianity's god over Galerius.

In the spring of 312, Constantine moved against Maxentius, advancing from Gaul across the Alps and into Italy. The city of Milan surrendered to his forces, and Constantine won control over northern Italy. Maxentius and his army moved north to confront Constantine, and on October 28 the two forces met and fought at the Milvian Bridge along the Tiber River, a few miles north of the center of Rome. Constantine faced an army that greatly outnumbered his. But Constantine had trained his troops well, and his tactics were superior. His cavalry swept the left-wing of Maxentius' foot soldiers into the river. Maxentius lost many men and his own life when the pontoon bridge they were on collapsed. Constantine and his troops marched into Rome the next day, said to be welcomed by Rome's citizenry. Maxentius' decapitated head was paraded in trimphant display to show who was now boss. Constantine was now emperor of the Western half of the empire, and a new era had began.

65 MAXIMINUS THRAX

The new soldier-emperor, Maximinus, was not from Rome. He was the son of Thracian peasants – a German and an Alan. He had little respect for what remained of Rome's institutions. He was the first emperor who did not win or seek Senate confirmation of his rule. He was never to set foot in Rome. But the senators, afraid for their safety, were only silently antagonistic toward him.

Maximinus doubled the pay of his soldiers, and he upset Rome's civilians by giving money to the army that had been slated for welfare. Farmers in North Africa grew disturbed over Maximinus' high taxes, and they began to create disturbances. Romans in various parts of the empire saw Maximinus as a barbarian foreigner pretending to be an emperor. In Rome, angry packs of men hunted down and murdered his supporters. An army of North Africans, members of the Praetorian Guard, some senators, and some who saw themselves as the Romans of Old, went north from Rome to battle against Maximinus. They managed to isolate him and a some of his soldiers. To buy their safety, these soldiers killed Maximinus and his son.

Maximinus had ruled only three years – to the year 238. In the coming decades the rule of others would also be short. Soldiers would continue to choose their commanders as emperors, and some army commanders would become emperors only reluctantly, sensing the danger in it. Some of these emperors would attempt to bribe soldiers with gifts to ensure their continued loyalty, and the loyalty of some soldiers would depend on their being allowed to satisfy their appetite for booty at the expense of civilians. These new emperors would govern by decree, and they attempted to reinforce their rule with spies, informers and secret agents. In the coming five decades, only one emperor was to die a natural death, and only one was to die in battle. The rest would be murdered by soldiers,

The political chaos, meanwhile, produced a decline in respect for authority, caused in part by armies on the move within the empire, plundering towns and farms. Military-emperors sent tax collectors about the empire forcing more taxes from people.

During the first half of the 200s, taxation encouraged men of commerce to hoard their money rather than invest it. To pay soldiers, emperors debased money. Prices skyrocketed. The empire's middle class went bankrupt, and roads deteriorated.

More people had become beggars, and many others feared that they too would soon be impoverished. In Rome and other big cities, proletarians remained disinclined to organize themselves against authority, but here and there in the countryside desperate peasants did revolt, but their uprisings were not coordinated and not widespread enough to challenge the empire militarily. In various parts of the empire, bands of desperate people wandered the countryside, surviving by theft. In 235 bands of brigands had swept through Italy. In Gaul, hordes of people roamed about, pillaging as they went. Piracy grew on the Aegean Sea, and tribal people from the Sahara attacked Roman cities along the coast of North Africa.

Disorders sometimes cut off trade routes. By 250, Rome's trade with China and India had ended. Agricultural lands in the empire were going unused. With the declining economy, people moved from cities and towns to rural areas in search of food. Cities began shrinking to a fraction of their former size, some to be occupied only by administrators. Where agricultural estates felt threatened by barbarian or Roman soldiers they protected themselves by fortification, and their neighbors surrendered their holdings to them in exchange for protection. Economic relations were developing that would last into the Middle Ages.

The kind of governance put in place by Rome's revered Augustus as an alternative to democracy and the chaos he wanted to avoid, had failed.

MAXIMINUS THRAX: THE GIANT WHO WAS A ROMAN EMPEROR THAT NEVER SET FOOT IN ROME

In the third decade of the third century CE, climate issues, civil war, economic depression and plague combined to seriously destabilize the Roman Empire. Beginning a fifty-year period where leadership of the empire passed between at least 26 men was the short reign of perhaps the largest emperor of Rome, Maximinus Thrax.

