Future historians may call this the ‘Crisis of the 21st Century’

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    by Simon Black, Sovereign Man:

    In the year 210 AD, after two decades of constant warfare, Roman Emperor Septimius Severus was finally satisfied: he had conquered nearly the entire known western world.

    This was the year that the Roman Empire reached its maximum territory– approximately 5 million square kilometers, stretching from Morocco to Georgia, from southern Scotland to western Iran.

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    Plus Rome controlled absolutely everything in and around the Mediterranean. They controlled the Black Sea. They controlled the Nile and Danube Rivers. They controlled the Silk Road.

    In short, Rome controlled virtually every known trade route in the world, and this gave them extraordinary economic power.

    But it came at great cost: It’s expensive to wage war. It’s even more expensive to maintain a huge empire.

    And in order to pay for it all, Septimius Severus resorted to heavily debasing the Roman currency. The purity of the denarius silver coin plunged from 83.5% down to just 55% during his rule.

    Severus died the following year in 211, at which point his son Caracalla became emperor after murdering his own brother.

    Caracalla was legendary for his cruelty, brutality, and poor decisions. He executed many of Rome’s most productive citizens, doubled tax rates, and debased the currency even further.

    Caracalla was eventually slain by one of his own soldiers. But Rome’s string of bloodthirsty, maniacal emperors was just getting started.

    By 218 AD, for example, the new Emperor Elagabalus completely ignored the duties of his office because he was so obsessed with his own sexuality.

    Elagabalus reportedly offered to give away half of the Roman Empire as payment to any surgeon who could turn him into a woman, and he used to regularly prostitute himself at local brothels around Rome.

    He too, was assassinated.

    In fact political assassinations were becoming so commonplace in Rome that it was almost remarkable when an emperor died of natural causes.

    In 238 AD, for example, Rome had SIX different emperors in a single year, with each plotting the murder of his predecessor.

    Throughout the entire third century, in fact, Rome had a total of 35 different emperors. Only one is certain to have died of natural causes. Most were murdered by rivals.

    By mid-century, Rome was in full-blown crisis. In fact historians today actually call this period the “Crisis of the Third Century”.

    The political turmoil caused deep distrust in institutions; the Emperors themselves were typically corrupt, depraved, incompetent, or all of the above, and Romans lost all confidence in their government.

    Moreover, the currency had been debased so severely that inflation was rampant across the empire.

    The government was routinely failing to secure its borders, and various foreign tribes began flooding into Roman territory, causing severe disruptions to trade and agricultural production.

    Rising powers in the region– namely the Kingdom of Alemannia– even began conducting raids in the Empire and directly engaging the Roman military. Rome suffered a number of embarrassing military defeats, shattering its reputation as a strong, invincible superpower.

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