When I wrote Perilous Privilege and Solitary Journey, set in the turbulent years of 3rd-century Rome, I was struck by how familiar that world sometimes feels. Rome’s so-called “Crisis of the Third Century” wasn’t just a series of dusty historical events—it was a period of upheaval, uncertainty, and transformation that in many ways mirrors what we see in the world today.
Let’s take a walk through history and notice the echoes.
Leadership in Question
In the 3rd century, Rome cycled through emperors at a dizzying pace. Assassinations, civil wars, and usurpations created a sense of instability, and people never knew who might be in charge next. Fast forward to our own time: while coups and assassinations aren’t the norm in most places, we are living through deep political divisions, declining trust in leadership, and governments struggling to balance authority with local and global needs. The mood of uncertainty is strikingly similar.
Economic Pressures
Roman coins became increasingly worthless as emperors debased the currency to pay for armies and administration. Inflation soared, trade faltered, and ordinary farmers and craftsmen bore the brunt. Sound familiar? Today, we’re dealing with inflation, rising debt, and widening gaps between rich and poor. While the tools are different—digital currencies, global markets—the human impact is much the same: people struggling to make ends meet in uncertain times.
Threats at the Borders
For Rome, external threats were constant—Goths, Persians, and other groups pressing in from every side. Border security was a never-ending concern. Today, the picture looks different but carries echoes: nations grapple with migration pressures, cyber-attacks, terrorism, and global conflict. Our “frontiers” may be digital as well as physical, but the feeling of vulnerability remains.
Disease and Disruption
The Plague of Cyprian in the mid-3rd century devastated the empire, emptying villages, crippling armies, and sowing despair. We hardly need a reminder of how a pandemic can upend life; COVID-19 showed us just how fragile our systems can be. In both cases, disease exposed not just weaknesses in public health, but fractures in social trust.
Identity in Flux
As Rome expanded, it absorbed peoples, cultures, and religions, leaving many Romans unsure of what it meant to be Roman. In our globalized world, questions of identity are everywhere: What does it mean to be American, European, or part of any national or cultural tradition in a time of rapid change? Rome wrestled with the same questions—though with different stakes.
What’s Different Now
Of course, our world isn’t Rome. We have technology that connects us instantly, institutions that (at least ideally) provide checks and balances, and a level of global interdependence that Rome never imagined. Where a crisis in one corner of the empire might take weeks to be felt in another, our world reacts in real time. That speed can both help us and hurt us.
We also enjoy rights and social mobility that most Romans could never dream of. While inequality remains a stubborn challenge, the average citizen today has more voice, choice, and opportunity than their Roman counterpart.
Lessons from the Past
So, what can the 3rd century teach us? That societies can endure enormous stress and change, but survival depends on adaptability, leadership, and unity. Rome weathered the storm—at least for a while—by reforming, reorganizing, and re-imagining what it meant to be Roman.
The same challenge lies before us today.
This article was developed with the assistance of ChatGPT, an AI language model by OpenAI.
