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Eastern Hemisphere at the beginning of the 2nd century AD.
Map of the world in AD 250.
Eastern Hemisphere at the end of the 3rd century AD.
The 3rd century is the period from 201 to 300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era.
[edit] Overview
After the death of Commodus in the previous century the Roman Empire was plunged into a civil war. When the dust settled, Septimius Severus emerged as emperor, establishing the Severan dynasty. Unlike previous emperors, he openly used the army to back his authority, and paid them well to do so. The regime he created is known as the Military Monarchy as a result. The system fell apart in the 230s, giving way to a fifty-year period known as the Military Anarchy or the Crisis of the 3rd Century, where no fewer than twenty emperors held the reins of power, most for only a few months. The majority of these men were assassinated, or killed in battle, and the empire almost collapsed under the weight of the political upheaval, as well as the growing Persian threat in the east. Under its new Sassanid rulers, Persia had grown into a rival superpower, and the Romans would have to make drastic reforms in order to better prepare their state for a confrontation. These reforms were finally realized late in the century under the reign of Diocletian, one of them being to divide the empire into an eastern and western half, and have a separate ruler for each.
[edit] Events
The Baths of Caracalla, in 2003
[edit] Significant persons
- Clement of Alexandria
- Diocletian, Roman emperor
- Diophantus of Alexandria, wrote Arithmetica
- Hippolytus, considered first Antipope
- Liu Hui, Chinese mathematician
- Mani (prophet), founder of Manichaeism
- Origen
- Pappus of Alexandria, Greek mathematician
- Plotinus, founder of Neoplatonism
- Tertullian, sometimes called father of Latin church
- Wang Pi, Taoist
- M. Sattonius Iucundus, restorer of the Thermae in Heerlen
- Zhuge Liang, known as the greatest strategist during the period of the Three Kingdoms
- Liu Bei, founding emperor of the Kingdom of Shu
- Cao Cao, founding emperor of the Kingdom of Wei
[edit] Inventions, discoveries, introductions
[edit] Decades and years
