Nelu ZUGRAVU (Centro di Studi Classici e Cristiani, Facoltà di Storia, Università “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” di Iași)
CUNCTA AD EXTREMUM RECIDERANT: RETORICA DELLA CRISI NELLE FONTI LATINE TARDOANTICHE
Keywords: the crisis of the Roman Empire, Late Latin authors, the terminology of the crisis, metaphors of the crisis, modus, institutional crisis.
Abstract: Cuncta ad extremum reciderant: The rhetoric of crisis in Late Antique Latin sources. This article examines the credibility of late Latin sources – particularly pagan ones – regarding the crisis of the Roman Empire in the mid-third century. Late authors describe the period between Alexander Severus and the Tetrarchs in terms that evoke intense suffering, destruction, disorder, and imminent collapse, portraying a profoundly altered and fragile condition of the Roman state (Romanus status, res Romana). Many of these expressions are rhetorical, often employed in metaphors – biological (of the body and the ages), maritime, or that of a steadily moving chariot – yet metaphor does not exclude veracity. On an objective level, this reflects dysfunctions within the Roman state; on a subjective level, it conveys the authors’ awareness of the Empire’s decline. The crisis was perceived as a serious deviation from order: nothing followed its natural course (modus), confusion and disorder prevailed, social and moral norms disintegrated, merit was disregarded, and passions ran out of control (ultra modum, supra modum). Moreover, the balance between the driving forces of Roman history – both the immanent ones (fatum, fortuna) and the moral-anthropological ones (virtus, mores) – deteriorated; all of this reflects a period of profound decline (cuncta ad extremum reciderant).