Born Gaius Julius Verus in about 173 CE in Thrace (the area between the Aegean Sea and Black Sea that includes portions of Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece today), young Maximinus entered the Roman military in 190 CE, and due to his enormous size and great strength, he quickly rose through the ranks.

While it’s not clear precisely how large Maximinus was (some historic sources claim a likely well exaggerated equivalent of eight and a half feet tall), Maximinus was widely reported as towering over his contemporaries both in height and muscular girth. Often depicted with an extraordinary large brow, nose and jaw, and with most reports agreeing that he was “of… frightening appearance and colossal size,” many theorize he may have suffered from acromegaly or gigantism.

bavkground

The young Roman Emperor Alexander Severus secured the imperial throne after the assassination of his cousinElagabalus by the Praetorian Guard in 222 CE. Thirteen years later in 235 CE, after unsuccessful assaults against the Parthians and Germans, the army, tired of his inability to command, murdered him and his mother, Julia Mamaea, and rallied behind a semi-illiterate barbarian commander named Maximinus Thrax. Unfortunately, his lack of support in the Roman Senate and several costly military expeditions would spell his own demise three years later.

Gaius Julius Verus was born in 172 or 173 CE in Thrace, a region northeast of Macedonia near the Black Sea, to a peasant father and an Alanic mother. Because of his place of birth, he became identified with the name of Thrax. In 190 CE he entered the military and because of his immense size and strength, quickly rose through the ranks, eventually commanding a legion in Egypt in 232 CE, governing the Roman province of Mesopotamia, and lastly, in 234 CE leading recruits in Germany. At a very opportune moment, Maximinus would be acclaimed as the empire’s new leader.

In the early spring of 235 CE Alexander Severus and his mother attempted an offensive against the Germans with the sole intent of resurrecting the young emperor’s image with the army and people of Rome. Unfortunately, he chose to negotiate instead of fight. The army was furious and rallied behind Maximinus against Alexander. After the assassination of the emperor and his mother - their bodies were returned to Rome - Maximinus was proclaimed emperor near the present-day city of Mainz on March 20, 235 CE. The Roman Senate reluctantly approved, even though they considered him a barbarian and below their social standing. His son Gaius Julius Verus Maximus would be named Caesar. Historian Herodian in his History of the Roman Empire wrote of the new emperor,

His character was naturally barbaric, as his race was barbarian. He had inherited the brutal disposition of his countrymen, and he intended to make his imperial position secure by acts of cruelty, fearing that he would become an object of contempt to the Senate and the people, who might be more conscious of his lowly origin than impressed by the honor he had won.   

After assuming the imperial title, the new emperor recognized his lack of the necessary support in the Senate and remained cautious. Those in Rome, as well as many in the army, preferred a senator named Magnus; however, when news of the plot became known, several of his followers met their untimely death on the orders of Maximinus. Others, who remained loyal to Alexander, chose Titus Quartinus as emperor, but unfortunately he met his death as he slept at the hands of one of his most vocal supporters, a man named Macedo who elected to change sides and support Maximinus instead. Herodian noted,

Although he had no reason for enmity or hatred, Macedo killed the man whom he himself had chosen and persuaded to accept the empire. Thinking that this act would win him great favor with Maximinus, Macedo cut off Quartinus' head and brought it to the emperor. When he learned of the deed, Maximinus, though he believed that he had been freed from a dangerous enemy, nevertheless had Macedo killed, when the man had every reason to hope and believe that he would receive a generous reward.

BUILDING A PONTOON BRIDGE AND CROSSING THE RHINE, THE NEW EMPEROR MOVED FURTHER INTO GERMANY, PLUNDERING AND BURNING VILLAGES AS HE WENT.

Building a pontoon bridge and crossing the Rhine, the new emperor moved further into Germany, plundering and burning villages as he went. After a fiercebattle near Wurttemberg and Baden and despite heavy losses, he was proclaimed GermanicusMaximus. Peace in the region was restored. From 235-236 CE he advanced towards the Danube, earning the titles of Dacius Maximus and Samaticus Maximus. However, his problems lay not in Germany but back in Rome - a city he would actually never see. His push into Germany had drained the finances of the empire, and his cuts in subsidies on the city’s grain supply harmed his reputation with the people, especially the poor. Herodian remarked,

After Maximinus had impoverished most of the distinguished men and confiscated their estates, which he considered small and insignificant and not sufficient for his purposes, he turned to the public treasuries; all the funds which had been collected for the citizens' welfare or for gifts, all the funds being held in reserve for shows or festivals, he transferred to his own personal fortune.

