THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN CRISIS 248-260: When the Gods Abandoned Rome

1-230510

Covers the dozen years of turmoil that begins with Rome's millennium celebrations of 248 CE and ends with the capture of the emperor Valerian by the Persians in 260. It was a period of almost unremitting disaster for Rome, involving a series of civil wars, several major invasions by Goths and Persians, economic crises, and an empire-wide pandemic (plague of Cyprian). A central theme of the book is that this period of moral and spiritual crises diminished the prestige of the traditional state religion, paving the way for the eventual triumph of Christianity.

The sensational recent discovery of extensive fragments of the lost Scythica of Dexippus manuscript sheds new light on the Gothic Wars of the period. The author has used this new evidence in combination with in-depth investigations in the field to develop a revised account of events surrounding the great Battle of Abritus where the army of the emperor Decius was annihilated by Cniva's Goths.