https://ancientrome.org/tags/third-century-crisis/ Recent content in Third-Century Crisis on Ancient Rome Hugo en-us Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://ancientrome.org/the-badminton-sarcophagus-was-carved-while-the-roman-empire-was-coming-apart/ Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://ancientrome.org/the-badminton-sarcophagus-was-carved-while-the-roman-empire-was-coming-apart/ <p>Forty human and animal figures, cut in high relief across seven feet of marble, with Dionysos riding a panther at the centre and the four Seasons standing around him as broad-shouldered young men rather than the women Roman art usually used for the job. One rounded end holds Mother Earth reclining with her attendants. The other has a river god and a pair of winged figures. Small Bacchic hangers-on fill every gap between the large figures, carved at reduced scale so the composition never breathes.</p> https://ancientrome.org/how-much-silver-was-in-a-roman-denarius-debasement-tables-from-augustus-to-diocletian/ Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://ancientrome.org/how-much-silver-was-in-a-roman-denarius-debasement-tables-from-augustus-to-diocletian/ <p>An Augustan denarius held about 3.8 grams of silver. An antoninianus of Claudius II, struck about 290 years later and tariffed at two denarii, held about six hundredths of a gram. The face value stayed put. Almost everything else went.</p> <p>Nobody sat down and decided to wreck the Roman currency. It happened in small steps, most of them defensible in their year, and then all at once in the 260s. The numbers below track how.</p>