Realizing they could no longer tolerate the excesses of Maximinus, the Senate threw their support behind the eighty-year-old governor of Africa, Marcus Antonius Gordianus Sempronianus or Gordian I. Maximinus was declared an enemy of the state.

Gordianus and his son Gordian II, who was proclaimed Augustus by his father, may have had the support of the Senate but their days on the throne were numbered. Capellianus, governor of Numidia and an ally of Maximinus, advanced his legions toCarthage and after defeating the small militia killed the forty-six-year-old Gordian II. His father, hearing of his son’s assassination, hanged himself. They had been in power for only twenty-two days. Still refusing to accept Maximinus as emperor, the Senate appointed co-emperors -  Decius Caelius Calvinus Balbinus and Marcus Clodius Pupienus Maximus. They also named a Council of Twenty to advise them. Regrettably, the new emperors were not welcomed warmly by the people of Rome, indeed the two received a hail of stones are they walked through the streets and the citizens preferred the thirteen-year-old nephew of Gordian II, Marcus Antonius Gordianus. To appease the citizenry, the boy who would become Gordian III was named Caesar.

After hearing of the Gordian appointment and despite the growing animosity of his troops, Maximinus moved his army towards Italy. He reached the city of Emosa but found it to be evacuated. He travelled further to the walled city of Aquileia, but his repeated attacks on the city failed. Emperor Pupienus set out from Rome to meet Maximinus. The losses at Aquileia, combined with the shortage of food, were too much for the Praetorian Guard and in May of 238 CE they murdered both the emperor and his son with their heads being escorted back to Rome. Pupienus entered Aquileia a hero. Herodian, who refers to the victorious co-emperor as Maximus, wrote that the city opened their gates and welcomed Maximus into the city. According to Herodian, many of the defeated men of Maximinus remained angry, grieving their fallen commander,

The men cheered Maximus and scattered leaves in his path. The soldiers who were besieging Aquileia came forward carrying laurel branches symbolic of peaceful intent, not because this represented their true feelings but because the presence of the emperor forced them to pretend respect and good will.

The death of Maximinus brought about what many historians consider a period of crisis and chaos. Pupienus returned to Rome a hero but soon quarreled with the jealous Balbinus. Tired of both men the Praetorian Guard stormed the imperial palace. seized the emperors, and dragged their bodies through the streets of Rome. Gordian III was proclaimed the new emperor, the last in the Year of the Six Emperors.

64-2 Severan family Alexander Serverus

Alexander Serverus

Caracalla was assassinated while urinating. He was followed by Severan family weaklings. One was Elgabalus in 218, emperor from age fourteen. Elgabalas was assassinated a little less than four years later in a plot formulated by his grandmother, Julia Maesa, and carried out by the Praetorian Guard. This made Elgabalas' cousin, Alexander Serverus, age 13, emperor. And he remained emperor until he was 26, with his mother continuing as his advisor. In the year 235, while in his tent during a millitary campaign, he was assassinated by military officers and he died cringing and crying in his mother's arms.

The new soldier-emperor, Maximinus, was not from Rome. He was the son of Thracian peasants – a German and an Alan. He had little respect for what remained of Rome's institutions. He was the first emperor who did not win or seek Senate confirmation of his rule. He was never to set foot in Rome. But the senators, afraid for their safety, were only silently antagonistic toward him.

Maximinus doubled the pay of his soldiers, and he upset Rome's civilians by giving money to the army that had been slated for welfare. Farmers in North Africa grew disturbed over Maximinus' high taxes, and they began to create disturbances. Romans in various parts of the empire saw Maximinus as a barbarian foreigner pretending to be an emperor. In Rome, angry packs of men hunted down and murdered his supporters. An army of North Africans, members of the Praetorian Guard, some senators, and some who saw themselves as the Romans of Old, went north from Rome to battle against Maximinus. They managed to isolate him and a some of his soldiers. To buy their safety, these soldiers killed Maximinus and his son.

