After Elagabalus was killed,
the empire stumbled for fifty years.
Fifty emperors in fifty years.
Plague. Inflation. Barbarian fears.
Historians call it the Crisis of the Third Century.
The imperial system nearly broke.
Legions acclaimed their generals,
who were killed by the next legion's stroke.
Alexander Severus was killed.
Maximinus Thrax was killed.
Gordian I and Gordian II died.
Pupienus and Balbinus were killed.
The names blur. The reigns were brief.
Emperors rose and fell like weather.
The coinage was debased, the silver
diluted to base metal's tether.
Decius launched the first empire-wide
persecution of Christians, requiring
all citizens to sacrifice to the gods
and produce certificates proving firing.
Many Christians sacrificed, lapsed,
became the "lapsi" debated for years.
Others were martyred, Cyprian of Carthage,
the bishop, whose blood watered tears.
The Persians under Shapur I captured
Valerian the Roman emperor in battle,
used him as a footstool to mount horse,
then stuffed his body with straw for cattle.
(Or so the story runs. Whether
the exact details are true,
the capture of a Roman emperor
was unprecedented, new.)
Zenobia of Palmyra broke away,
ruled Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor east,
a warrior queen of legendary beauty,
until Aurelian marched and seized.
The Gallic Empire broke off in the west,
ruled by Postumus for years.
The empire was splitting three ways:
Gaul, Rome, and Palmyra in tears.
Then Aurelian came. "Restitutor Orbis."
The Restorer of the World.
He reunited the three empires,
brought the eagle standards unfurled.
He defeated Zenobia and took her
to Rome in golden chains to display.
He defeated the Gallic Empire.
He saved the state from decay.
And he made Sol Invictus the state god.
The "Unconquered Sun" became official.
The syncretic solar monotheism
was now imperial, not just unofficial.
This is the crucial step. After
Aurelian, the empire's religious drift
was toward monotheism, toward
one supreme god, one solar gift.
The old polytheism was still practiced.
The temples still stood. The priests still served.
But the emperor's personal faith
was focused on one divinity deserved.
Aurelian was assassinated too.
But his work held. Diocletian came
and restructured the empire entirely:
the Tetrarchy, four rulers, same aim.
Two Augusti, two Caesars, ruling
the four quarters of the empire wide.
Nicomedia, Milan, Trier, Sirmium
were the new capitals where power resides.
Rome itself was becoming peripheral.
The emperor rarely visited Rome.
Power was where the frontier armies were,
not in the old Italian home.
Diocletian launched the final great persecution
of Christians in three-oh-three,
the "Great Persecution," the last attempt
to suppress the church's rise by decree.
It failed. The church was too embedded.
Martyrs increased conversions, not decreased.
The persecution ended in three-eleven,
the next emperor's edict of peace.
Galerius on his deathbed issued
an edict of toleration, saying
essentially, we've tried to crush them,
it hasn't worked, let them keep praying.
Then came Constantine.
But before we get to him, mark this:
the third century was the civilizational near-miss.
The empire almost fell right then.
It was saved by Aurelian's fierce grip and kiss.
And saved in a form that was no longer
the old Republic's civic-religion mode.
It was now a monarchical empire with
a near-monotheistic imperial code.
The groundwork was laid. The solar
monotheism of Aurelian would
transition into the Christian monotheism
of Constantine. One god would do.
Three centuries after Jesus,
the church had grown from twelve
to perhaps ten percent of the empire,
still a minority, but selective.
The bishops had become organized.
The creeds were being formulated.
The gospels had been canonized
and the writings of Paul disseminated.
The church was ready. The empire was ready.
What was needed was imperial blessing.
That would come in three-twelve, at
the battle of the Milvian Bridge, confessing.
Constantine saw a vision, or claimed to.
"In this sign, conquer." The chi-rho.
He won the battle, credited Christ,
and the whole direction began to flow.
Stand.