" COMPLAINTS OF EVIL TIMES are to be found in all centuries which have left a literature behind them. But in the Roman Empire the decline is acknowledged in a manner which leaves no room for doubt."! This quotation from Jacob Burckhardt shows the importance of the historical self-awareness during the period of the great crisis of the Roman Empire in the third century. Reflection upon contemporary history, in the sense of its consideration and interpretation, will make it possible for us to understand a society by its capacity or incapacity to recognize its own position as well as its moving forces and changes, especially during periods of crisis and at turning-points of history. It is not necessary to emphasize the importance of the crisis of the third century for the history of the ancient world and for history in general.

Burckhardt, it is true, spoke only of a< stormy moment'as far as the beginning of this transformation of the Roman world was concerned, although in his work about the age of Constantine he had characterized it as the< vital crisis of the Ancient World'; he regarded the migration of peoples as the first< genuine crisis' in Roman history. 2 But the< genuine crisis' of the Roman Empire began neither with the migration of peoples nor, as A. J. Toynbee saw it, as early as the fifth century BC, 3 but rather with the crisis of the third century (not to be understood in the exact chronological sense). This is true even in Burckhardt's conception of crisis, viZ'the coincidence of economic,