After emperor Valerian is captured, you essentially need a visual chart to keep up with who's in charge of what and what they did during their reign.

I feel like this Crisis Era would be just as fascinating as the age of Caesar and Augustus if we simply had more information...

Gee, not expecting any rivalry from “Hostilian” seems legit.

Imagine if Aurelian could've ruled just another 5 years.. :/ so much couldve been done to improve the situation.

One thing not mentioned here is how two of gallienus' sons were killed when their generals were proclaimed emperors..not just for postumus revolt but for aureolus' as well. Gallienus had no time for drink or games and spent his whole reign running back and forth across the empire and the thanks he got was the murder of his sons on two separate occasions and then his own death..then others took the credit for the work he started..

After much reflecting, Gallienus’ reign is my biggest “I wish we had more sources” period of Roman history. He seems like a great and competent emperor who ruled during Rome’s nadir (without including the few years before the West fell), and we have virtually zero details. What an unfortunate timeline we live in where Valerian killed Cyprian just when I wanted him most!

Always love reading/hearing about the third century. From a captured Emperor in the east to the Rhine being stripped of legionairies in the face of invading Franks to Greeks suddenly scrambling to secure their cities... The sheer ammount of 'Oh, ok then...' felt across the board is exceptional. And through all that a Palmyran crazy boy right smack in the middle of the greatest threat just tears around like it's nothing and takes care of busniness no problems... It's all good stuff.

57:05 'it's not like he was fiddling while Rome burned. He was beating off....' arguably worse than fiddling

What’s really cool, is the guitar intro. You may not know this, but it’s an actual recording of Tiberius strumming the guitar!

At this point I can barely keep track of all the Emperors.😣😣

I followed the history pretty well up until this third century portion, but so much has happened that I can’t keep up anymore!

I hope you're going to add more, I'm pretty much caught up with this one!

Amazing content! The combination of your cadence, statements, and intro music makes for real asmr

37:50 Ariminius, or as Michael Grant says, "Yet another German named Hermann."

It feels like Emperors at this point were like the Swamp Castles in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. A man decides to co-rule, they both get murdered by their troops, Then another guy takes over, and is murdered by his troops, then the next guy burns down, falls down, sinks into the swamp and then is murdered by foreign troops, and the fourth one....succumbs to the plague....

A PERFECT STORM

This is my second run through the series and although I may have raised it before, the Sassanid king's name is Shapoor not ShaRpoor. Shapoor is a compound name, from Shah=king and Poor=son(of).

My man!! Keep it going bra.

He says, at around 1:42:20, that when the Emperor minted more (debased) coins, causing inflation, it wiped out the savings of all the citizens who has hoarded the older, valuable coins. This is incorrect. What he describes is what happens to _fiat_ money (money that has no intrinsic value) in periods of inflation. Coins containing precious metals will _not_ loose their value when debased coins (coins containing less silver or gold than they are supposed to) are introduced into circulation, since they still contain a higher percentage of precious metals. What will happen instead is that the older, 'good' money will increase, in value, compared to the debased coinage.

So many revolts and backstabbers. I'm just getting tired of it all. I love the show by the way!

1:57:20 never thought I’d hear these words

Thank You, Mike Duncan! A Perfect Storm's overuse gives me murderous ulcers. While we're at it, fuck Game Plan. Are you playing a sport? No? Then it's a fucking plan!

Earned a like for praising a kids show. Good man.

Do I hear the Sassanid king's name being pronounced Shar-poor? Is that a latinized version? In Persian the name is Shah-poor, shah=king and Poor=son of/born of.

Member the times when 1 video would cover like a century of history? I cant quite internalize that Marcus Aurelius died

Thank you.

I wonder who Helena Handbasket is, and why all of Rome wants to go to her. 46:00

For some reason the capture of Valarian gives me night mares.

This particular era would make an interesting TV series. Starting just prior to Commodus and up to Hostilian.

Love your work

Many years ago, I had a dream: "You must read Gibbon!" Which I dutifully did. Then I had another dream: "It would have been better if Rome had dissolved in the 3rd century!" I could sortof figure how that could make sense by not having the Catholic Church conflate with imperial power. But after watching these episodes, I have a different understanding: Debasement of the currency is one of the cruelest froms of defrauding the citizens, transferring power from those who work to those who issue (counterfeit) money. In the process, everyone gets to defraud everyone else, except those at the very bottom of this pyramid scheme. They'll just have to struggle to survive, as their sparse income no longer are able to purchase the bare necessities of food, shelter and energy. Copmaring to the situation today would be way too unsettling.

Cyprian plague was most likely a hemorrhagic fever. Per Kyle Harper. The symptom set fits better than smallpox.

Could we help translating the series? It's pretty through and it's a shame some people can't enjoy it for not knowing English

To me, I oversimplify a Perfect Storm as, a bunch a mini crisis's combining to make one Uber crisis. They ping of each other, adding and feeding off another, till one more outside party launches an endeavor an disrupts the whole balance of power, then you have a tit for tat game that escalates between the 2 (or more) "parties"... American Civil War, WWI. The Great Depression is about how economic downturn leads to more economic downturn. Crazy how one issue exacerbates all the others like a house of cards... Like if electricity went out.

Who is the Emperor depicted in that first picture?

I dont know if its ever been requested but can you list or do a video on some of your sources?

Ego odio gothicos.

Is there any podcast in such detail about eastern rome empire also.

I still want to be named Maximus. I die in battle by getting hit in the neck with a ceramic tile... That rocks!

52:45 and on UTTER IRONY

What did Degaul say about indispensable men???

Palmyra ruins in syria were amazing unfortunately alot were destroyed by isis during the war.

11:00

1:38:00

So these videos are like 11 yrs old damn

Persia victrix!

48:40 what a chad

what the fuck is with youtube autoplaying this after mechanic videos

12:03 - 12:10

The Roman empire had an appalling political system.Power passed from one emperor to another mainly by civil war or murder. The republic between 135 BC and 28 BC wasn’t much better.The republic between 509 BC and roughly 150 BC, when internal violence was rare, and nearly all citizens were militiamen, and there was no standing army, was Rome’s golden age.

Shhh Quietus

Cyprian "si" prian not "sigh" prian

In hindsight, Augustus after winning against Mark Anthony should have assembled 40 legions or over 200k legionaires, supported with a further 200k militia and just embark on an extermination campaign on all of the Germanic people and then the Parthians. Promising the soldiers all of the conquered loot and the lands of the exterminated people.

prolific, not 'voluminous ' but otherwise great

For a man of history, it's tragic he doesn't see the 300%+ inflation of the us dollar, in a hundred years. .

V

Scrooge McDuck, huh? Unbelievable! I'm telling you that such flippant asides have got no place in a thoughtful presentation of the history of Rome -- your assumption that "most" of your listeners first learned of inflation from Disney is daft and your recounting of the plot of the cartoon certainly distracts from the subject matter of the episode.