Original subtitles

Previously on "Rome: Rise and fall of an empire"

In 160 A.D., Rome stands supreme,

the lone superpower of the world,

but peace and prosperity lull the empire into a dangerous complacency.

When Rome's enemies sense its weakness,

emperor Marcus Aurelius rallies the empire to fight for its very survival.

Now :

In the 3rd century, A.D.,

as the Roman empire struggles against foreign invasions and the growing power of christianity,

one emperor emerges from the chaos.

His name is Decius, a leader who calls upon brutal warfare and ancient pagan gods

to deliver Rome from the powerful forces tearing it apart.

ROME RISE AND FALL OF AN EMPIRE

WRATH OF THE GODS

By the middle of the 3rd century A.D., Rome has fallen into a full-blown crisis.

Barbarians prey upon the weakening borderlands, and civil war breaks out across the empire.

It was a dangerous time and it was a really tension-filled time because the romans didn't know

how they were going to organize their government

to provide them the safety and prosperity

that they'd grown accustomed to over the past 200 years of Roman peace.

Desperate for answers, many Roman citizens look to their ancient pagan gods

to deliver them from the perils of war,

but others find solace in a radical new religion, christianity.

Christianity in the middle of the 3rd century

is the most rapidly expanding religious movement in the Roman empire.

There's still not a lot of christians.

I mean, let's not think in terms of more than a few hundred thousand,

but it's a religion which is getting more visible.

New believers wash away their old pagan gods through an act described in a 2nd century catechism:

"Baptize in living water,

but if thou hast not living water, then baptize in other water;

And if thou are not able in cold, then in warm.

In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit."

In this ritual of purification, romans are born anew as christians.

Believing in only one true god, they reject the empire's traditional pagan religion.

Christians are still trying to figure out how they are going to live successfully and faithfully

in a world where they are still a small minority

and the majority of the citizens of the empire are not christians

and indeed are believers in traditional Roman religion with its many gods and goddesses.

As outsiders, christians must rely on the goodwill of the Roman emperor for protection.

In 248 A.D., Rome's emperor Philip is one of the most tolerant,

giving an audience to many local Christian leaders in his imperial palace.

Philip was not a great traditionalist.

He seems to have been open to discussion with a wide variety of different people, including christians.

He wasn't a Christian himself. That much is very clear.

Though Philip may take a genuine interest in this new religion,

his trusted general, Decius, a resolute pagan, disapproves.

The most important thing to realize about Decius is that he's extremely traditional.

He's very dedicated to a sort of almost mythical view of Roman values,

and what that means, of course,

is that things that can be perceived as un-Roman are looked at as dangerous by Decius.

Decius fears Philip's Christian sympathies will anger the pagan gods,

worsening the crisis already enveloping the empire end to end.

In Syria and Germania, Roman soldiers launch mutinies, and in Moesia, modern-day Bulgaria and Serbia,

a vicious new tribe of barbarians, the goths, have crossed the Danube into the empire itself.

This is no time to anger the gods.

As the goths pour into Roman territory,

the imperial forces, led by commander Marinus Pacatianus,

must defend the empire against his new and savage enemy.

The intentions of the goths perhaps were well-known to the romans,

but the extent of their strength and the duration of their attack is something the romans couldn't have anticipated,

and the degree and the depth to which they penetrate into Roman territory

also is something that romans probably wouldn't have imagined, as well.

We don't know very much about the goths in this period.

What we do know is that the region north of the Danube

became the launching post for hit-and-run raids into the Roman empire.

Pacatianus is able to hold the goths back and, for the time being, secure the empire's frontier.

The romans at this point were as powerful as a military force as they had ever been,

and they were certainly more than prepared to square off against these barbarian peoples.

But in their crude camp, the soldiers grow tired of taking orders from a distant ruler.

Instead, they choose their commander, Pacatianus, to replace emperor Philip in Rome.

Pacatianus has now become the most dreaded political player, a usurper.

A usurper, that is to say a man who could become emperor through unofficial channels,

would gain the throne by getting the support of the army.

The support of the army in the end was what made and unmade emperors.

The Roman senate was supposed to give legitimacy to an emperor by recognizing his right to rule,

but without the support of the soldiers, no emperor was going to last.

As a usurper, Pacatianus is confident that the support of the military

will allow him to lead his legions to Rome and take the throne himself.

Back in Rome after learning of the rebellion on the Danube,

a desperate emperor Philip seeks guidance from his general Decius.