Maximinus had ruled only three years – to the year 238. In the coming decades the rule of others would also be short. Soldiers would continue to choose their commanders as emperors, and some army commanders would become emperors only reluctantly, sensing the danger in it. Some of these emperors would attempt to bribe soldiers with gifts to ensure their continued loyalty, and the loyalty of some soldiers would depend on their being allowed to satisfy their appetite for booty at the expense of civilians. These new emperors would govern by decree, and they attempted to reinforce their rule with spies, informers and secret agents. In the coming five decades, only one emperor was to die a natural death, and only one was to die in battle. The rest would be murdered by soldiers,

The political chaos, meanwhile, produced a decline in respect for authority, caused in part by armies on the move within the empire, plundering towns and farms. Military-emperors sent tax collectors about the empire forcing more taxes from people.

During the first half of the 200s, taxation encouraged men of commerce to hoard their money rather than invest it. To pay soldiers, emperors debased money. Prices skyrocketed. The empire's middle class went bankrupt, and roads deteriorated.

More people had become beggars, and many others feared that they too would soon be impoverished. In Rome and other big cities, proletarians remained disinclined to organize themselves against authority, but here and there in the countryside desperate peasants did revolt, but their uprisings were not coordinated and not widespread enough to challenge the empire militarily. In various parts of the empire, bands of desperate people wandered the countryside, surviving by theft. In 235 bands of brigands had swept through Italy. In Gaul, hordes of people roamed about, pillaging as they went. Piracy grew on the Aegean Sea, and tribal people from the Sahara attacked Roman cities along the coast of North Africa.

Disorders sometimes cut off trade routes. By 250, Rome's trade with China and India had ended. Agricultural lands in the empire were going unused. With the declining economy, people moved from cities and towns to rural areas in search of food. Cities began shrinking to a fraction of their former size, some to be occupied only by administrators. Where agricultural estates felt threatened by barbarian or Roman soldiers they protected themselves by fortification, and their neighbors surrendered their holdings to them in exchange for protection. Economic relations were developing that would last into the Middle Ages.

The kind of governance put in place by Rome's revered Augustus as an alternative to democracy and the chaos he wanted to avoid, had failed.

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At the urging of his mother, aunt, and grandmother,Roman Emperor Elagabalus named his cousin Alexianus (the future Alexander Severus) as his heir in the summer of 221 CE. After realizing the possible consequences of his actions, he planned for the young Caesar’s execution. Unfortunately for Elagabalus, the tide would quickly turn against him when instead of killing young Alexianus, he and his mother would meet their deaths at the hands of the Praetorian Guard. On March 11 (some say 13), 222 CE, theRoman Senate welcomed the thirteen-year-old as theempire’s new imperial ruler.

EARLY LIFE

Marcus Julius Gessius Alexianus (Alexander Severus) was born in the Phoenician city ofCaesarea in 208 CE (no exact date in known) to Gessius Marcianus and Julia Avita Mamaea, niece of Julia Domna - second wife of Emperor Septimius Severus. Historian Herodian wrote that Alexianus was actually named after the Macedonian kingAlexander the Great. Like his cousin Elagabalus, Alexianus was also a priest of the sun-god Elagabal at the Syrian town of Emesa - something his mother would keep very quiet.

In the summer of 221 CE Alexianus’ mother and grandmother, Julia Maesa, as well as his aunt, Julia Soaemias, convinced Emperor Elagabalus to name his young cousin as his heir and grant him the title of Caesar telling him the appointment would give him more time to pray and dance at the altar of Elagabal. In reality they were worried that his attempt to replace the traditional religion of Rome with that of Elagabal as well as his unorthodox lifestyle would bring about his (and their) ruin. Elagabalus’ plan to assassinate his cousin failed - possible bribery of the Praetorian Guard was suspected. In order to have him accepted by the Guard, Alexianus’ mother employed the same ruse that had been used for Elagabalus, namely, that Alexianus was the illegitimate son of Emperor Caracalla.

ALEXANDER SEVERUS WAS THE SECOND YOUNGEST ROMAN EMPEROR EVER.

A YOUNG EMPEROR

With the death of Elagabalus, Alexianus, who had assumed the name Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander, was confirmed by the Senate as emperor making him the second youngest to ever sit on the throne (second only to Elagabalus).  However, the young emperor would never be granted any real authority as the government would be placed firmly in the hands of his mother and grandmother - the latter would die in 224 CE. Historian Cassius Dio wrote:

He immediately proclaimed his mother Augusta and she took over the direction of affairs and gathered wise men about her son, in order that his habits might be correctly formed by them; she also chose the best men in the senate as advisors, informing them of all that had to be done.

