Renewal without Decline: The Antonines and Severans

Abstract

Abstract The political stability of the Antonine dynasty saw emperors and the authors describing their reigns both move away from claims that problems in the empire had been caused by imperial predecessors. What emerged instead under the emperor Hadrian was a focus on restorations of the empire without blaming previous emperors for causing Rome to decline, a way of describing change that Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius followed. The Severan dynasty did as well, especially after Septimius Severus manufactured connections to his Antonine imperial predecessors in order to create the illusion of political continuity. This illusion of prosperous continuity gives the misleading impression of a thriving empire. Instead, for much of the later second century, Romans suffered from maladies as diverse as barbarian invasions and the deadly Antonine Plague. As conditions deteriorated under Alexander Severus, however, authors like Cassius Dio and, later, Herodian again return to the old way of speaking about Roman decline.