Philip senses that not only is his military support eroding, but also his position in Rome is likely to erode,

and he knows that this is a revolt that he has to deal with personally

and he has to deal with quickly.

When Philip confronts the senate and asks them what they would advise him to do about this revolt,

most of them are too scared to say anything, but Decius actually speaks up and says,

"let the thing collapse under its own weight."

From the Danube region himself, Decius tries to instill confidence in Philip but in vain.

The emperor has good reason to be concerned.

Phillip would have been particularly worried about Pacatianus

because Pacatianus was commanding soldiers to the north

in the region of the Danube river where you could expect to find the toughest,

most battle-hardened soldiers and the best commanders.

So Phillip knew that Pacatianus was a real military threat to Phillip's political position.

Trusting his general, Decius, completely,

emperor Philip sends him from Rome across the alps to Moesia to quell Pacatianus' revolt.

But even before Decius arrives in Moesia, mutiny breaks out among the soldiers of Pacatianus' camp.

The region where Pacatianus had gained his support was under real pressure of attack from barbarians.

Pacatianus hadn't been successful in keeping the barbarian attackers

from ravaging the region where his army was from.

Pacatianus' army wanted to win.

Pacatianus is a relatively middling character.

One source actually tells us that Pacatianus wasn't even a very high-ranking military official.

Pacatianus is done in.

He's killed by his soldiers, and that's the end of the little incident.

On his mission to Moesia, general Decius brings his son, Herennius, a young soldier in the Roman army,

But when Decius arrives, he finds a camp without a leader and soon learns of Pacatianus' fate.

Pacatianus' men got rid of him, I suspect, because they heard that Decius was coming to take care of things,

and Decius was from that part of the Roman empire.

He would have been known as a tough, capable, local guy.

Decius' claim was that once he had arrived in the Balkans,

Pacatianus was overthrown by his own soldiers, who had then attached themselves to the cause of Decius.

He was then left with a rebellious army that still didn't think that its demands were being met.

With Pacatianus murdered, general Decius relishes his new role as leader.

He and his son, Herrenius, attempt to restore order to the orphan army.

The mutinous soldiers have other plans for Decius.

There are very few ways in which an army can actually make its voice heard if it feels that it has grievances,

and the basic way that any army can do that is by mutinying, effectively, in these cases, going on strike.

Demanding a ruler more capable than Philip of protecting the Roman frontier,

the soldiers proclaim general Decius emperor.

This makes a lot of sense. He's from the region, generally speaking.

He's from the Balkans, and so he's sympathetic to the plight of armies along the Danube.

He also, I think, very much senses that when these troops proclaim him emperor, they're willing to fight for him.

They trust him, and he can help them pursue their agenda at court.

In an act of utter betrayal, Decius has become a usurper himself, cheered on by his son, Herennius.

Though Philip is an old friend, Decius sees no other way of returning Rome to its former glory

than wresting control of the empire with his own hands.

Emperor Philip dispatches his trusted general, Decius, to suppress a rebellious army in Moesia,

but it is Decius who launches a new revolt, as his soldiers proclaim him emperor.

In Rome, emperor Philip is enjoying his comfortable imperial life

and expects nothing from Decius but news of the rebellion's end.

When Philip learns that Decius has been made the new emperor

or has been proclaimed emperor by the danubian legions,

Philip has every reason to be very much afraid,

and so Philip has to understand that while Decius marches on Italy Philip has to go out and meet him.

He can't stay in the city of Rome and hope to retain his position.

Stung by the deepest betrayal, Philip must now prepare himself to face his former friend and ally.

He orders his legions to ready themselves for battle.

Philip and his troops ride north from Rome to Verona to confront Decius' army coming from Moesia through the Alps.

Emperor Philip and Decius meet in a bloody battle near the Alpine pass.

Once the armies on the Danube have declared him emperor,

Decius is in a very powerful position and marches into northern Italy.

Philip comes out to meet him. He has a very small army at his disposal.

He has the sort of basic strategic reserve of the empire,

a couple of legions in Italy, but he's heavily outnumbered.

6th century chronicler, Zosimus records the day:

"The supporters of Decius, though they knew that the enemy had the imperial forces,

still retained their confidence in Decius, trusting his great skill and prudence."

The battle would sort of hinge on who would give way first.

Morale was an incredibly important part of all ancient battles,

but especially at this time when there are fewer soldiers,

they're less well-trained, and frankly more susceptible to panic.

Panic was the real enemy in an ancient battle.