To ease the transition and erase the memory of Elagabalus, as well as regain the trust of the citizens of Rome, the Cult of Elagabal was banished and the old gods restored. Alexander’s mother wanted to portray the young emperor as a typical Roman boy with no ties to the “Syrian god.” The large black stone that sat on Palatine Hill, symbol of the Elagabal cult, was returned to Emesa. The Elagaballum, a temple built to honor Elagabal, was renamed the Temple of Jupiter Ultor. Lastly, to appease many of the members of the old aristocracy, who were far more capable and experienced than the “Syrian henchmen” appointed under Elagabalus, were restored to their previous positions. These changes enabled the government to return to a more conservative mentality.

Although Alexander’s authority was limited, there was one individual he fought to protect (in strong opposition to his mother and the Senate): the historian and Senator Cassius Dio who had been named consul for the second time. In his Roman HistoryCassius Dio wrote about his relationship with Alexander:

Alexander, however, paid no heed to them, but, on the contrary, honoured me in various ways, especially by appointing me to the consul for the second time … he became afraid that they might kill me if they saw me in the insignia of my office, and so he bade me spend the period of my consulship in Italy, somewhere outside Rome.

Julia Mamaea, known as Mother of the Emperor and the Camp and the Senate and the Country, established a sixteen-man committee of senators to advise the young emperor which was a blatant attempt to mend the rift between the imperial throne and Senate. On a personal note, she also employed a private counselor named Domitius Ulpianus or Ulpian, the commander of the Praetorian Guard and a former lawyer. She saw him as someone who could use his legal expertise to help with government affairs. While he assisted in helping introduce several reforms (a reduction of taxes, new aqueducts, and building projects), his old-fashioned ideas about discipline angered many within the Guard. In 224 CE this alienation between the guard and their commander brought about three days of riots between the people of Rome and the Guard. The riots led to the death of two commanders - Julius Flavianus and Gerinius Chrestus - both killed on the orders of Ulpian. The Praetorian Guard reacted, pursuing and killing Ulpian in the imperial palace. His assassin, Marcus Aurelius Epagothus was “rewarded” (Alexander and his mother were “persuaded” to make the appointment) with the governorship ofEgypt, but he, too, would later be assassinated.

64-1 Severan family Elgabalus

background

Caracalla was assassinated while urinating. He was followed by Severan family weaklings. One was Elgabalus in 218, emperor from age fourteen. Elgabalas was assassinated a little less than four years later in a plot formulated by his grandmother, Julia Maesa, and carried out by the Praetorian Guard. This made Elgabalas' cousin, Alexander Serverus, age 13, emperor. And he remained emperor until he was 26, with his mother continuing as his advisor. In the year 235, while in his tent during a millitary campaign, he was assassinated by military officers and he died cringing and crying in his mother's arms.

The new soldier-emperor, Maximinus, was not from Rome. He was the son of Thracian peasants – a German and an Alan. He had little respect for what remained of Rome's institutions. He was the first emperor who did not win or seek Senate confirmation of his rule. He was never to set foot in Rome. But the senators, afraid for their safety, were only silently antagonistic toward him.

Maximinus doubled the pay of his soldiers, and he upset Rome's civilians by giving money to the army that had been slated for welfare. Farmers in North Africa grew disturbed over Maximinus' high taxes, and they began to create disturbances. Romans in various parts of the empire saw Maximinus as a barbarian foreigner pretending to be an emperor. In Rome, angry packs of men hunted down and murdered his supporters. An army of North Africans, members of the Praetorian Guard, some senators, and some who saw themselves as the Romans of Old, went north from Rome to battle against Maximinus. They managed to isolate him and a some of his soldiers. To buy their safety, these soldiers killed Maximinus and his son.

Maximinus had ruled only three years – to the year 238. In the coming decades the rule of others would also be short. Soldiers would continue to choose their commanders as emperors, and some army commanders would become emperors only reluctantly, sensing the danger in it. Some of these emperors would attempt to bribe soldiers with gifts to ensure their continued loyalty, and the loyalty of some soldiers would depend on their being allowed to satisfy their appetite for booty at the expense of civilians. These new emperors would govern by decree, and they attempted to reinforce their rule with spies, informers and secret agents. In the coming five decades, only one emperor was to die a natural death, and only one was to die in battle. The rest would be murdered by soldiers,

The political chaos, meanwhile, produced a decline in respect for authority, caused in part by armies on the move within the empire, plundering towns and farms. Military-emperors sent tax collectors about the empire forcing more taxes from people.

