Diocletian (; la, Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, grc, Διοκλητιανός, Diokletianós; c. 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed ''Iovius'', was
Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Gaius Valerius Diocles to a family of low status in the
Roman province
The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was rule ...
of
Dalmatia. Diocles rose through the ranks of the military early in his career, eventually becoming a
cavalry commander for the army of Emperor
Carus. After the deaths of Carus and his son
Numerian on a campaign in Persia, Diocles was proclaimed emperor by the troops, taking the name Diocletianus. The title was also claimed by Carus's surviving son,
Carinus, but Diocletian defeated him in the
Battle of the Margus
The Battle of the Margus or Battle of Margum was fought in July 285 for control of the Roman Empire between the armies of Diocletian and Carinus in the valley of the Margus River (today Great Morava) in Moesia (present day Serbia), probably near ...
.
Diocletian's reign stabilized the empire and ended the
Crisis of the Third Century
The Crisis of the Third Century, also known as the Military Anarchy or the Imperial Crisis (AD 235–284), was a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed. The crisis ended due to the military victories of Aurelian and with the ascensio ...
. He appointed fellow officer
Maximian as ''
Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
'', co-emperor, in 286. Diocletian reigned in the
Eastern Empire, and Maximian reigned in the
Western Empire. Diocletian delegated further on 1 March 293, appointing
Galerius
Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus (; 258 – May 311) was Roman emperor from 305 to 311. During his reign he campaigned, aided by Diocletian, against the Sasanian Empire, sacking their capital Ctesiphon in 299. He also campaigned across th ...
and
Constantius as junior colleagues (each with the title ''
Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, an ...
''), under himself and Maximian respectively. Under the
Tetrarchy
The Tetrarchy was the system instituted by Roman emperor Diocletian in 293 AD to govern the ancient Roman Empire by dividing it between two emperors, the ''augusti'', and their juniors colleagues and designated successors, the '' caesares'' ...
, or "rule of four", each tetrach would rule over a quarter-division of the empire. Diocletian secured the empire's borders and purged it of all threats to his power. He defeated the
Sarmatians
The Sarmatians (; grc, Σαρμαται, Sarmatai; Latin: ) were a large confederation of ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples of classical antiquity who dominated the Pontic steppe from about the 3rd century BC to the 4th cen ...
and
Carpi during several campaigns between 285 and 299, the
Alamanni in 288, and usurpers in
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
between 297 and 298. Galerius, aided by Diocletian, campaigned successfully against
Sassanid Persia
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...
, the empire's traditional enemy. In 299, he sacked their capital,
Ctesiphon. Diocletian led the subsequent negotiations and achieved a lasting and favorable peace.
Diocletian separated and enlarged the empire's civil and military services and reorganized the empire's provincial divisions, establishing the largest and most
bureaucratic
The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...
government in the history of the empire. He established new administrative centres in
Nicomedia
Nicomedia (; el, Νικομήδεια, ''Nikomedeia''; modern İzmit) was an ancient Greek city located in what is now Turkey. In 286, Nicomedia became the eastern and most senior capital city of the Roman Empire (chosen by the emperor Diocleti ...
,
Mediolanum
Mediolanum, the ancient city where Milan now stands, was originally an Insubrian city, but afterwards became an important Roman city in northern Italy. The city was settled by the Insubres around 600 BC, conquered by the Romans in 222 BC, and ...
,
Sirmium
Sirmium was a city in the Roman province of Pannonia, located on the Sava river, on the site of modern Sremska Mitrovica in the Vojvodina autonomous provice of Serbia. First mentioned in the 4th century BC and originally inhabited by Illyrian ...
, and
Trevorum, closer to the empire's frontiers than the traditional capital at Rome. Building on third-century trends towards
absolutism, he styled himself an autocrat, elevating himself above the empire's masses with imposing forms of court ceremonies and architecture. Bureaucratic and military growth, constant campaigning, and construction projects increased the state's expenditures and necessitated a comprehensive tax reform. From at least 297 on, imperial taxation was standardized, made more equitable, and levied at generally higher rates.
Not all of Diocletian's plans were successful: the
Edict on Maximum Prices
The Edict on Maximum Prices (Latin: ''Edictum de Pretiis Rerum Venalium'', "Edict Concerning the Sale Price of Goods"; also known as the Edict on Prices or the Edict of Diocletian) was issued in 301 AD by Diocletian. The document denounces mon ...
(301), his attempt to curb inflation via
price controls, was counterproductive and quickly ignored. Although effective while he ruled, Diocletian's
tetrarchic system collapsed after his abdication under the competing dynastic claims of
Maxentius and Constantine, sons of Maximian and Constantius respectively. The
Diocletianic Persecution
The Diocletianic or Great Persecution was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. In 303, the emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding Christians' legal rig ...
(303–312), the empire's last, largest, and bloodiest official
persecution of Christianity, failed to eliminate Christianity in the empire. After 324, Christianity became the empire's preferred religion under
Constantine
Constantine most often refers to:
* Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I
*Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria
Constantine may also refer to:
People
* Constantine (name), a masculine given name ...
. Despite these failures and challenges, Diocletian's reforms fundamentally changed the structure of Roman imperial government and helped stabilize the empire economically and militarily, enabling the empire to remain essentially intact for another 150 years despite being near the brink of collapse in Diocletian's youth. Weakened by illness, Diocletian left the imperial office on 1 May 305, becoming the first Roman emperor to abdicate the position voluntarily. He lived out his retirement in
his palace on the Dalmatian coast, tending to his vegetable gardens. His palace eventually became the core of the modern-day city of
Split
Split(s) or The Split may refer to:
Places
* Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia
* Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay
* Split Island, Falkland Islands
* Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua
Arts, entertai ...
in Croatia.