If your side lost its spirit, lost its cohesion, and turned to run, all was lost.

Soldiers who had panicked and were running away could be picked off at will without any danger to the enemy.

When the army is meeting in battle, Decius wins a very easy victory.

We don't have any precise details,

but we have a pretty good idea of what the difference would be in the forces on the two sides,

and we can see that Philip really didn't have a chance.

In the battle of Verona, emperor Philip himself is brutally slain and his army defeated.

Victorious, Philip's former general and confidante, Decius, is now eager to begin his reign as emperor of Rome.

Back in the capital, Decius and his son Herennius

are received by the members of the senate, who hail Decius as emperor.

He believes that in order to restore Rome's security, the empire must first uphold its traditional pagan values.

One of the things that Decius is very concerned with

is the health and the correctness of Roman worship, of imperial worship.

I think it's clearly the case that the crisis that the empire's facing,

the very large number of civil wars and the very large number of foreign wars,

makes a correct relationship with the gods important.

Ready to overcome the crises they experienced in Philip's reign,

the senate welcomes the stringent pagan rule of Decius, complete with ritual sacrifice.

The traditional religion of the romans, we call it paganism,

involved worshiping and honoring and respecting many gods and goddesses.

If the romans didn't show their respect by sacrificing the animals,

by really dealing in the blood and meat that literally brought life,

then the romans expected that the gods would abandon them.

For the empire, at risk for barbarian attacks on almost every border,

it seems that the gods have already abandoned them.

The 3rd century in Roman history is often referred to as a period of crisis,

and the period when Decius comes to power is just as that crisis is really coming to a head.

The situation on the frontiers is about as bad as it's ever been.

Barbarian goths continue to wreak havoc on the Roman borderlands,

depleting the once-powerful Roman armies.

In ancient battle, there was almost no visibility.

The noise was tremendous.

It was very important to stand one's ground because once the line was broken,

it was much harder to defend yourself and defend the person next to you,

and once the line was broken and your enemy started coming around to your side,

it was very easy for a massacre to start.

On the northern frontiers, for reasons that aren't entirely clear,

a number of peoples who had once been controlled, contained along the frontiers

are now attempting to move into the empire.

It is extremely dangerous for Rome.

If something isn't done, the borders of the empire will collapse completely.

To start, new pagan temples are commissioned by emperor Decius in Rome, hoping to appease the angry gods.

Naming his son, Herrenius, co-emperor, Decius sets out to impose their traditional values on the entire empire.

They will not tolerate christianity or any other deviation from pagan devotion.

The romans very much believed in the power of the past,

and that meant that when Decius decided to undertake major religious reform,

he simply looked back to the past.

"How have we always done things? We've always performed sacrifices.

I'll ask the people to perform a sacrifice."

In temples across the empire, all Roman citizens are required to follow emperor Decius' decree

and make public sacrifices to the gods of Rome.

The central activity of traditional Roman religion revolved around sacrifice,

which is after all involved with life and death in the most immediate and even brutal fashion.

You kill an animal, and you cook it in order to show your respect to the gods

and to literally share the stuff of life.

For romans, sacrifice was absolutely essential to ensuring what they called "our peace with the gods."

Emperor Decius demands that every Roman take part, regardless of religion.

What he did was insist that every single person make the sacrifice

and obtain a certificate that they had done so.

He was able to use the tax system,

the tax rolls to make sure that you could bring everybody in,

and you had to make the sacrifice in front of witnesses.

Anyone who does not submit documentation proving their sacrifice, risks imprisonment or even death.

This created terrible problems for christians

Do they simply do this, do they make the sacrifice, or do they refuse?

If they refuse, what is going to happen to them? They are violating a direct order from the emperor.

The citizens of Rome, Christian and pagan, await an uncertain future.

After Decius slays emperor Philip in battle,

he sets out to strengthen the troubled empire against the growing Christian population.

The pagan Decius and his son, Herennius,

begin by issuing strict orders compelling everyone to sacrifice.

Emperor Decius proclaims that all christians, on pain of torture and death,

must make sacrifices to the pagan gods, even though their faith forbids it.

Christians couldn't sacrifice to the traditional gods without forsaking their religion

and believing that they were doomed to eternal damnation.

Forced to obtain a certificate to prove their sacrifice,

christians face an impossible choice between their emperor and their religion.

How could they remain loyal subjects and also make sacrifice to what they regarded as demons?

Some christians find ways out of this.

We know of christians who paid bribes to obtain the certificate on sacrifice without actually having made the sacrifice.