During the first half of the 200s, taxation encouraged men of commerce to hoard their money rather than invest it. To pay soldiers, emperors debased money. Prices skyrocketed. The empire's middle class went bankrupt, and roads deteriorated.

More people had become beggars, and many others feared that they too would soon be impoverished. In Rome and other big cities, proletarians remained disinclined to organize themselves against authority, but here and there in the countryside desperate peasants did revolt, but their uprisings were not coordinated and not widespread enough to challenge the empire militarily. In various parts of the empire, bands of desperate people wandered the countryside, surviving by theft. In 235 bands of brigands had swept through Italy. In Gaul, hordes of people roamed about, pillaging as they went. Piracy grew on the Aegean Sea, and tribal people from the Sahara attacked Roman cities along the coast of North Africa.

Disorders sometimes cut off trade routes. By 250, Rome's trade with China and India had ended. Agricultural lands in the empire were going unused. With the declining economy, people moved from cities and towns to rural areas in search of food. Cities began shrinking to a fraction of their former size, some to be occupied only by administrators. Where agricultural estates felt threatened by barbarian or Roman soldiers they protected themselves by fortification, and their neighbors surrendered their holdings to them in exchange for protection. Economic relations were developing that would last into the Middle Ages.

The kind of governance put in place by Rome's revered Augustus as an alternative to democracy and the chaos he wanted to avoid, had failed.

Elagabalus /ˌɛləˈɡæbələs/ or Heliogabalus (Greek: Μάρκος Αὐρήλιος Ἀντωνίνος Αὔγουστος; Latin: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus; c. 203 – March 11, 222), was Roman emperor from 218 to 222. A member of theSeveran dynasty, he was Syrian, the second son of Julia Soaemias and Sextus Varius Marcellus. In his early youth he served as a priest of the god Elagabal in the hometown of his mother's family, Emesa. As a private citizen, he was probably named Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus.^[1] Upon becoming emperor he took the name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus. He was called Elagabalus only after his death.^[2]

In 217, the emperor Caracalla was assassinated and replaced by hisPraetorian prefect, Marcus Opellius Macrinus. Caracalla's maternal aunt, Julia Maesa, successfully instigated a revolt among the Legio III Gallica to have her eldest grandson (and Caracalla's cousin), Elagabalus, declared emperor in his place. Macrinus was defeated on 8 June 218 at the Battle of Antioch. Elagabalus, barely fourteen years old, became emperor, initiating a reign remembered mainly for sex scandals and religious controversy.

Later historians suggest Elagabalus showed a disregard for Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos. He replaced the traditional head of the Roman pantheon, Jupiter, with the deity of whom he was high priest, Elagabalus. He forced leading members of Rome's government to participate in religious rites celebrating this deity, over which he personally presided. Elagabalus was supposedly "married" as many as five times, lavished favours on male courtiers popularly thought to have been his lovers,^[3][4] and was reported to have prostituted himself in the imperial palace. His behavior estranged thePraetorian Guard, the Senate, and the common people alike. Amidst growing opposition, Elagabalus, just 18 years old, was assassinated and replaced by his cousin Severus Alexander on 11 March 222, in a plot formulated by his grandmother, Julia Maesa, and carried out by disaffected members of the Praetorian Guard.

Elagabalus developed a reputation among his contemporaries for extremeeccentricity, decadence and zealotry.^[5] This tradition has persisted, and in writers of the early modern age he suffers one of the worst reputations among Roman emperors. Edward Gibbon, for example, wrote that Elagabalus "abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures and ungoverned fury."^[6] According toBarthold Georg Niebuhr, "The name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others" because of his "unspeakably disgusting life

Having failed to keep many of his promises to the army,Roman Emperor Macrinus (217 – 218 CE) was becoming increasingly unpopular, and it would only take a little lie from a young boy’s mother to change everything. On May 16, 218 CE a fourteen-year-old teenager was sneaked into the camp of the Third Gallic Legion in Syria and proclaimed the new imperial ruler. Shortly afterwards, Macrinus was dead. Although the new emperor would change his name to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, history would know him as Elagabalus.