Early life
![Salona - amphitheatre - panorama](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Salona_-_amphitheatre_-_panorama.jpg)
Diocletian was born in
Dalmatia, probably at or near the town of
Salona
Salona ( grc, Σάλωνα) was an ancient city and the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia. Salona is located in the modern town of Solin, next to Split, in Croatia.
Salona was founded in the 3rd century BC and was mostly destroyed in ...
(modern
Solin
Solin (Latin and it, Salona; grc, Σαλώνα ) is a town in Dalmatia, Croatia. It is situated right northeast of Split, on the Adriatic Sea and the river Jadro.
Solin developed on the location of ancient city of ''Salona'', which was the ...
,
Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
), to which he retired later in life. His name at birth was Diocles (in full, Gaius Valerius Diocles),
possibly derived from Dioclea, the name of both his mother and her supposed
place of birth
The place of birth (POB) or birthplace is the place where a person was born. This place is often used in legal documents, together with name and date of birth, to uniquely identify a person. Practice regarding whether this place should be a co ...
. Diocletian's official birthday was recorded at 22 December, and his year of birth has been estimated at between 242 and 245 based on a statement that he was aged 68 at death. His parents were of low status;
Eutropius records "that he is said by most writers to have been the son of a scribe, but by some to have been a freedman of a senator called Anulinus." The first forty years of his life are mostly obscure. Diocletian was considered an
Illyricianus (''
Illyrian emperor'') who had been schooled and promoted by
Aurelian. The
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
chronicler
Joannes Zonaras states that he was ''
Dux
''Dux'' (; plural: ''ducēs'') is Latin for "leader" (from the noun ''dux, ducis'', "leader, general") and later for duke and its variant forms (doge, duce, etc.). During the Roman Republic and for the first centuries of the Roman Empire, '' ...
Moesiae'', a commander of forces on the lower
Danube
The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , p ...
. The often-unreliable ''
Historia Augusta'' states that he served in
Gaul
Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...
, but this account is not corroborated by other sources and is ignored by modern historians of the period. The first time Diocletian's whereabouts are accurately established was in 282 when the Emperor
Carus made him commander of the ''
Protectores domestici
The origins of the word ''domesticus'' can be traced to the late 3rd century of the Late Roman army. They often held high ranks in various fields, whether it was the servants of a noble house on the civilian side, or a high-ranking military po ...
'', the elite cavalry force directly attached to the Imperial household. This post earned him the honor of a consulship in 283. As such, he took part in Carus's subsequent Persian campaign.
Death of Numerian
Carus's death, amid a successful war with Persia and in mysterious circumstances – he was believed to have been struck by lightning or killed by Persian soldiers – left his sons Numerian and Carinus as the new ''Augusti''. Carinus quickly made his way to Rome from his post in Gaul as imperial commissioner and arrived there by January 284, becoming legitimate Emperor in the West. Numerian lingered in the East. The Roman withdrawal from Persia was orderly and unopposed. The
Sassanid
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...
king
Bahram II could not field an army against them as he was still struggling to establish his authority. By March 284, Numerian had only reached
Emesa (Homs) in
Syria; by November, only Asia Minor. In Emesa he was apparently still alive and in good health: he issued the only extant
rescript
In legal terminology, a rescript is a document that is issued not on the initiative of the author, but in response (it literally means 'written back') to a specific demand made by its addressee. It does not apply to more general legislation.
Over ...
in his name there, but after he left the city, his staff, including the prefect (Numerian's father-in-law, and as such the dominant influence in the Emperor's entourage)
Aper Aper may refer to:
People
* Aper (grammarian), 1st century Greek grammarian
* Marcus Aper, 1st century Roman orator
* Trosius Aper, 2nd century Roman grammarian and Latin tutor to Marcus Aurelius
* Gaius Septimius Severus Aper (ca. 175–211/2 ...
, reported that he suffered from an inflammation of the eyes. He traveled in a closed coach from then on. When the army reached
Bithynia, some of the soldiers smelled an odor emanating from the coach. They opened its curtains and inside they found Numerian dead. Both
Eutropius and
Aurelius Victor
Sextus Aurelius Victor (c. 320 – c. 390) was a historian and politician of the Roman Empire. Victor was the author of a short history of imperial Rome, entitled ''De Caesaribus'' and covering the period from Augustus to Constantius II. The work ...
describe Numerian's death as an assassination.
Aper officially broke the news in
Nicomedia
Nicomedia (; el, Νικομήδεια, ''Nikomedeia''; modern İzmit) was an ancient Greek city located in what is now Turkey. In 286, Nicomedia became the eastern and most senior capital city of the Roman Empire (chosen by the emperor Diocleti ...
(
İzmit
İzmit () is a district and the central district of Kocaeli province, Turkey. It is located at the Gulf of İzmit in the Sea of Marmara, about east of Istanbul, on the northwestern part of Anatolia.
As of the last 31/12/2019 estimation, the ...
) in November. Numerianus' generals and tribunes called a council for the succession, and chose Diocles as Emperor, in spite of Aper's attempts to garner support. On 20 November 284, the army of the east gathered on a hill outside Nicomedia. The army unanimously saluted Diocles as their new ''Augustus'', and he accepted the purple imperial vestments. He raised his sword to the light of the sun and swore an oath disclaiming responsibility for Numerian's death. He asserted that Aper had killed Numerian and concealed it. In full view of the army, Diocles drew his sword and killed Aper. According to the ''Historia Augusta'', he quoted from
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
while doing so. Soon after Aper's death, Diocles changed his name to the more Latinate "Diocletianus" – in full, Gaius Valerius Diocletianus.
Conflict with Carinus
![Montemartini - Carino 1030439](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Montemartini_-_Carino_1030439.JPG)
After his accession, Diocletian and
Lucius Caesonius Bassus were named as consuls and assumed the ''
fasces'' in place of Carinus and Numerianus. Bassus was a member of a
senatorial
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the e ...
family from
Campania
(man), it, Campana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 =
, demog ...