We know that other christians did actually make the sacrifice.

They can only hope that their god will forgive such transgressions in these difficult times.

But not all christians comply with emperor Decius' decree.

In 250 A.D., Fabian, the bishop of Rome himself,

shows the people of Rome the earthly consequences of an unbending Christian faith.

It's quite possible Decius didn't understand that christians couldn't perform these sacrifices,

but in effect by requiring that everyone in the empire act religiously in the same way, christians are now excluded,

and the penalty that Decius set out for not performing these sacrifices is a severe penalty,

in some cases extending even to death.

4th century Christian chronicler Eusebius of Caesarea writes of the christians martyred during the 3rd century persecutions:

"I am struck with wonder at their all-enduring courage and the open profession of their faith,

how the martyrs were not cast down in their minds, but their eyes looked upwards, and they neither trembled nor feared."

3rd century christian chronicler Lactanius raves against the emperor.

Decius appeared in the world an accursed wild beast to afflict the church,

and who but a bad man would persecute religion?

As the religious fervor escalates,

many christians cannot find the same strength as the martyrs.

They choose instead to keep their heads down and try to stay alive.

But in 250 A.D., no one is safe from the scourge of angry gods, as a deadly, uncontrollable plague sweeps the empire.

We don't know that much about the plague from a medical perspective.

We don't know precisely which kind of plague it was, whether it was the bubonic plague or something else.

Not even the empire's most innocent are spared from the plague's blight.

The disease ravages the empire, at its height between 251 and 266 A.D.,

killing thousands a day in the city of Rome alone.

There were no really strong antibiotics.

There were some plants.

You know, even onions have a mild antibiotic effect,

but in the face of plagues, especially which could be viral, there was no defense.

You could be healthy one day and at death's door the next.

Even the emperor is powerless against such a virulent enemy.

I think Decius would have been distressed to find even after he tried to have this universal sacrifice

that things got even worse, especially when the plague hit subsequently.

You have bodies decomposing and pieces of bodies.

The city's littered with the dead.

The living are, of course, affected immensely by this,

and the living begin to wonder about their fate and the fate of the empire and ultimately the cause of such suffering.

Across the empire, christians fear for their safety

as pagan romans blame the outsiders for what they see as a divine punishment.

They looked for a scapegoat, naturally, and one of the scapegoats that they found was the christians,

and it's therefore likely that the plague played a role in initiating the desire for a persecution.

In a desperate form of retribution, the pagans hope the Christian blood will appease their angry gods.

The locals decided to turn upon the christians in their area,

and they literally slaughtered their next-door neighbors one by one,

systematically hunted them down, ferreted them out, put them on trial, and killed them.

The persecutions weaken many Christian communities throughout the empire.

Even the small Christian community of Ephesus in modern day Turkey bears witness to the violence.

13th century chronicler, Jacobus de Voragine records:

"When Decius, the emperor, came into Ephesus, he sought out the christians,

commanding them to make sacrifice or to be put the death."

Upon finding seven Christian men who refuse his edict,

Decius orders a cruel punishment depicted in both Christian and islamic medieval manuscripts.

Decius enclosed them in a cave sealed with stones,

so that they should die within its walls out of hunger, for lack of food.

The legend has the 7 martyrs sleeping in the cave for 208 years, only waking when a Christian emperor rules over Rome.

Many of the empire's christians flee to the wilderness, hoping to avoid persecution.

There were important figures who tried to escape martyrdom by fleeing, and this was not necessarily frowned on by the church.

The church did not encourage people actively to seek martyrdom.

If you wished to preserve your church community and preserve your own life,

it was acceptable for you to try to run out into the countryside.

The most unfortunate of the refugees are left vulnerable to attack by the scavenging barbarians tribes,

who prey upon those along the weak borders of the empire.

The Roman empire had no police force.

When you left your community, you literally didn't have any kind of automatic protection.

There was no 911 to call in the Roman empire if you were attacked,

so christians suffered miserably, I'm sure, when they had to flee the centers in order to avoid sacrificing.

The 4th century Christian chronicler Eusebius of Caesarea recounts the journey of a fleeing Christian:

One man fled with his wife to the mountains never to return,

and though the Christian brethren searched diligently,

they could not find either them or their bodies,

and many who fled to the same mountain were carried into slavery by the barbarians.

The empire appears even more chaotic now than when the hopeful Decius was crowned.

First angry gods, then plague, and now barbarians are about to threaten the future of the civilized world.

