MacMullen Ramsay. Roman Government's Response to Crisis, A.D. 235-337

New Haven - London: Yale University Press, 1976.-IX, 308 p.The Perception of Decline.
Propaganda.
Intelligence.
Law.
Money.
Taxes.
Goods and Services.
Defense.Notes....On the earlier edge of the least-known stretch of Roman imperial history, one feels first its chilly shadow like a traveler approaching the Alps toward the close of an autumn day. No more than a setting sun shines on the Antonines; Severan times grow darker yet; and at their end, with the murder of the young Alexander in 235, blackness settles down. The historian thereafter pursues his way through what he feels to be a complex mass of.
many vast events almost hidden from him by the obscurity of his sources...There is, however, a level of events lying just beneath the political narrative, a level of developing, heavily pressing problems and responses to those problems. Here continuity may be found, for they were long-lasting. Here, too, a much more richly documented and intelligible.setting for emperors may be found within the circle of their advisers and higher officials, whether at the center or on mission to the provinces. What they thought and did to meet the dangers of a dark time is what I try here to describe.