When I began researching the Crisis of the Third Century, I expected the usual: wars, emperors, invasions, plagues. And yes, those things filled the pages. But what really struck me were the surprises — the details and patterns that I hadn’t anticipated. They changed how I saw the period, and how I wrote about it.
## Surprise #1: How Fragmentary the Evidence Is
I thought there would be a clear, if complicated, narrative. Instead, I found gaping holes. Years vanish from the record. Emperors are mentioned once and disappear. Ancient historians contradict each other with abandon. It was frustrating — but also freeing. As a novelist, the gaps gave me space to imagine, to weave stories into the silence.
## Surprise #2: The Resilience of the Empire
I expected Rome to look like it was collapsing. And in some ways, it was. Provinces broke away, barbarian raids reached deep into imperial territory, and the economy reeled. But Rome didn’t die. Systems adapted. Local communities found ways to survive. Military reforms laid the groundwork for later stability. The empire bent under pressure but didn’t shatter. That resilience was astonishing.
## Surprise #3: The Human Cost
We often talk about emperors and battles, but what stunned me was the suffering of ordinary people. The Plague of Cyprian was devastating — descriptions of whole towns emptied, carts carrying out the dead, fear spreading faster than the disease. Inflation meant bread could cost hundreds of times what it had before. Families faced impossible choices: flee, fight, or starve. These human stories became the emotional core of my novels.
## Surprise #4: The Parallels with Today
The more I read, the more familiar it all felt. Political instability, pandemics, fractured loyalties, questions of leadership — it echoed the modern world in eerie ways. That connection made the history feel urgent, not just academic.
## Why the Surprises Matter
Researching history isn’t about confirming what you already know; it’s about discovering what you didn’t expect. Each surprise added depth to my storytelling, making Gallienus’ world feel more immediate, more human, and more alive.
## My Takeaway as a Writer
The surprises kept me humble — reminding me that history is never neat, and that the past still has the power to astonish us. They also fueled my writing, giving me twists, tensions, and textures that no outline could have planned.
## Reader’s Corner
When you’ve studied history — whether ancient or recent — have you ever been surprised by something that completely changed how you saw the past?
This article was developed with the assistance of ChatGPT, an AI language model by OpenAI
