In the 3rd-century Crisis, 26 emperors were murdered in 50 years, with civil war effectively the norm alongside hyperinflation, economic collapse, and plague, making it a period of tremendous political instability.
The hosts and Kaldellis describe the Crisis of the Third Century as a perfect storm of assassinated emperors, nonstop civil wars, hyperinflation, and plague that nearly tore the empire apart. ✦ AI generated
Lex Fridman · Lex Fridman · 2026-06-30 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 57:33
“Let's talk about the crisis of the third century, where 26 emperors were murdered in a period of 50 years.”
So there's civil wars nonstop. Almost all were, of these emperors were generals, and almost all were murdered by their men. So civil war was the norm, hyperinflation, economic crash, plus there's a plague, from 249 to 262 AD, which is a pandemic, possibly smallpox or Ebola.
verbatim transcript · starts at 57:33
57:33- So there's civil wars nonstop. Almost all were, of these emperors were generals, and almost all were murdered by their men. So civil war was the norm, hyperinflation, economic crash, plus there's a plague- ... from 249 to 262 AD, which is a pandemic, possibly smallpox or Ebola. It killed up to 5,000 people a day in Rome alone, devastating the tax base and army recruitment pool. And the empire
58:07fractured into three pieces, but then Emperor, Aurelian miraculously reconquered them in a period of five years. So just a lot of chaos. It deserves the name, the Crisis of the Third Century. - Yeah, it's a perfect storm. Yeah, I mean, you have a crisis of imperial legitimacy. Basically, the army's proclaiming emperors left and right. In an odd sense, ironically, this is in part because there are now a lot more
58:33stakeholders in the Roman tradition, right? There's all of these provincial armies, and they're appointing their generals as rival emperors. But you also have a serious uptick in foreign invasions. In the north, you have the creation of the Sasanian Persian or Iranian Empire in the east, and this was very, very bellicose. So lots of foreign defeats. Armies are defeated by you know, like, quote, "barbarian enemies." You have eventually
59:03inflation, and you have plague. And so under the pressure, right, of all of those forces, it almost fell apart. Now, it didn't actually. Inevitably, there are also historians who downplay the crisis. Of course, right, like, and legitimately so, right? We must push back against every of these characterizations. - 26 emperors died, bro. What do you- - That's just the emperors. That's just the emperors. We should be
59:29- I'm sorry. In 50 years. - Yeah. - Every other year, emperor dead. - Yeah, that's- - Civil war - ... that's political instability at the top, right? But what- - Right, that's not- - ... what are the l- the lives of most people? - Sure. - So if you go to Egypt, for example, which is kind of out of the... Right? What's going on there? How are people living there? And we can see how people are living in Egypt