3rd century Totally Explained

Everything about The 3rd Century totally explained

The 3rd century is the period from 201 to 300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era.

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 Third 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.

Events

208: the Chinese naval Battle of Red Cliffs occurs
212: Constitutio Antoniniana grants citizenship to all free Roman men
212–216: Baths of Caracalla
220: The Han Dynasty comes to an end with establish of the Wei Dynasty.
230–232: Sassanid dynasty of Persia launches a war to reconquer lost lands in the Roman east
235–284: Crisis of the Third Century shakes Roman Empire
250–538: Kofun era, the first part of the Yamato period in Japan
258: Valerian's Massacre of Christians
260: Roman Emperor Valerian I is taken captive by Shapur I of Persia
184–280: Period of the Three Kingdoms in China
280–420: Jin Dynasty (265-420) of China
Sarnath becomes a center of Buddhist arts in India
Diffusion of maize as a food crop from Mexico into North America begins
The Kingdom of Funan reaches its zenith under the rule of Fan Shih-man
The Goths move from Gothiscandza to Ukraine, giving birth to the Chernyakhov culture

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

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

A primitive form of glasses were developed for a nearsighted princess in Syria.

The South Pointing Chariot invented by Ma Jun, a wheeled mechanical device that acts as a directional compass

Decades and years

Further Information

Get more info on '3rd Century'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://3rd_century.totallyexplained.com">3rd century Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.