The Crisis of the Third Century was a period of extreme instability in which 26 emperors were murdered in 50 years amid nonstop civil war, hyperinflation, economic collapse, and plague.
The hosts open by cataloguing the chaos of the third century — near-annual imperial murders, civil wars, hyperinflation, and a devastating plague — as a defining trauma of Roman history. ✦ AI generated
Anthony Kaldellis · Lex Fridman · 2026-06-30 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 0:00
26 emperors were murdered in a period of 50 years... It's tremendous instability... 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.
verbatim transcript · starts at 0:00
0:00- We're talking about a society that was right in the middle of one of the main corridors of empire building and new religions in the world. This is the most dangerous neighborhood that you can possibly live in. - 26 emperors were murdered in a period of 50 years. - Yes. It's tremendous instability. - 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,
0:31plus there's a plague. There's just a lot of chaos. - Here's why I don't think the Eastern Roman Empire is a military dictatorship. Even though, again, the emperors control the armies, and the armies themselves will often have a say in, Who becomes emperor, like through the civil wars that we mentioned. The reason why I don't think it's a military dictatorship is because they almost never, very, very, very rarely use the army as an instrument of social
1:03control. Sometimes these eunuchs were extremely competent like Narses, Justinian's general, who defeated the Goths in Italy in this massive battle. Like, this guy was a total hardass. And he's this little old man. He was- he was very old, and he was tiny, and he was a eunuch, and the Goths laughed at him, but he had the last laugh. - The following is a conversation with Anthony Kaldellis, a
1:28historian of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire. This is a Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, where you can also find links to contact me, ask questions, give feedback, and so on. And now, dear friends, here's Anthony Kaldellis. You've described that the Byzantine Empire is the Roman Empire, that calling it the Byzantine Empire is an invention of
1:59historians writing long after the empire has collapsed, that the people of that time considered themselves Romans, and that the so-called Byzantine Empire never actually existed, that it was, in every legal and cultural sense, the Roman Empire continuing unbroken. So let's get our terms right in the grand historical context. What is the Byzantine Empire, and why should we just call it the Roman Empire? - So Lex, the burden of proof is on those who would assert that what we've been