, a former
consul
Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states throu ...
and proconsul of Africa, chosen by Probus for signal distinction. He was skilled in areas of government where Diocletian presumably had no experience. Diocletian's elevation of Bassus as consul symbolized his rejection of Carinus' government in Rome, his refusal to accept second-tier status to any other emperor, and his willingness to continue the long-standing collaboration between the empire's senatorial and military aristocracies. It also tied his success to that of the Senate, whose support he would need in his advance on Rome.
Diocletian was not the only challenger to Carinus' rule; the usurper
Julianus, Carinus' ''corrector Venetiae'', took control of northern
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
and
Pannonia after Diocletian's accession. Julianus minted coins from the mint at Siscia (
Sisak, Croatia) declaring himself emperor and promising freedom. It was all good publicity for Diocletian, and it aided in his portrayal of Carinus as a cruel and oppressive tyrant. Julianus' forces were weak, however, and were handily dispersed when Carinus' armies moved from Britain to northern Italy. As leader of the united East, Diocletian was clearly the greater threat. Over the winter of 284–85, Diocletian advanced west across the
Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
. In the spring, some time before the end of May, his armies met Carinus' across the river Margus (
Great Morava
The Great Morava ( sr, Велика Морава, Velika Morava, ) is the final section of the Morava ( sr-Cyrl, Морава), a major river system in Serbia.
Etymology
According to Predrag Komatina from the Institute for Byzantine Studies ...
) in
Moesia. In modern accounts, the site has been located between the Mons Aureus (Seone, west of
Smederevo
Smederevo ( sr-Cyrl, Смедерево, ) is a city and the administrative center of the Podunavlje District in eastern Serbia. It is situated on the right bank of the Danube, about downstream of the Serbian capital, Belgrade.
According to ...
) and
Viminacium
Viminacium () or ''Viminatium'', was a major city (provincial capital) and military camp of the Roman province of Moesia (today's Serbia), and the capital of ''Moesia Superior'' (hence once a metropolitan archbishopric, now a Latin titular see). ...
, near modern
Belgrade, Serbia.
Despite having the stronger, more powerful army, Carinus held the weaker position. His rule was unpopular, and it was later alleged that he had mistreated the Senate and seduced his officers' wives. It is possible that
Flavius Constantius, the governor of Dalmatia and Diocletian's associate in the household guard, had already defected to Diocletian in the early spring. When the
Battle of the Margus
The Battle of the Margus or Battle of Margum was fought in July 285 for control of the Roman Empire between the armies of Diocletian and Carinus in the valley of the Margus River (today Great Morava) in Moesia (present day Serbia), probably near ...
began, Carinus' prefect
Aristobulus Aristobulus or Aristoboulos may refer to:
*Aristobulus I (died 103 BC), king of the Hebrew Hasmonean Dynasty, 104–103 BC
*Aristobulus II (died 49 BC), king of Judea from the Hasmonean Dynasty, 67–63 BC
*Aristobulus III of Judea (53 BC–36 BC), ...
also defected. In the course of the battle, Carinus was killed by his own men. Following Diocletian's victory, both the western and the eastern armies acclaimed him as Emperor. Diocletian exacted an oath of allegiance from the defeated army and departed for Italy.
Early rule
![Diocletianus (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Diocletianus_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Diocletian may have become involved in battles against the
Quadi and
Marcomanni
The Marcomanni were a Germanic people
*
*
*
that established a powerful kingdom north of the Danube, somewhere near modern Bohemia, during the peak of power of the nearby Roman Empire. According to Tacitus and Strabo, they were Suebian.
Or ...
immediately after the Battle of the Margus. He eventually made his way to northern Italy and made an imperial government, but it is not known whether he visited the city of Rome at this time. There is a contemporary issue of coins suggestive of an imperial ''
adventus'' (arrival) for the city, but some modern historians state that Diocletian avoided the city, and that he did so on principle, as the city and its Senate were no longer politically relevant to the affairs of the empire and needed to be taught as much. Diocletian dated his reign from his elevation by the army, not the date of his ratification by the Senate, following the practice established by Carus, who had declared the Senate's ratification a useless formality. However, Diocletian was to offer proof of his deference towards the Senate by retaining Aristobulus as ordinary consul and colleague for 285 (one of the few instances during the Late Empire in which an emperor admitted a ''
privatus
In Roman law, the Latin adjective ''privatus'' makes a legal distinction between that which is "private" and that which is ''publicus'', "public" in the sense of pertaining to the Roman people (''populus Romanus'').
Used as a substantive, the ...
'' as his colleague) and by creating senior senators Vettius Aquilinus and Junius Maximus ordinary consuls for the following year – for Maximus, it was his second consulship.
![Bust of Diocletian at the National Museum of Serbia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Bust_of_Diocletian_at_the_National_Museum_of_Serbia.jpg)
Nevertheless, if Diocletian ever did enter Rome shortly after his accession, he did not stay long; he is attested back in the Balkans by 2 November 285, on campaign against the
Sarmatians
The Sarmatians (; grc, Σαρμαται, Sarmatai; Latin: ) were a large confederation of ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples of classical antiquity who dominated the Pontic steppe from about the 3rd century BC to the 4th cen ...
.
Diocletian replaced the
prefect
Prefect (from the Latin ''praefectus'', substantive adjectival form of ''praeficere'': "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area.
A prefect's ...
of Rome with his consular colleague Bassus. Most officials who had served under Carinus, however, retained their offices under Diocletian. In an act of ''clementia'' denoted by the epitomator of
Aurelius Victor
Sextus Aurelius Victor (c. 320 – c. 390) was a historian and politician of the Roman Empire. Victor was the author of a short history of imperial Rome, entitled ''De Caesaribus'' and covering the period from Augustus to Constantius II. The work ...
as unusual, Diocletian did not kill or depose Carinus's traitorous praetorian prefect and consul
Aristobulus Aristobulus or Aristoboulos may refer to:
*Aristobulus I (died 103 BC), king of the Hebrew Hasmonean Dynasty, 104–103 BC
*Aristobulus II (died 49 BC), king of Judea from the Hasmonean Dynasty, 67–63 BC
*Aristobulus III of Judea (53 BC–36 BC), ...
