Debasement & the Crisis of the Third Century

In a single chaotic half-century, Rome nearly came apart: more than twenty emperors seized the throne and were murdered in quick succession, the frontiers buckled, and to pay the soldiers the state shredded its own money — stripping the silver from the denarius until it was almost worthless and prices spiraled. It is the classic doom-loop of a state debasing its currency to plug a fiscal hole, the same move behind Weimar's wheelbarrows of cash and every modern anxiety about the printing press. Rome survived, barely — but never again as the confident empire it had been.