Empress Jia and and her clan remain in power until 300, when she deposes and assassinates the heir to the throne, Sima Yu, her husband's son by the concubine Consort Xie Jiu.

Sima Lun, who commands the imperial guards, takes this opportunity to kill the Empress Jia and her faction.

Sima Lun places himself in power and tries to centralize control over the powerful princes; this results in the rebellion of Sima Yun, who marches his troops to the capital against Sima Lun; Sima Yun is killed by Sima Lun's troops in the ensuing battle in Luoyang.

Sima Lun then imprisons Emperor Hui and styles himself as the new emperor.

The books now known as the Corpus Hermeticum are part of a renaissance of syncretistic and intellectualized pagan thought that took place around the second century.

Other examples of this cultural moment include Neoplatonist philosophy, the Chaldaean Oracles, late Orphic and Pythagorean literature, as well as much of Gnosticism.

The corpus of Hermetica, the category of popular Late Antique literature purporting to contain secret wisdom, and generally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes", a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian Thoth, is by 300 essentially complete.

The hieroglyphic-based cursive script of Egyptian Demotic gives way around the same time to Coptic, written in an alphabet based on Greek and comprising many dialects.

The Romans in Britain, who by 300 have come increasingly under hit-and-run attacks by the Saxon raiders, have constructed coastal forts as far as Cardiff, …

…have erected a defensive river wall at Londinium, and …

…fortified York.

The Saxon raids originating from the Amsterdam shore target the Wash; …

… those from the Boulogne area are directed at Kent; and …

…those from the Cherbourg vicinity aim at the Isle of Wight.

The Saxons pillage settlements, murder and rape civilians, and torch buildings.

 Emperor Hui’s regent Sima Jiong, the fourth of the eight princes commonly associated with the War of the Eight Princes, responds to Sima Yun’s usurpation by leading a coalition of forces, including Sima Ying and Sima Yong, against Sima Lun.

In 301, they defeat Sima Lun's troops, kill him, and then reestablish Emperor Hui as the emperor, with Sima Jiong exerting the most influence at the imperial court.

Armenian monarch Tiridates III, who owes his throne to the Roman Empire, adopts Christianity in 301 as his nation’s official religion, making Armenia the first Christian state.

The king appoints Gregory the Illuminator, who had been the instrument of his conversion, as the first Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church.