The Third Century Crisis - Research Paper Example

Crisis of the Third Century The crisis of the third century is one of the most common crises to hit the Roman Empire. Around 235AD, Rome started to have issues with regard to the running of the empire. Historians have stated that the killing of Emperor Alexander Severus was the root cause of the many issues facing Rome. The issue was fueled by the fact that the emperor was killed by his own troops and this became a falling out with regard to trust in the administration. Going through some events from the crisis offers insight on the major issues facing the Roman Empire.

As previously identified, one of the most iconic moments in the Roman Empire is the killing of the emperor Alexander. The fact that the murder was carried out by this own people is a fact that made the citizens of the country lose trust in the running of the empire (Sisem, 2014). People had different views regarding the administration and this lack of trust made people not operate as a unit as they had been doing prior to the death of Emperor Alexander (Liu & Xiaobing, 2013). Many of the people that worked for the Emperor did not believe in him and they stated that the reason for this was that Alexander was weak and did not have the required Leadership styles (Wolf, 2005).

Contrary to their beliefs, they had the idea that Alexander Severus was on the German side and was the reason why he resorted to diplomacy as a way of dealing with them. Another event that led to the collapse of the empire was the increase in the number of raids that took place in the years that followed the death of the empire. These raids came from different people in the administration and the reason for them was the fact that they all wanted to have a word in the running of the empire (Latourette, 2014).

Many of the people had different ideologies regarding the best manner through which the citizens of the country could maintain their resources. These differences made the leaders implicate each other, leading to people turning on each other, and the result was the collapse of the Roman Empire. The outbreak of small pox was another cause of the collapse of the Roman Empire. Small pox was a common disease in those ages and the fact that physicians were yet to come up with a cure made the empire suffer a lot with regard to the number of people that died from it (Wong, 2009).

Small pox was a disease that affected people across different ages and the consequent of this was a weak empire. Regardless of whether individuals had the disease or not it affected people both directly and indirectly (Gao, 2008). For families that had one person infected with the disease, it was very difficult for the other family members to carry out their daily responsibilities normally. The reason was that they could not concentrate knowing that one of their own was suffering. Slow developments out of the disease had the consequence of the Roman Empire collapsing.

ReferencesGao, C. F. 2008. The battle for Romanian past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution. London: Pluto Press. Latourette, K. 2014. The Romans, their history and culture. 4th edition. New York: Macmillan, Liu, K, and Xiaobing, T. 2013. Politics, ideology, and literary discourse in modern China: theoretical interventions and cultural critique. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, Wolf, M. 2005. Roxane Witke, and Emily Martin. Men in Romanian society. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, Wong, J. 2009. Romanian blues: my long march from Mao to now.

Toronto: Doubleday/Anchor Books,. Sisem, L. 2014. The Roman Empire. Chicago: Chicago University Press.