, but confirmed him in both roles. He later gave him the proconsulate of Africa and the post of urban prefect for 295. The other figures who retained their offices might have also betrayed Carinus.
Maximian made Caesar
![5 Aurei, Diocletian and Maximianus Herculius, Elephantenquadriga, Rome, 287 AD - Bode-Museum - DSC02724](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/5_Aurei%2C_Diocletian_and_Maximianus_Herculius%2C_Elephantenquadriga%2C_Rome%2C_287_AD_-_Bode-Museum_-_DSC02724.JPG)
The assassinations of
Aurelian and Probus demonstrated that sole rulership was dangerous to the stability of the empire. Conflict boiled in every province, from Gaul to Syria, Egypt to the lower Danube. It was too much for one person to control, and Diocletian needed a lieutenant. At some time in 285 at
Mediolanum
Mediolanum, the ancient city where Milan now stands, was originally an Insubrian city, but afterwards became an important Roman city in northern Italy. The city was settled by the Insubres around 600 BC, conquered by the Romans in 222 BC, and ...
(
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
), Diocletian raised his fellow-officer
Maximian to the office of ''
Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, an ...
'', making him his effective co-ruler.
The concept of dual rulership was not new to the Roman Empire.
Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
, the first emperor, had nominally shared power with his colleagues, and a formal office of co-emperor (co-''Augustus'') had existed from
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good ...
onward. Most recently, Emperor Carus and his sons had ruled together, albeit unsuccessfully. Diocletian was in a less comfortable position than most of his predecessors, as he had a daughter, Valeria, but no sons. His co-ruler had to be from outside his family, raising the question of trust. Some historians state that Diocletian adopted Maximian as his ''filius Augusti'', his "Augustan son", upon his appointment to the throne, following the precedent of some previous Emperors. This argument has not been universally accepted. Diocletian and Maximian added each other ''
nomina'' (their
family name, "Valerius" and "Aurelius", respectively) to their own, thus creating an artificial family link and becoming part of the "Aurelius Valerius" family.
The relationship between Diocletian and Maximian was quickly couched in religious terms. Around 287 Diocletian assumed the title ''Iovius'', and Maximian assumed the title ''Herculius''. The titles were probably meant to convey certain characteristics of their associated leaders. Diocletian, in
Jovian style, would take on the dominating roles of planning and commanding; Maximian, in
Herculian mode, would act as Jupiter's
hero
A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or a main fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or strength. Like other formerly gender-specific terms (like ''actor''), ''her ...
ic subordinate. For all their religious connotations, the emperors were not "gods" in the tradition of the
Imperial cult
An imperial cult is a form of state religion in which an emperor or a dynasty of emperors (or rulers of another title) are worshipped as demigods or deities. "Cult" here is used to mean "worship", not in the modern pejorative sense. The cult may ...
– although they may have been hailed as such in Imperial
panegyrics. Instead, they were seen as the gods' representatives, effecting their will on earth. The shift from military acclamation to divine sanctification took the power to appoint emperors away from the army. Religious legitimization elevated Diocletian and Maximian above potential rivals in a way military power and dynastic claims could not.
Conflict with Sarmatia and Persia
After his acclamation, Maximian was dispatched to fight the rebel
Bagaudae, insurgent peasants of Gaul. Diocletian returned to the East, progressing slowly. By 2 November, he had only reached Civitas Iovia (Botivo, near
Ptuj,
Slovenia
Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
). In the Balkans during the autumn of 285, he encountered a tribe of
Sarmatians
The Sarmatians (; grc, Σαρμαται, Sarmatai; Latin: ) were a large confederation of ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples of classical antiquity who dominated the Pontic steppe from about the 3rd century BC to the 4th cen ...
who demanded assistance. The Sarmatians requested that Diocletian either help them recover their lost lands or grant them pasturage rights within the empire. Diocletian refused and fought a battle with them, but was unable to secure a complete victory. The nomadic pressures of the
European Plain
The European Plain or Great European Plain is a plain in Europe and is a major feature of one of four major topographical units of Europe - the ''Central and Interior Lowlands''. remained and could not be solved by a single war; soon the Sarmatians would have to be fought again.
Diocletian wintered in
Nicomedia
Nicomedia (; el, Νικομήδεια, ''Nikomedeia''; modern İzmit) was an ancient Greek city located in what is now Turkey. In 286, Nicomedia became the eastern and most senior capital city of the Roman Empire (chosen by the emperor Diocleti ...
. There may have been a revolt in the eastern provinces at this time, as he brought settlers from
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
to populate emptied farmlands in
Thrace
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to ...
. He visited
Syria Palaestina the following spring, His stay in the East saw diplomatic success in the conflict with Persia: in 287,
Bahram II granted him precious gifts, declared open friendship with the Empire, and invited Diocletian to visit him. Roman sources insist that the act was entirely voluntary.
Around the same time, perhaps in 287, Persia relinquished claims on
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ' ...
and recognized Roman authority over territory to the west and south of the Tigris. The western portion of Armenia was incorporated into the empire and made a province.
Tiridates III, the
Arsacid
The Parthian Empire (), also known as the Arsacid Empire (), was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe in conquer ...
claimant to the Armenian throne and a Roman client, had been disinherited and forced to take refuge in the empire after the Persian conquest of 252–53. In 287, he returned to lay claim to the eastern half of his ancestral domain and encountered no opposition. Bahram II's gifts were widely recognized as symbolic of a victory in the ongoing
conflict with Persia, and Diocletian was hailed as the "founder of eternal peace". The events might have represented a formal end to Carus's eastern campaign, which probably ended without an acknowledged peace. At the conclusion of discussions with the Persians, Diocletian re-organized the Mesopotamian frontier and fortified the city of
Circesium (Buseire, Syria) on the
Euphrates
The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers''). Originating in Turkey, the Eup ...