Emperor Decius struggles as the empire's defenses are weakened by civil unrest and plague,

allowing invading barbarians to threaten Rome's borderlands.

In 250 A.D., the barbarian goths again cross the Danube into the imperial province of Moesia.

The goths are now led by the mighty chieftain Cniva, who enjoys the security of a loyal tribe.

The way a man like Cniva would secure his position

was by rewarding his followers, by giving them a chance to get rich.

There was only so much wealth north of the river, north of the Danube.

South of the river where there are Roman cities,

there's an almost limitless supply of captives, of treasure, of coined money.

6th century chronicler Jordanes recounts the gothic king's plan to relieve the empire of its abundant wealth:

Cniva divided the army into two parts,

and while he stayed encamped with 70,000 men on the Danube,

he sent the other warriors to waste Moesia, knowing that it was undefended through the neglect of their emperor.

In the rural villages of Moesia, the Roman citizens have no warning before the sudden, violent attack of the goths.

This is a group that's very much devoted to plunder and probably also the seizing of captives,

so romans would have seen in this an incursion of a very large and well-organized group

very much determined to take whatever they could get their hands on

and destroy what they couldn't take with them.

One advantage that the goths have actually once they get within the empire

is that there's an excellent road system along the Danube,

which they know will lead them to the cities that they want to sack

so they can take the plunder back north of the river

and the chief will become a more famous and more powerful chief.

With the goths now raiding within the empire's borders,

they must be stopped at all costs before they reach the heart of Rome itself.

Emperor Decius quickly prepares for battle and takes no chances in planning his attack on the goths.

His oldest son, Herennius, will join him in Moesia, but his younger son, Hostilian, only a boy, will remain behind.

Hostilian is left in Rome with his mother.

The rationale for this I think is relatively clear.

If the situation in Rome requires an imperial presence, Hostilian can represent the principate there,

but it's a way of trying to divide the imperial presence and secure Decius' authority throughout the empire.

If Decius and Herennius fail to survive their mission,

the entire weight of the Roman empire will fall on the shoulders of young Hostilian.

Emperor Decius and Herennius travel from Rome eastward,

to face Cniva and the goths at Nicopolis ad Istrum on the Danube river in Moesia.

Outside Nicopolis, the gothic king Cniva and his barbarian warriors prepare to besiege the Roman city.

Cniva is clearly a very able character on a tactical level,

but he doesn't have a strategic plan rather than to sort of smash, grab and return,

which is what the tribes see Rome as being, a place to go steal cool stuff and bring it home.

Emperor Decius and Herennius intercept the goths just in time before they can reach Nicopolis.

When you're in ancient warfare in a battle between romans and barbarians,

you were face to face with the person you were trying fighting, you were face to face to kill,

and the battles often didn't last very long for the simple reason that it was very tiring.

It was very tiring, and after the initial impact, people wore out very quickly.

6th century chronicler Jordanes describes Cniva's defeat:

"When the emperor Decius drew near, Cniva, with his army, still in good shape,

at last withdrew to the Haemus mountains of the Balkans, which were not far distant."

But the persistent goths do not continue their retreat and instead move south into the Thracian city of Philippopolis.

The goths terrorize the lands surrounding Philippopolis,

brutally abducting the Roman women to be sold into slavery.

The goths that erupt are a very well-organized force.

Their king doesn't command a small war band.

It seems that he commands a relatively large army of thousands,

and this makes him different from previous germanic invaders in the Danube region,

so this is going to be a moment of profound fear.

Cniva managed to besiege Philippopolis and eventually take it in ruthless fashion.

He did this and killed, according to one source, as many as 100,000 people in the process.

But despite his campaign, Cniva finds an unlikely ally inside the city walls.

Titus Julius Priscus, an ambitious Roman governor who would prefer to be emperor.

Cniva lures Priscus into making a traitorous pact.

He allows Cniva into Philippopolis in exchange for barbarian support against a shared enemy, emperor Decius.

Both Priscus and Cniva had the goal of bringing down the Roman emperor,

Priscus from the inside, Cniva from the outside.

And so Priscus made a secret dirty deal saying:

"Look.

I'll surrender our people to you if you'll promise to get rid of the ones who'd support the emperor instead of me,"

and Cniva said: "that's a deal."

The two leaders seal the deal with a common act for both barbarian and Roman.

Priscus and Cniva would have had a formal ceremony in which they swore before the gods, over a sacrifice,

pouring a libation of wine to the gods

to show each other that their faith was guaranteed by divine sanction.