EARLY LIFE

Varius Avitus Bassianus (Elagabalus) was born in c. 204 CE (exact date unknown) at Emesa in Syria to Sextus Varius Marcellus, a former senator under Emperor Caracalla, and Julia Soaemis, niece of Septimius Severus’s second wife Julia Domna. At the time he assumed the title and throne, Elagabalus was the hereditary high priest at the Temple of the Sun for the Syrian sun-god Elagabal. Later, his extreme dedication to his religionwould contribute to his demise.

According to most sources, Macrinus had been instrumental in Caracalla’s assassination. Because he feared her closeness to many in the army remaining loyal to the slain emperor, Macrinus commanded that Julia Domna, Caracalla’s mother, leave Antioch. After her death - she had starved herself rather than leave the city - her sister Julia Maesa and two nieces, Julia Soaemis and Julia Mamaea, swore revenge. On May 16, 218 CE the young Elagabalus was smuggled into the Third Legion’s camp by the Romancommander Comazon and declared emperor. His mother’s (and grandmother’s) wealth and the young man’s remarkable resemblance to Caracalla was enough to convince everyone that he was not the son of Varius Marcellus but the illegitimate son of Caracalla, or that is what his mother hoped they would believe.

ELAGABALUS AS EMPEROR

IN 218 CE THE ROMAN SENATE ACCEPTED HIM AS THE YOUNGEST EVER EMPEROR.

On June 8, 218 CE, Macrinus and his forces were defeated by the Roman commander Gannys outside Antioch. The fallen emperor’s failed attempt to cross the Bosporus at Cappadocia and escape to Rome would bring about his (and his nine-year-old son’s) death. Macrinus’s death and the claim that Elagabalus was actually Caracalla’s son would be enough for the Roman Senate to accept him as the new emperor - the youngest to ever sit on the throne; official recognition would not come until his arrival in Rome. However, instead of leaving immediately, the new emperor, his mother and grandmother would winter at Nicomedia before arriving in Rome in the autumn of 219 CE. Unfortunately for the man who had defeated Macrinus, Gannys would not get to see his young protégé seated on the throne. By some accounts he had been not only a protector but a father-figure to Elagabalus whilst others claim he was either a eunuch or Julia Soaemis’ lover. Whatever his relationship to the family may have been, his closeness to the young emperor meant that he remained a threat to a controlling mother and grandmother, and this threat led to his death.

Upon his arrival in Rome and despite his youth, Elagabalus was officially recognized by the Senate as emperor - they had hoped for economic and political stability after the chaotic reigns of Caracalla and Macrinus. Controversy, however, would soon rear its ugly head; something that would not only anger the Senate but also shock much of the populace, especially the Christians and Jews. As a high priest Elagabalus made plans to replace the old, traditional religion of Rome with that of his own - the worship of Elagabal. This Syrian god was even to replace the supreme god of Roman mythology -Jupiter.

To cement his intentions Elagabalus had a large, black conical-shaped stone (possibly a meteorite) brought from Syria - a cult symbol of his religion - and installed on the Palatine Hill. A new temple, the Elagabalium, was built to honor Elagabal. In his Roman History Cassius Dio, who called the emperor the “False Antoninus,” wrote,

The offense consisted, not in his introducing a foreign god into Rome or in his exalting in very strange ways, but in his placing him even before Jupiter himself and causing himself to be voted his priest…. Furthermore, he was frequently seen even in public clad in the barbaric dress which the Syrian priests use, and this had as much to do as anything with his receiving the nickname of ‘The Assyrian.’

To help improve his relationship with the people of Rome and take attention away from the new religion, Elagabalus was encouraged to marry into a Roman aristocratic family. He would have three wives: Julia Paula, Annia Faustina, and Aquilia Severa - the latter “marriage” caused even more debate because she was a Vestal Virgin which was a long-standing taboo. Cassius Dio wrote,

… he divorced Paula on the grounds she had some blemish on her body, and cohabited with Aquilia Severa thereby most flagrantly violating the law, for she was consecrated to Vesta, and yet he most impiously defiled her…. I did it [he said] in order that godlike children might spring from me.

However, in order to prevent further controversy, the marriage was quickly dissolved. Unfortunately, Elagabalus generally demonstrated little interest in any of his wives; his tastes ran in a different direction, preferring the company of men. Rumors were rampant that he wandered the imperial palace as well as the streets of Rome at night dressed as a woman. He supposedly even married a male slave named Hierocles.

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