page_title: 3rd century
section_title: Significant people
hierarchical_section_title: 3rd century / Significant people
caption_attribution_description: English: Bust of Roman emperor Diocletian, Istanbul.
context_page_description: The 3rd century AD was the period from 201 to 300
  In this century, the Roman Empire saw a crisis, starting with the assassination of the Roman Emperor Severus Alexander in 235, plunging the empire into a period of economic troubles, barbarian incursions, political upheavals, civil wars, and the split of the Roman Empire through the Gallic Empire in the west and the Palmyrene Empire in the east, which all together threatened to destroy the Roman Empire in its entirety, but the reconquests of the seceded territories by Emperor Aurelian and the stabilization period under Emperor Diocletian due to the administrative strengthening of the empire caused an end to the crisis by 284. This crisis would also mark the beginning of Late Antiquity.
  In Persia, the Parthian Empire was succeeded by the Sassanid Empire in 224 after Ardashir I defeated and killed Artabanus V during the Battle of Hormozdgan. The Sassanids then went on to subjugate many of the western portions of the declining Kushan Empire.
context_section_description: Ardashir I, founder of the Sasanid Empire
  Artabanus V, last ruler of the Parthian Empire
  Aurelian, Roman emperor
  Clement of Alexandria, Christian head of Catechetical School of Alexandria
  Cao Cao, Chinese statesman
  Cao Pi, founding emperor of the Kingdom of Wei
  Cao Rui, emperor of Cao Wei
  Caracalla, Roman emperor
  Claudius Gothicus, Roman emperor
  Constantius Chlorus, Roman emperor
  Cornelius, bishop of Rome
  Cyprian, bishop of Carthage
  Deng Ai, Chinese general
  Diocletian, Roman emperor
  Elagabalus, Roman emperor
  Gallienus, Roman emperor
  Guan Yu, Chinese general
  Julia Domna, Roman empress
  Julia Maesa, Roman noblewoman
  Liu Bei, founding emperor of the Shu Han
  Mani, founder of Manichaeism
  Marcus Aurelius Probus, Roman emperor
  Maximinus Thrax, Roman emperor
  Nagarjuna, Buddhist monk
  Odaenathus, king of the Palmyrene Empire
  Philip the Arab, Roman emperor
  Postumus, emperor of the Gallic Empire
  Septimius Severus, Roman emperor
  Severus Alexander, Roman emperor
  Sima Shi, Chinese general, politician and regent
  Sima Yan, founding emperor of the Jin dynasty
  Sima Yi, Chinese general and statesman
  Sima Zhao, Chinese general and regent
  Shapur I, king of the Sasanid Empire
  Sri Gupta, founding king of the Gupta dynasty
  Sun Quan, founding emperor of the Kingdom of Wu
  Tetricus I, emperor of the Gallic Empire
  Trieu Thi Trinh, Vietnamese resistance leader
  Valerian, Roman emperor
  Zenobia, queen of the Palmyrene Empire
  Zhang Fei, Chinese general
  Zhao Yun, Chinese general
  Zhong Hui, Chinese general, official and writer
  Zhuge Liang, Chinese politician and military strategist during the Three Kingdoms
caption: Diocletian
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