In this case, Cniva was lying.

Priscus will learn soon enough it's all a ruse.

The goths take what they need, supplies and captives, and brutally dispose of what's left.

Emperor Decius has driven the goths back.

But in 250 A.D., their king, Cniva, tricks a Roman governor into surrendering his city,

provoking a face-off with Decius and his imperial army.

After the goths plunder and desert Philippopolis,

emperor Decius pursues the fleeing king Cniva northward to Abrittus in Roman Moesia.

In their camp outside Abrittus, Decius, his son Herrenius,

and their legion's priest turn to the only force they know will guarantee victory, their beloved pagan gods.

Decius knew that this was going to be the struggle of his life.

So Decius did what he was supposed to do to win the favor of the gods.

He sacrificed, and with the smoke rising to the heavens as far as the eye could see on and around the alters,

then no one could doubt that Decius had done absolutely the maximum to try to win this titanic struggle.

6th century chronicler Jordanes remembers the sacred place of worship outside the modern Bulgarian city of Razgrad:

"To this day, that place is still called the altar of Decius,

because there he had offered amazing sacrifices to idols before the battle."

If Decius is going to bring stability to Rome, he must push the goths back across the Danube river for good.

Finally, in 251 A.D., Decius' army confronts the gothic forces at the battle of Abrittus.

The terrain is wet and difficult for the highly organized Roman army,

who falter against their barbarian enemy.

I think Decius really thought that he was going to finish off Cniva finally,

but instead, Cniva was able to surprise him with a number of troops that he had who were hidden in these marshes

and then also to outmaneuver him on a type of battlefield that just didn't work well for Roman fighters.

The gothic forces soon overpower Decius' army.

The 6th century chronicler Jordanes recounts the emperor's greatest loss

"In the battle that followed, the goths quickly pierced Herennius, the son of Decius, with an arrow and cruelly slew him."

When his son, Herennius Etruscus, takes an arrow and is dying on the battlefield, Decius doesn't break down.

Instead, he proclaims,

"Let no one be afraid. The loss of one soldier is no diminution to the state,"

as if he didn't care, as if it didn't matter to him at all.

Decius dismounts his horse and furiously charges into battle,

but this time, his pagan gods cannot save him, according to 6th century byzantine scholar Zosimus:

"Decius and his army were so assailed by the missiles of the barbarians that not one of them escaped with his life."

Thus ended the life of the excellent emperor Decius."

Decius is the first emperor in Roman history to be killed by a barbarian army.

It's a moment where the Roman empire probably seems to its inhabitants to be beginning to careen out of control,

and the loss of an emperor, especially one who seems to be as effective as Decius,

in this sort of circumstance has profound implications.

It must contribute in a very significant way to a loss of a sense of security that the romans would feel.

Though some say that the emperor's body is never found,

the 4th century christian chronicler Lactanius describes Decius' ultimate end:

"Stripped and naked, he lay to be devoured by wild beasts and birds, a fit end for the enemy of god."

Back in Rome, the plague has taken the ultimate toll,

as Decius' heir, Hostilian, is struck with the disease not long after his father's death.

The death of an emperor and of his son were signs that the gods' favor had been lost.

Romans would have been filled with tension, wondering "how are we going to regain the lost divine favor?"

With emperor Decius and his sons' deaths, the crisis of the 3rd century only worsens.

Usurpers revolt in Gaul, barbarians continue to attack the empire's northern borders,

and to the east, territory is lost to foreign invaders, as well.

Yet christianity continues to grow, despite an increase in persecutions.

Decius' experiment with persecution was a failure.

In the decades that follow, there's only one other sustained attempt at persecution,

and then for more than 40 years, the Christian church is allowed to grow at its own pace.

Eventually, over 100 years later in 380 A.D.,

christianity becomes the official state religion of the Roman empire,

an apt reward for their faith and courage, according to 4th century chronicler Eusebius of Caesarea.

Anyone who examines the events of history

will find that all those who have acted on the side of the righteous and the just have tasted the sweet fruit of success.

Emperor Decius allowed religion to divide the empire,

turning Roman against Roman in a desperate time of violence and plague.

Without a unified front, Rome's borders are left open to the greatest and bloodiest of all enemies, the barbarians.

Next, on "Rome: Rise and fall of an empire"

Weakened by plague and barbarian attacks, the people of Rome live in constant fear.

More usurpers rise, further dividing the great empire against itself

until an emperor rises like no other. He is Aurelian, restorer of the world.