The Crisis of the Third Century (235-285 CE) was the combination of administrative incompetence, foreign invasions, and the fracturing of the Roman Empire into three self-governing states which nearly collapsed the Roman Empire. However, the empire was able to recover and survive for nearly another 1,200 years, in large part due to Emperor Lucius Domitius Aurelianus. By the end of Aurelian’s five-year reign (270-275), he almost completely stabilized the empire. Aurelian addressed the Crisis of the Third Century in three main ways: through his pragmatic and revolutionary administrative policies, his military prowess in handling attacks from Germanic tribes, and his reconquering of the Palmyrene and Gallic Empires. These aspects of Aurelian’s rule were vital to restoring the Roman Empire and nearly ending the Crisis of the Third Century. This paper will only focus on Aurelian’s administrative policies, but two papers in the future will cover the rest of Aurelian’s rule.
Like nearly all of the emperors of the third century, Aurelian belonged to a new class of skilled military commanders that had few ties to the Roman Senate. Instead, these emperors rose to power through their military achievements. Aurelian was born on September 9, 214 CE to a peasant family just south of the Danube and joined the army when he was around 20. A career soldier, Aurelian became a senior officer in the central imperial field army by 268, and in 270 he was elevated to the position of emperor. He set himself apart from previous emperors of the third century in several important ways that ultimately enabled him to rescue the Roman Empire.
The world that Aurelian knew was dominated by war-focused emperors which stretched the resources of the Roman Empire to its limit. For one, the position of Roman emperor was ill-defined and hard to keep. There was no set method of succession. To legitimize their rule, prospecting emperors declared themselves the successor of Augustus, which indirectly required emperors to have strong military ties. However, this could lead to multiple contenders fighting for the role. Additionally, the military took on an important role in the selection process, even surpassing that of the Roman Senate. As early as the reign of Tiberius, emperors were already dating their reigns from when the army proclaimed them emperor rather than the senate. As a result, emperors began to prioritize their military victories over long-term planning or other facets of the role of emperor. This in turn led to more violence and civil war.
The Roman Emperor also became more reliant on military leaders. This caused rivalries between the military elite and the sitting emperor that resulted in assassinations and political coups. Moreover, the pressure of foreign invasions placed impossible demands on the Roman Emperor, and the price of failure was high. The emperor’s presence was demanded at every front, but he could only be in one place at a time. If he did not arrive at the front lines, the general stationed there might attempt to usurp power and march on Rome. During the Crisis of the Third Century, over 60 individuals laid claim to the position of emperor in just a 50-year span, and only one or two died outside of combat.
The Roman Senate also weakened because of increasingly military-oriented emperors. Although individual senators could still be powerful within the entourage of the emperor, the traditional role of the senate diminished. Increasingly, decisions were made far from Rome while the emperor was away on military campaigns. Another reason for the senate’s lack of influence was the exclusion of senators from military command. While the imperial administration opened up to the equestrian class, true power remained with high-ranking army officials who maintained little connection to the senate. The senators of Rome who traditionally oversaw the administrative and economic wellbeing of the empire lost much of their political power.
Because Rome’s senate started losing influence, the empire became decentralized. Rome moved from a physical place to, in the words of contemporary historian Herodian, “wherever the emperor happened to be” after the late second century. This was typically near branches of the imperial mint, which became de facto regional “capitals.” Usurpers used this decentralization as an easy way to gain power by claiming these capital cities as power bases. In this way, usurpers could take control of one part of the empire without taking control of the entire empire, which would allow them to stay in power longer—further lending credence to their legitimacy. The third century therefore became a period rife with civil war, as emperors had to deal with competition from within the empire.