.
Maximian made Augustus
Maximian's campaigns were not proceeding as smoothly. The Bagaudae had been easily suppressed, but
Carausius, the man he had put in charge of operations against
Saxon and
Frankish
Frankish may refer to:
* Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture
** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages
* Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany
* East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...
pirates on the
Saxon Shore, had, according to literary sources, begun keeping the goods seized from the pirates for himself. Maximian issued a death warrant for his larcenous subordinate. Carausius fled the Continent, proclaimed himself emperor, and agitated Britain and northwestern Gaul into open revolt against Maximian and Diocletian.
Far more probable, according to the archaeological evidence available, is that Carausius probably had held some important military post in Britain and had already a firm basis of power in both Britain and Northern Gaul (a coin hoard found in
Rouen proves that he was in control of that mainland area at the beginning of his rebellion) and that he profited from the lack of legitimacy of the central government. Carausius strove to have his legitimacy as a junior emperor acknowledged by Diocletian: in his coinage (of far better quality than the official one, especially his silver pieces) he extolled the "concord" between him and the central power (PAX AVGGG, "the Peace of the three Augusti", read one bronze piece from 290, displaying, on the other side, Carausius together with Diocletian and Maximian, with the caption CARAVSIVS ET FRATRES SVI, "Carausius & his brothers"). However, Diocletian could not allow elbow room to a breakaway regional usurper following in
Postumus
Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus was a Roman commander of Batavian origin, who ruled as Emperor of the splinter state of the Roman Empire known to modern historians as the Gallic Empire. The Roman army in Gaul threw off its allegiance to Ga ...
's footprints; he could not allow such a usurper to enter, solely of his own accord, the imperial college. So, Carausius had to go.
Spurred by the crisis, on 1 April 286, Maximian took up the title of ''Augustus'' (emperor). His appointment is unusual in that it was impossible for Diocletian to have been present to witness the event. It has even been suggested that Maximian usurped the title and was only later recognized by Diocletian in hopes of avoiding civil war. This suggestion is unpopular, as it is clear that Diocletian meant for Maximian to act with a certain amount of independence. It may be posited, however, that Diocletian felt the need to bind Maximian closer to him, by making him his empowered associate, in order to avoid the possibility of having him striking some sort of deal with Carausius.
![Antoninianus Carausius leg4-RIC 0069v](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Antoninianus_Carausius_leg4-RIC_0069v.jpg)
Maximian realized that he could not immediately suppress the rogue commander, so in 287 he campaigned solely against tribes beyond the
Rhine
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein
, source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source2_coordinates=
, so ...
instead. As Carausius was allied to the Franks, Maximian's campaigns could be seen as an effort to deny the separatist emperor in Britain a basis of support on the mainland. The following spring, as Maximian prepared a fleet for an expedition against Carausius, Diocletian returned from the East to meet Maximian. The two emperors agreed on a joint campaign against the
Alamanni. Diocletian invaded Germania through Raetia while Maximian progressed from Mainz. Each emperor burned crops and food supplies as he went, destroying the Germans' means of sustenance. The two men added territory to the empire and allowed Maximian to continue preparations against Carausius without further disturbance. On his return to the East, Diocletian managed what was probably another rapid campaign against the resurgent Sarmatians. No details survive, but surviving inscriptions indicate that Diocletian took the title ''Sarmaticus Maximus'' after 289.
In the East, Diocletian engaged in diplomacy with desert tribes in the regions between Rome and Persia. He might have been attempting to persuade them to ally themselves with Rome, thus reviving the old, Rome-friendly,
Palmyrene sphere of influence
In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence (SOI) is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military or political exclusivity.
While there may be a formal a ...
, or simply attempting to reduce the frequency of their incursions. No details survive for these events.Some of the princes of these states were Persian client kings, a disturbing fact in light of increasing tensions with the Sassanids. In the West, Maximian lost the fleet built in 288 and 289, probably in the early spring of 290. The
panegyrist
A panegyric ( or ) is a formal public speech or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing. The original panegyrics were speeches delivered at public events in ancient Athens.
Etymology
The word originated as a compound of grc, ...
who refers to the loss suggests that its cause was a storm, but this might simply have been an attempt to conceal an embarrassing military defeat. Diocletian broke off his tour of the Eastern provinces soon thereafter. He returned with haste to the West, reaching Emesa by 10 May 290, and Sirmium on the Danube by 1 July 290.
Diocletian met Maximian in Milan in the winter of 290–91, either in late December 290 or January 291. The meeting was undertaken with a sense of solemn pageantry. The emperors spent most of their time in public appearances. It has been surmised that the ceremonies were arranged to demonstrate Diocletian's continuing support for his faltering colleague. A deputation from the Roman Senate met with the emperors, renewing its infrequent contact with the Imperial office. The choice of Milan over Rome further snubbed the capital's pride. But then it was already a long established practice that Rome itself was only a ceremonial capital, as the actual seat of the Imperial administration was determined by the needs of defense. Long before Diocletian,
Gallienus
Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus (; c. 218 – September 268) was Roman emperor with his father Valerian from 253 to 260 and alone from 260 to 268. He ruled during the Crisis of the Third Century that nearly caused the collapse of the empi ...
(r. 253–68) had chosen Milan as the seat of his headquarters. If the panegyric detailing the ceremony implied that the true center of the empire was not Rome, but where the emperor sat ("...the capital of the empire appeared to be there, where the two emperors met"), it simply echoed what had already been stated by the historian
Herodian
Herodian or Herodianus ( el, Ἡρωδιανός) of Syria, sometimes referred to as "Herodian of Antioch" (c. 170 – c. 240), was a minor Roman civil servant who wrote a colourful history in Greek titled ''History of the Empire from the Death o ...
in the early third century: "Rome is where the emperor is". During the meeting, decisions on matters of politics and war were probably made in secret. The Augusti would not meet again until 303.
