The Crisis of the Third Century His/112
September 2 2011

The Crisis of the Third Century The Crisis of the Third Century was the era in which the Roman Empire almost collapsed under the many myriad of pressures including economic depression, civil war, plague and invasion. Because war was expensive, the Roman Empire had to increase taxes and this caused for many of the Romans to be upset and for the economy to be in a crisis. Revolts were also started because many of the civilians retaliated back because of such high taxes. The Crisis began with the assassination of Alexander Severus and because his own troops killed him, for the next fifty years many claimants named …show more content…

“The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, presents five reasons for the decay of that empire: a mounting love of show and luxury, a widening gap between rich and poor, obsession with sex, freakishness in the arts, masquerading as originality and enthusiasms pretending to be creativity, an increased desire to live off the state. Makes you think, doesn't it?” (2011, Jul 15) The Star, pp. 18. Aside from taxes and government expenses, Romans had the urge for always being in luxury and over spending. The last minute economical changes had taken a toll on their personal life’s to be able to enjoy art, sex and the luxuries of life, such as gold at that time. These selected events are the main reasons for a once successful empire to break down to its worst time ever and even cause their own people to go against each other. “Many historians have attributed the Western Empire's collapse to internal factors, such as a loss of fighting spirit produced by soft living or Christianity's pacifist ideology, or to economic dislocations and depopulation caused by excessive taxation of the rural peasantry” (Gray, J. M. 2007). By adding all of these three events together, we can analyze that if anything did ever go wrong it was because all three events were not managed correctly. The Roman Empire would have been more successful if the Romans would