The senators are practically excluded from the army under Gallienus.

The equites, members of the Roman equestrian order, receive the majority of commands and of provincial governorships; the composition of the army is modified by the creation of new army corps and especially of a strong cavalry, which is placed under the command of a single leader and charged with closing the breaches that the barbarians are opening along the frontiers.

The empire’s period of relative peace ends in 267, when the Goths of the northern Black Sea coast attack Byzantium in alliance with the fleet of the Heruli.

Gallienus leads a large Roman force into Moesia to cut off the army of Goths, three hundred and twenty thousand strong, now retreating by land from its plunder of Aegean coastal cities.

The two armies meet at Naissus (modern Niš, Serbia), where the Romans slaughter the Goths by the thousands.

His attention demanded by the revolt of a usurper, Aureolus, in Italy, Gallienus returns there without further pursuit of the survivors, who flee to armed encampments to the northeast.

Odaenathus has driven the Persians from the Roman provinces of Mesopotamia and Osroëne by 267, and he probably also has brought Armenia back into the empire.

Although he has failed to seize the Sassanian capital of Ctesiphon, he has managed to restore Roman rule in the East, and assembled a small client empire stretching from southern Anatolia to the Red Sea.

He is preparing to drive Gothic invaders from the Roman province of Cappadocia in eastern Asia Minor when he and his eldest son (by his former wife), Herodes (or Herodianus), are assassinated in 267 (or 268).

His queen, Zenobia (in full Septimia Zenobia; Aramaic Znwbya Bat Zabbai) becomes regent for her own young son Wahballat (called Vaballathus in Latin, Athenodorus in Greek).

Zenobia maintains an alliance with the Romans to offset the threat to her kingdom from Persia.

The combined Goth and Herul fleet sails from Byzantium south into the Aegean in 267 to attack various cities of Greece as far south as Sparta, devastating Laconia.

Greece, its weakened frontiers unprotected by Rome, suffers greatly under the ravages of the Goths and pirates.

The walls of Athens, which had been neglected since Sulla's capture of the city in 86 BCE and have fallen into ruin, had been rebuilt under Valerian, and the circuit had been extended to include the new suburb northeast of the Olympieion (Temple of Hadrian Olympios).

This has been done because of the threat of a barbarian invasion, but the walls are of no avail in 267 when that invasion comes.

The Heruli easily capture Athens, and, though the historian Publius Herennius Dexippus rallies two thousand men on the city outskirts, they can only resort to guerrilla tactics.

The lower town is sacked, and all the buildings of the Agora are burned and destroyed.

The Acropolis, however, may have held out; at least there is no evidence of extensive damage at this time. (The Bibliotheca, a ninth-century encyclopedia by Photius, patriarch of Constantinople, credits Dexippus with three major works: a four-book history of the diadochoi (successors) of Alexander the Great, a history of the struggle of Rome against the Goths after CE 238, and a twelve-book annalistic chronicle from legendary times to CE 270. Although none of these survive, numerous fragments have been recognized in the compilations of later historians. Several Athenian inscriptions attest to the high public offices held by Dexippus, his father, and his children.)

The Gothic army moves north, assaulting the wealthy Macedonian capital at Salonika.

Gallienus, together with his wife Salonica, has sponsored a vigorous intellectual renaissance at Rome during the relatively peaceful years 262-267.

This revival is clearly discernible in the surviving art and the contemporary literature, notably that of Neoplatonist philosophers such as Plotinus.

Plotinus’ innermost circle includes Porphyry, Amelius Gentilianus of Tuscany, the Senator Castricius Firmus, and Eustochius of Alexandria, a doctor who has devoted himself to learning from Plotinus and will attend to him until his death.

Other students include Zethos, an Arab by ancestry who dies before Plotinus, leaving him a legacy and some land in Campania; Zoticus, a critic and poet; Paulinus, a doctor of Scythopolis; and Serapion from Alexandria.

Plotinus has had students among the Roman Senate beside Castricius, such as Marcellus Orontius, Sabinillus, and Rogantianus.

Women are also numbered among his students, including Gemina, in whose house he has lived during his residence in Rome, and her daughter, also Gemina; and Amphiclea, the wife of Ariston the son of Iamblichus.

Finally, Plotinus is a correspondent of the philosopher Cassius Longinus.

At one point Plotinus had attempted to interest Gallienus in rebuilding an abandoned settlement in Campania, known as the 'City of Philosophers', where the inhabitants would live under the constitution set out in Plato's Laws.

An Imperial subsidy is never granted, for reasons unknown to Porphyry, who reports the incident.

Japanese women during this age, in which written records appear, will be regarded by historians as wielding considerable influence on politics.

Some portions of the history of Empress Jingo have a probable basis in fact.

Also known as Jingu Kogo, she is supposed to have been the wife of the equally semi legendary Emperor Chuai, who reigned from 192 to 200, and regent for her son Ojin.

She rules during the period of Japanese expansion into southern Korea, dying around 269.

Legend gives her the supernatural ability to control the tides.