Could One Senator Have Saved the Roman Empire? - The Pax Romana Podcast 071

Cassius Dio, a Roman historian and senator, seems to have foreseen the tumultuous times the Roman Empire was about to experience in the Crisis of the Third Century. His proposed reforms come to us through the lens of his famous debate between Agrippa and Maecenas in his epic history of Rome. Dio envisioned a stable, centralized Roman Empire, including a professional standing army, fiscal responsibility and a nuanced balance of power between the Senate and the Emperor. I analyze these prescient warnings and discuss the extent to which they might have been successful.