Tetrarchy
Foundation of the Tetrarchy
![Tetrarchy map3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Tetrarchy_map3.jpg)
Some time after his return, and before 293, Diocletian transferred command of the war against Carausius from Maximian to
Flavius Constantius, a former Governor of Dalmatia and a man of military experience stretching back to
Aurelian's campaigns against
Zenobia
Septimia Zenobia ( Palmyrene Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; AD 240 – c. 274) was a third-century queen of the Palmyrene Empire in Syria. Many legends surround her ancestry; she was probably not a commoner and she married the ruler of the city ...
(272–73). He was Maximian's
praetorian prefect in Gaul, and the husband to Maximian's daughter,
Theodora
Theodora is a given name of Greek origin, meaning "God's gift".
Theodora may also refer to:
Historical figures known as Theodora
Byzantine empresses
* Theodora (wife of Justinian I) ( 500 – 548), saint by the Orthodox Church
* Theodora o ...
. On 1 March 293 at Milan, Maximian gave Constantius the office of caesar. On 1 March 293, in either Philippopolis (
Plovdiv,
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
) or Sirmium, Diocletian would do the same for
Galerius
Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus (; 258 – May 311) was Roman emperor from 305 to 311. During his reign he campaigned, aided by Diocletian, against the Sasanian Empire, sacking their capital Ctesiphon in 299. He also campaigned across th ...
, husband to Diocletian's daughter Valeria, and perhaps Diocletian's praetorian prefect. Constantius was assigned Gaul and Britain. Galerius was initially assigned Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and responsibility for the eastern borderlands.
This arrangement is called the
Tetrarchy
The Tetrarchy was the system instituted by Roman emperor Diocletian in 293 AD to govern the ancient Roman Empire by dividing it between two emperors, the ''augusti'', and their juniors colleagues and designated successors, the '' caesares'' ...
, from a
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
term meaning "rulership by four". The Tetrarchs were more or less sovereign in their own lands, and they travelled with their own imperial courts, administrators, secretaries, and armies. They were joined by blood and marriage; Diocletian and Maximian now styled themselves as brothers. The senior co-emperors formally adopted Galerius and Constantius as sons in 293. These relationships implied a line of succession. Galerius and Constantius would become ''Augusti'' after the departure of Diocletian and Maximian. Maximian's son
Maxentius and Constantius's son
Constantine
Constantine most often refers to:
* Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I
*Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria
Constantine may also refer to:
People
* Constantine (name), a masculine given name ...
would then become Caesars. In preparation for their future roles, Constantine and Maxentius were taken to Diocletian's court in Nicomedia.
Demise of Carausius's breakaway Roman Empire
Just before his creation as Caesar, Constantius proceeded to cut Carausius from his base of support in Gaul, recovering Boulogne after a hotly fought siege, a success that would result in Carausius being murdered and replaced by his aide
Allectus, who would hold out in his Britain stronghold for a further three years until a two-pronged naval invasion resulted in Allectus's defeat and death at the hands of Constantius's praetorian prefect
Julius Asclepiodotus Julius Asclepiodotus was a Roman praetorian prefect who, according to the ''Historia Augusta'', served under the emperors Aurelian, Probus and Diocletian, and was consul in 292. In 296, he assisted the western Caesar Constantius Chlorus in re-establ ...
, during a land battle somewhere near
Farnham. Constantius himself, after disembarking in the south east, delivered London from a looting party of Frankish deserters in Allectus's pay, something that allowed him to assume the role of liberator of Britain. A famous commemorative medallion depicts a personification of London supplying the victorious Constantius on horseback in which he describes himself as ''redditor lucis aeternae'', 'restorer of the eternal light (''viz.'', of Rome).' The suppression of this threat to the Tetrarchs' legitimacy allowed both Constantius and Maximian to concentrate on outside threats: by 297 Constantius was back on the Rhine and Maximian engaged in a full-scale African campaign against Frankish pirates and nomads, eventually making a triumphal entry into
Carthage
Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the cla ...
on 10 March 298. However, Maximian's failure to deal with Carausius and Allectus on his own had jeopardized the position of Maxentius as putative heir to his father's post as Augustus of the West, with Constantius's son Constantine appearing as a rival claimant.
Conflict in the Balkans and Egypt
![Philae, Trajan's Kiosk, Aswan, Egypt, Oct 2004](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Philae%2C_Trajan%27s_Kiosk%2C_Aswan%2C_Egypt%2C_Oct_2004.jpg)
Diocletian spent the spring of 293 travelling with Galerius from Sirmium (
Sremska Mitrovica,
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...
) to
Byzantium (
Istanbul
)
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code = 34000 to 34990
, area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side)
, registration_plate = 34
, blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD
, blank_i ...
,
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
). Diocletian then returned to Sirmium, where he would remain for the following winter and spring. He campaigned against the Sarmatians again in 294, probably in the autumn, and won a victory against them. The Sarmatians' defeat kept them from the Danube provinces for a long time. Meanwhile, Diocletian built forts north of the Danube, at
Aquincum
Aquincum (, ) was an ancient city, situated on the northeastern borders of the province of Pannonia within the Roman Empire. The ruins of the city can be found today in Budapest, the capital city of Hungary. It is believed that Marcus Aurelius w ...
(
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
,
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...
), Bononia (
Vidin
Vidin ( bg, Видин, ; Old Romanian: Diiu) is a port city on the southern bank of the Danube in north-western Bulgaria. It is close to the borders with Romania and Serbia, and is also the administrative centre of Vidin Province, as well as ...