War also became more expensive during the third century. This was partially due to the reformation of the army in response to new threats to the empire. The Roman army was originally designed for powerful strikes at specific targets, but now in the third century, this tactic was no longer useful. Smaller military detachments replaced old Roman legions, while rapid and mobile cavalry increased. Furthermore, war used to be mostly conducted outside of the empire, which allowed plunder retrieved from other states to pay for campaigns, resulting in a net gain in profit for the Roman empire. However, in the third century, battles were increasingly being fought on Roman territory so any plunder retrieved would have been originally taken from Roman provinces. This meant that the imperial government was effectively taking money back from itself, breaking even at best, but almost always incurring a loss due to military costs. Furthermore, more resources were allocated to paying military personnel. The military budget increased when Commodus, Marcus Aurelius’ successor, and Pertinax were murdered by the Praetorian Guard in short succession in 192. After a power struggle, Septimius Severus became the next emperor. According to contemporary historian Cassius Dio, he pledged to “enrich the soldiers and scorn the rest” in order to secure the military’s support. To do this, Septimius himself and his son Caracalla increased both the base pay of soldiers and special occasion cash bonuses.
With the rising cost of war, the empire suffered from the senate’s inability to make long-lasting economic plans and to reform the inefficient tax system. Because the wealthy were able to avoid taxes through bribes and loopholes, most taxes fell on those who could not afford them. Therefore, to finance Rome’s expenses, the government relied on a variety of unpopular and short-term solutions. One of these was confiscation, where supporters of the losing side in the numerous civil wars of the time would have their property taken. The empire would also commandeer resources from its citizens to feed and billet its army. The last solution was to begin taxing “in kind,” or taxing in terms of goods and services to bypass the rapidly decreasing value of the currency.
The decreasing value of the currency was caused by the practice of debasement of Rome’s coinage. This practice was initiated by Emperor Nero (54-68) and was used infrequently by successive emperors, affecting silver coinage the most. However, from the reign of Caracalla in 198 onward, Roman emperors adopted a large-scale policy of debasement. For example, Caracalla lowered the gold coin’s weight to 50 to the pound, meaning that 50 gold coins weighed one pound, and lowered the value of silver coinage too. In 215, he introduced a new silver coin called the antoninianus, which was tariffed at the artificially high price of two denarii. In 238, this coin became the main silver coin, but it remained heavily debased. Under Gallienus, the coin was just 1.5% silver and was otherwise made up of less valued metals. All of these factors led to the collapse of Rome’s currency and extreme inflation by the end of the third century. For example, Diocletian’s edict on maximum prices in 301 shows that the price of wheat was two hundred times more than its price during the second century. Ironically, this debasement affected the government the most, since the daily lives of Romans were not very monetized. However, taxation and administrative costs like paying officials and the army became much harder. These factors led to the erosion of Rome’s administration and to political instability.
While other emperors focused almost exclusively on military matters, Aurelian was unique in his attempts to fix various Roman administrative systems, especially the problems with Rome’s depreciating currency and the urban food dole—the distribution of free food to poor Roman citizens. In order to resolve these problems, Aurelian had to first curb internal corruption in his own administration.
After a close Germanic invasion in 271 CE, the Roman mint began issuing extremely debased coinage. The corruption, so extreme that it was probably a form of sedition, was spearheaded by Felicissimus, who was Rome’s chief finance minister. After inciting the mint workers to revolt, he was immediately killed. However, his death did not end the turmoil that was to come. Tensions were already high in Rome, especially due to the Germanic scare, but also because the Palmyrene Empire—a semi-independent state in the process of seceding from the Roman Empire—was disrupting the grain supply from Egypt. The situation quickly turned into a deadly riot in Rome, which was further incited by a number of senators who disliked Aurelian. By the time Aurelian returned to Rome, the mob and urban cohorts had already fought a bloody battle. Aurelian restored order and executed those in charge, “even [killing] some senators of noble birth,” according to the author of the Historia Augusta. After closing down the Roman mint, Aurelian hired a new and competent finance minister named Gaius Valarius Sabinus, who was likely responsible for carrying out many of Aurelian’s monetary reforms.
In response to the riots, Aurelian’s administration initiated a minor coinage reform. There was a slight improvement to the weight of the silver coin and in the control and quality of minting. Finally, Aurelian moved the center of minting to Milan and opened two new mints in the Balkans before he left to fight Germanic tribes. In this way, Aurelian took back control of the empire’s mints and paved the way for more lasting change in the restoration of Roman coinage.
