When I tell people I write novels set in the 3rd century AD, I often get puzzled looks. Why not Julius Caesar? Why not Augustus, or Constantine, or the fall of Rome in the 5th century? Those names are familiar, dramatic, and already beloved by readers. So why Gallienus? Why the messy, violent, half-forgotten middle of Rome’s story?
The answer is simple: the 3rd century spoke to me.
## An Age of Crisis — and Resilience
The Crisis of the Third Century was a time when the empire could have collapsed entirely. Emperors rose and fell with shocking speed, frontiers buckled under pressure, plagues and inflation drained the heart of the state. Yet Rome endured. Out of chaos came improvisation, reform, and resilience. That tension — collapse always looming, survival never guaranteed — makes for storytelling with real bite.
For me, Gallienus personifies that resilience. He’s not as polished as Augustus or as iconic as Constantine, but he ruled longer than most men dared to hope, and he fought to keep the empire alive when almost everything was against him.
## A Forgotten Emperor with a Voice Waiting to Be Heard
Gallienus’ obscurity was part of the draw. Writing about Caesar or Augustus means wrestling with centuries of scholarship and expectation. Writing about Gallienus gives me room to explore, to imagine, to bring forward a voice that history muffled. Ancient sources, often hostile, dismissed him as frivolous or weak. But I see in those shadows the outlines of a man who deserves another chance — not to be glorified, but to be understood.
## Why This Era Resonates with Me
The more I immersed myself in this period, the more I saw reflections of our own world. Political instability, epidemics, fractured loyalties, uncertainty about the future — the 3rd century feels familiar in unsettling ways. By writing about Gallienus’ era, I’m not just recreating the past; I’m holding up a mirror to the present.
## The Writer’s Journey
Choosing this era has meant nights poring over coins, inscriptions, and half-hostile histories. It has meant imagining the lives of people who left no record but whose struggles echo across centuries. And it has meant giving myself the freedom to step into the silences of history, filling them with human voices, emotions, and choices.
## My Takeaway
I chose Gallienus’ era because it’s messy, human, and real. It’s not the triumphant Rome of golden ages or the tragic Rome of final collapse. It’s Rome in the middle — struggling, bleeding, enduring. That, to me, is the richest soil for storytelling.
## Reader’s Corner
What do you think — do we learn more from history’s “golden ages,” or from its times of crisis?
This article was developed with the assistance of ChatGPT, an AI language model by OpenAI