, Bulgaria), Ulcisia Vetera, Castra Florentium, Intercisa (
Dunaújváros
Dunaújváros (; also known by other #Etymology and names, alternative names) is an industrial city in Fejér County, Central Hungary. It is a city with county rights. Situated 70 kilometres (43 miles) south of Budapest on the Danube, the city i ...
, Hungary), and Onagrinum (
Begeč
Begeč ( sr-cyr, Бегеч) is a suburban settlement of the city of Novi Sad in Serbia. It is situated on the river Danube, approximately west of Novi Sad, on the Bačka Palanka-Novi Sad road. According to the 2011 census, the village had a Serb ...
, Serbia). The new forts became part of a new defensive line called the ''Ripa Sarmatica''. In 295 and 296 Diocletian campaigned in the region again, and won a victory over the Carpi in the summer of 296. Later during both 299 and 302, as Diocletian was then residing in the East, it was Galerius's turn to campaign victoriously on the Danube. By the end of his reign, Diocletian had secured the entire length of the Danube, provided it with forts, bridgeheads, highways, and walled towns, and sent fifteen or more legions to patrol the region; an inscription at
Sexaginta Prista
Ruse (also transliterated as Rousse, Russe; bg, Русе ) is the fifth largest city in Bulgaria. Ruse is in the northeastern part of the country, on the right bank of the Danube, opposite the Romanian city of Giurgiu, approximately south of ...
on the Lower Danube extolled restored tranquility to the region. The defense came at a heavy cost, but was a significant achievement in an area difficult to defend.
Galerius, meanwhile, was engaged during 291–293 in disputes in
Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south.
In ancient E ...
, where he suppressed a regional uprising. He would return to Syria in 295 to fight the revanchist Persian empire. Diocletian's attempts to bring the Egyptian tax system in line with Imperial standards stirred discontent, and a revolt swept the region after Galerius's departure. The usurper
Domitius Domitianus
Lucius Domitius Domitianus or, rarely, Domitian III, was a Roman usurper against Diocletian, who seized power for a short time in Egypt.
History
Nothing is known of the background and family of Domitianus. He may have served as prefect of Egyp ...
declared himself ''Augustus'' in July or August 297. Much of Egypt, including
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
, recognized his rule. Diocletian moved into Egypt to suppress him, first putting down rebels in the
Thebaid
The Thebaid or Thebais ( grc-gre, Θηβαΐς, ''Thēbaïs'') was a region in ancient Egypt, comprising the 13 southernmost nomes of Upper Egypt, from Abydos to Aswan.
Pharaonic history
The Thebaid acquired its name from its proximity to ...
in the autumn of 297, then moving on to besiege Alexandria. Domitianus died in December 297, by which time Diocletian had secured control of the Egyptian countryside. Alexandria, however, whose defense was organized under Domitianus's former ''
corrector
A corrector (English plural ''correctors'', Latin plural ''correctores'') is a person or object practicing correction, usually by removing or rectifying errors.
The word is originally a Roman title, ''corrector'', derived from the Latin verb '' ...
''
Aurelius Achilleus
Aurelius Achilleus ( 297–298 AD) was a rebel against the Roman emperor Diocletian in Egypt in 297 AD.
All literary sources name Achilleus as an imperial pretender and the leader of the rebellion, but numismatic and papyrological evidence attrib ...
, was to hold out until a later date, probably March 298.
Bureaucratic affairs were completed during Diocletian's stay: a census took place, and Alexandria, in punishment for its rebellion, lost the ability to mint independently. Diocletian's reforms in the region, combined with those of
Septimius Severus
Lucius Septimius Severus (; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna (present-day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary suc ...
, brought Egyptian administrative practices much closer to Roman standards. Diocletian travelled south along the Nile the following summer, where he visited
Oxyrhynchus and
Elephantine. In Nubia, he made peace with the
Nobatae
Nobatia or Nobadia (; Greek: Νοβαδία, ''Nobadia''; Old Nubian: ⲙⲓⲅⲛ̅ ''Migin'' or ⲙⲓⲅⲓⲧⲛ︦ ⲅⲟⲩⲗ, ''Migitin Goul'' lit. "''of Nobadia's land''") was a late antique kingdom in Lower Nubia. Together with the tw ...
and
Blemmyes tribes. Under the terms of the peace treaty Rome's borders moved north to
Philae
; ar, فيلة; cop, ⲡⲓⲗⲁⲕ
, alternate_name =
, image = File:File, Asuán, Egipto, 2022-04-01, DD 93.jpg
, alt =
, caption = The temple of Isis from Philae at its current location on Agilkia Island in Lake Nasse ...
and the two tribes received an annual gold stipend. Diocletian left Africa quickly after the treaty, moving from Upper Egypt in September 298 to Syria in February 299. He met with Galerius in Mesopotamia.
War with Persia
Invasion, counterinvasion
![Medallion of Diocletian (obverse)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Medallion_of_Diocletian_%28obverse%29.jpg)
In 294,
Narseh
Narseh (also spelled Narses or Narseus; pal, 𐭭𐭥𐭮𐭧𐭩, New Persian: , ''Narsē'') was the seventh Sasanian King of Kings of Iran from 293 to 303.
The youngest son of Shapur I (), Narseh served as the governor of Sakastan, Hind and ...
, a son of Shapur who had been passed over for the Sassanid succession, came to power in Persia. Narseh eliminated
Bahram III, a young man installed in the wake of Bahram II's death in 293. In early 294, Narseh sent Diocletian the customary package of gifts between the empires, and Diocletian responded with an exchange of ambassadors. Within Persia, however, Narseh was destroying every trace of his immediate predecessors from public monuments. He sought to identify himself with the warlike kings
Ardashir Ardeshir or Ardashir ( Persian: اردشیر; also spelled as Ardasher) is a Persian name popular in Iran and other Persian-speaking countries. Ardashir is the New Persian form of the Middle Persian name , which is ultimately from Old Iranian ''*Ar ...
