3rd - early 4th C.= the 3rd century crisis

1. What caused the crisis?
    1. there is a shift from monetary to natural economy (from exchange based on currency to exchange based on barter)
    * the growing inflation led to the devaluation of the gold coin (solidus) => taxes paid in kind
    2. decline of urban centers => shift of emphasis from urban centers to rural areas (ruralization)
    * diminished market economy => difficulties in collecting taxes => increasing fiscal pressure on urban aristocrats (who fled to the countryside)
    3. decline of large estates and slave - based economy => freed slaves became colons (juridically free but bound to the earth) (nobody could kill them or sell them but they had to have permission for leaving the estate)
    * colons worked the land and retained the product, in exchange paying up to 10% (like medieval serfs)
    4. increasing political role of the army => civil war (different armies proclaimed their generals as emperors) => many emperors between 250 - 300
    5. relations with barbarians outside the empire regulated by means of treaties (foedus)(treaty whereby federates received stipends, right to settle on Roman soil and to retain their social and political organization in exchange for defending the Roman frontiers against other barbarians)
    * the foedus was the main mean of accommodation during a period of particularly active movements of population (the 3rd C = the beginning of the Great Migration)
    * barbarians: - influenced the organization of the army - more cavalry troops
                         - quickly assimilated into Roman culture and society (officers and generals of barbarian origin)
                         - forced Romans to abandon provinces (e.g., Dacia in 271)
 

2. Structural changes:

- increasing pressure on the frontier => changes in the structure of the Roman army:
a. comitatus - mobile, elite troops under the direct command of the emperor (especially cavalry troops)
b. limitanei - military units stationed on the frontier ( where soldiers received land grants)

- increasing pressure on the central government => changes in the form of government - the Tetrarchy (286)
    - introduced by emperor Diocletian (284-305)
    - power divided between two full emperors (Augusti) and two vice emperors (Caesares) - each one with his own court, army, and capital city (4 emperors)
    - radical changes in imperial ceremonial (the Dominate, i.e., the emperor as absolute monarch, not first magistrate of the state - Dominus et Deus)
    - declining political role of the Senate => increasing political role of the imperial council (Consistory - Consistorium)
    - radical administrative reform: provinces lumped together into dioceses (ruled by vicars) (the church borrowed the administrative terminology of the late Roman empire)
    - decentralization => growth of alternative capitals (Rome ceases to be the only political center)

330: Constantine I moves the capital to the East - Constantinople

    - increasing role of religion in the representation of imperial power => 313: Edict of Milan = Christians allowed to perform freely their religion
    * Constantine - used Christian symbols in the army (vision before the battle at the Milvian Bridge)

3. Constantine the Great:

- after defeating his rival in the East - Licinius => he became sole ruler (end of Tetrarchy -324) => drastic changes:
a. new capital (Constantinople) - modeled after Rome ( BUT: churches instead of temples, Hagia Sophia)
b. promoted large numbers of barbarians into the army (esp. Goths)
c. legislation inspired by Christianity (first protection of widows and children; he dealt with divorce and abortion)
d. 325: summoned the Council of Nicaea:
    1. rigidly defined faith (Nicaean Creed) => defined heresy (Arianism = denied the unity of the Holy Trinity)
    2. direct intervention of the emperor in Church affairs (Caesaropapism = the head of the state is also the head of the Church)
    * Arianism did not died out => Constantine's successor, Constantius II favored Arianism and encouraged Arian missions to the Goths => bishop Ulfila translated the Bible into Gothic => barbarians founding successor states within the Roman empire embraced Arianism as a form of non-Roman group identity