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2 results

  • 8 - Provinces and frontiers

  • from PART III - THE PROVINCES
  • Edited by Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford, Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 September 2005, pp 212-268

  • Summary

    Under the Severan emperors there was a significant advance of the limits of territory under direct Roman occupation, in Mesopotamia to the river Tigris and in Africa to the northern fringes of the Sahara desert. Only in the later years of Severus Alexander, last of the Severan dynasty, were there indications of new threats to stability along the northern and eastern frontiers. The half-century between the death of Severus Alexander and the accession of Diocletian appears to have been dominated by inroads of peoples from the north and Persian aggression from the east. The years of stable relations with Germans and Sarmatians across the middle Danube came to an end around the middle of the third century. The general character of Roman frontier deployment in the European provinces has long been known but only recently have there emerged detailed accounts of the eastern frontier between the Black Sea and the Red Sea.

  • 2 - Maximinus to Diocletian and the ‘crisis’

  • from PART I - NARRATIVE
  • Edited by Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford, Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 September 2005, pp 28-66

  • Summary

    The fifty years following the death of Severus Alexander were among the most disruptive ever experienced by the Roman Empire. Historians conventionally refer to them as a period of 'crisis', which began in 235, reached its peak around 260, and then gradually yielded to the ministrations of a series of reforming emperors, ending with Diocletian. The outstanding characteristic of this crisis was war, both civil and foreign. C. Iulius Verus Maximinus was a man of late middle age. Though of relatively humble stock, he had exploited the opportunities for promotion in the reformed army of Septimius Severus, winning high rank and equestrian status. Between 235 and 285 the Roman Empire experienced great dislocation and distress. The principal causes of these disturbances have now been generally agreed by historians and may indeed be inferred from what Diocletian eventually did to bring them to an end.