Nonetheless, the fundamental issue of whether there actually was a crisis is seldom raised (with the exception of Chausson’s rather general contribution), and a factual approach prevails, as does a transparent and accessible language. This chronological approach, as well as the quotation marks in the book’s very title, stand for a viewpoint which perceives far more transformation than collapse. The epoch under scrutiny is that “very long third century” from AD 161/180 to 337 which forms the starting point for most French scholarship today, rather than the more traditional interval of 192/235-284.
A few further mini-series inside the collection can be made out: on persecutors and Christian martyrs (Richard, Christol (2), Ménard), the notion of Rome’s eternity (Quet (2), Benoist), and Gallienus and his panegyrics throughout the empire (Scheid, Christol (1), Allard). Three main lines of approach serve to group the contributions: the changing expressions of imperial ideology, in the widest sense, and some political repercussions thereof Rome and the provinces words, imagery, and situations of crisis from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine. The editors have done their best to provide as much coherence as this general programme allowed. Part of its programme between 19 ran under the title which has been transferred to the book, and the majority of papers presented at various occasions during that programme - sometimes more than one essay per author - have found their way inside. The wide selection of essays within the present volume forms part of the work of the Centre Gustave Glotz, an exceptionally long-lived French administrative unit of research.
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