| Popis: |
The rhetoric of decline, which had largely disappeared from political life by the late Antonine period, came back in the middle third century as political instability prompted new emperors to discredit the final emperor of the dynasty that preceded them. The lack of long-lived dynasties between 235 and 285 meant that many new emperors and imperial pretenders emphasized how the failings of their predecessors had brought Rome to a crisis point. Each deployed the rhetoric of restoration; the separatist regime of Postumus did so to a great degree. The restorations these new emperors promised often claimed significant numbers of victims, ranging from the Christians persecuted by Decius and Valerian to the soldiers and civilians killed in Aurelian’s wars to reunify the empire in the 270s. Christians like Cyprian also used rhetoric of decline to speak about persecutions, though Cyprian focused on moral deterioration within the Christian community. |
