The British Empire of Carausius
R.A.G. Carson investigates the fate of the polity established by rebel Roman general Carausius in the third century AD.
Towards the middle of the third century AD the fabric of the great Roman Empire, which for some two centuries had provided for Western Europe a Golden Age of peace and prosperity, unequalled in subsequent history, began to crumble under a succession of disasters. The internal dissensions, which between 235 and 253 produced no less than twenty aspirants to Imperial power, had disrupted administration and contributed to the collapse of an economy already in decline. At this critical moment one of the repeated folk-movements, arising in the steppe-lands, launched barbarian raids against the Rhine and Danube frontiers of the Empire. This Imperial crisis lasted for some thirty years until the stringent political and economic reforms of Diocletian restored some measure of stability to the Roman Empire.
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