Aurelian then took stronger measures to reform the coinage system in the last two years of his reign. In late 273, Aurelian prioritized reforming the currency. He recalled old coinage and replaced it with new coinage that was heavier in weight and more controlled. The only literary evidence for this comes in Zosimus’ New History, however there are substantial archaeological findings for the reform. Before, coins were minted between 86 and 98 to the pound, but they were now minted between 81 and 90 to the pound. A modern analysis of the silver content in recovered coins jumps from 3.49% before the reform to 4.1% after, which likely signified a percentage of 5% silver when the post-reform coins were still in mint condition. Furthermore, gold coins that used to be minted at 60 to the pound were now at 50 to the pound, restoring them to values from the time of Caracalla. Finally, Aurelian reintroduced bronze coinage after the silver reform since the old debased silver had previously filled the role of base-metal currency.
Aurelian also sought to secure and standardize the mint system. Traditionally, minting was concentrated in Rome. Coins that paid troops and spread the emperor’s legitimacy had to be transported long distances. With the rising threats of Germanic invasion and mutiny though, it became better to have mints closer to the front lines. In 253, Emperors Valerian and Gallienus inherited the mints at Alexandria, Rome, Viminacium, and Antioch. Eight different mints were used in total during their reigns, with only four or five ever used at once. The new mints used were at Trier, Milan, Siscia, and one either in Cyzicus or Ephesus. Trier fell to a usurper in 260, so Claudius, successor to Gallienus, only inherited Rome, Milan, Siscia, Antioch, and the mint at either Cyzicus or Ephesus.
In contrast to past emperors, Aurelian used a total of twelve mints over the course of his reign, though no more than eight were ever in use at a time. Because foreign invasions in the Levant took Antioch and Alexandria in 270, Aurelian started with only four mints: Rome, Milan, Siscia, and Cyzicus/Ephesus. The latter two were the first mints to work for Aurelian after briefly serving Quintillus, and Siscia initially was his most important mint. By the end of his reign, the mint at Siscia was the second most important, minting a quarter of all his coins. Milan eventually became Aurelian’s most important mint, until 274 when it was transferred to Ticinum. After the Roman mint was closed because of the Rome riots, it reopened in 273 at a reduced level. Aurelian recaptured the mint at Alexandria in 272 and the mint at Antioch in 273 as well. After reuniting the empire, Aurelian gained control of Trier and soon closed it. Aurelian also set up five new mints during his reign, one at Serdica and one at Byzantium in 271, one at Tripolis in 273, and one at Ticinum and one at Lyon in 274. Even though Aurelian expanded the number of mints, he did not sacrifice quality for quantity. Aurelian exercised much tighter control over his mints than his predecessors, ensuring the standardization of weight, silver content, and issues. In fact, the uniformity of his coins has made it challenging for historians trying to determine which mints his coins came from.
Aurelian also reformed the urban food dole. It had been a long time since the city of Rome was able to fully satisfy its food needs solely through Italian farming only. Instead, Rome relied heavily on imported grain from Egypt. Some of this grain was distributed for free in Rome to poorer land-owning men. The rest was milled and sold to bakers who would sell their bread at highly controlled prices. Aurelian increased the frequency of the food dole to now be given every day, and added two free pounds of bread. He also used state money to subsidize bakers to sell their price-controlled bread with an extra ounce. Furthermore, he increased the distribution of oil, salt, and pork, which had not been common before his reign. Lastly, he sold government-owned wine at a low price. These public works and services were mainly to prevent future Roman riots, because Aurelian believed that Rome still mattered symbolically and another Roman riot would jeopardize his rule.
Although Aurelian’s quality-of-life reforms were highly successful, his monetary reforms were only somewhat effective. The new coinage was less useful since it was worth too much, while old debased coins and counterfeits could still be used for everyday small change. Even if financial stability was not restored though, there was not much more Aurelian could have done considering the many military matters he had to deal with. Moreover, the monetary reforms Aurelian accomplished were still impressive. Coin issues were tightly controlled by Sabinus, who was highly capable and worked exactly as Aurelian wanted him to. The quality of coins was highly standardized and the mints themselves heavily regulated.