(r. 226–41) and
Shapur I
Shapur I (also spelled Shabuhr I; pal, 𐭱𐭧𐭯𐭥𐭧𐭥𐭩, Šābuhr ) was the second Sasanian King of Kings of Iran. The dating of his reign is disputed, but it is generally agreed that he ruled from 240 to 270, with his father Ardas ...
(r. 241–72), who had defeated and imprisoned Emperor
Valerian (r. 253–260) following his failed invasion of the
Sasanian Empire.
Narseh declared war on Rome in 295 or 296. He appears to have first invaded western Armenia, where he seized the lands delivered to Tiridates in the peace of 287. Narseh moved south into Roman Mesopotamia in 297, where he inflicted a severe defeat on Galerius in the region between Carrhae (
Harran
Harran (), historically known as Carrhae ( el, Kάρραι, Kárrhai), is a rural town and district of the Şanlıurfa Province in southeastern Turkey, approximately 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Urfa and 20 kilometers from the border cr ...
, Turkey) and Callinicum (
Raqqa
Raqqa ( ar, ٱلرَّقَّة, ar-Raqqah, also and ) (Kurdish: Reqa/ ڕەقە) is a city in Syria on the northeast bank of the Euphrates River, about east of Aleppo. It is located east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria's largest dam. The Hellenistic, ...
, Syria). The historian
Fergus Millar
Sir Fergus Graham Burtholme Millar, (; 5 July 1935 – 15 July 2019) was a British ancient historian and academic. He was Camden Professor of Ancient History at the University of Oxford between 1984 and 2002. He numbers among the most influ ...
notes, probably somewhere on the
Balikh River
The Balikh River ( ar, نهر البليخ) is a perennial river that originates in the spring of Ain al-Arous near Tell Abyad in the Eastern Mediterranean conifer-sclerophyllous-broadleaf forests ecoregion. It flows due south and joins the Euph ...
). Diocletian may or may not have been present at the battle, but he quickly divested himself of all responsibility. In a public ceremony at
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ ...
, the official version of events was clear: Galerius was responsible for the defeat; Diocletian was not. Diocletian publicly humiliated Galerius, forcing him to walk for a mile at the head of the Imperial caravan, still clad in the purple robes of the Emperor.
![Arch-of-Galerius-1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Arch-of-Galerius-1.jpg)
Galerius was reinforced, probably in the spring of 298, by a new contingent collected from the empire's Danubian holdings. Narseh did not advance from Armenia and Mesopotamia, leaving Galerius to lead the offensive in 298 with an attack on northern Mesopotamia via Armenia. It is unclear if Diocletian was present to assist the campaign; he might have returned to Egypt or Syria. Narseh retreated to Armenia to fight Galerius's force, to Narseh's disadvantage; the rugged Armenian terrain was favorable to Roman infantry, but not to Sassanid cavalry. In two battles, Galerius won major victories over Narseh. During the
second encounter, Roman forces seized Narseh's camp, his treasury, his harem, and his wife. Galerius continued moving down the Tigris, and took the Persian capital Ctesiphon before returning to Roman territory along the Euphrates.
Peace negotiations
Narseh sent an ambassador to Galerius to plead for the return of his wives and children in the course of the war, but Galerius dismissed him. Serious peace negotiations began in the spring of 299. The ''magister memoriae'' (secretary) of Diocletian and Galerius, Sicorius Probus, was sent to Narseh to present terms. The conditions of the resulting
Peace of Nisibis were heavy: Armenia returned to Roman domination, with the fort of Ziatha as its border;
Caucasian Iberia
In Greco-Roman geography, Iberia (Ancient Greek: ''Iberia''; la, Hiberia) was an exonym for the Georgian kingdom of Kartli ( ka, ქართლი), known after its core province, which during Classical Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages ...
would pay allegiance to Rome under a Roman appointee; Nisibis, now under Roman rule, would become the sole conduit for trade between Persia and Rome; and Rome would exercise control over the five satrapies between the Tigris and Armenia:
Ingilene
Angeghtun () or Ingilene ( grc, Ἰγγηληνή; ) was a district of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia centered on the city and fortress of Anggh (), which gave its name to the district. Anggh is often identified with the modern city of Eğil in Tu ...
, Sophanene (
Sophene
Sophene ( hy, Ծոփք, translit=Tsopkʻ, grc, Σωφηνή, translit=Sōphēnē or hy, Չորրորդ Հայք, lit=Fourth Armenia) was a province of the ancient kingdom of Armenia, located in the south-west of the kingdom, and of the Ro ...
), Arzanene (
Aghdznik),
Corduene (Carduene), and Zabdicene (near modern
Hakkâri, Turkey). These regions included the passage of the Tigris through the
Anti-Taurus range; the
Bitlis
Bitlis ( hy, Բաղեշ '; ku, Bidlîs; ota, بتليس) is a city in southeastern Turkey and the capital of Bitlis Province. The city is located at an elevation of 1,545 metres, 15 km from Lake Van, in the steep-sided valley of the Bitlis R ...
pass, the quickest southerly route into Persian Armenia; and access to the
Tur Abdin
Tur Abdin ( syr, ܛܽܘܪ ܥܰܒ݂ܕܺܝܢ or ܛܘܼܪ ܥܲܒ݂ܕܝܼܢ, Ṭūr ʿAḇdīn) is a hilly region situated in southeast Turkey, including the eastern half of the Mardin Province, and Şırnak Province west of the Tigris, on the borde ...
plateau.
A stretch of land containing the later strategic strongholds of Amida (
Diyarbakır
Diyarbakır (; ; ; ) is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey. It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province.
Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, ...
, Turkey) and
Bezabde
Bezabde or Bazabde was a fortress city on the eastern Roman frontier. Located in Zabdicene, it played a role in the Roman-Persian Wars of the 4th century. It was besieged two times in 360, narrated in detail by Ammianus Marcellinus. The Sasanian ...
came under firm Roman military occupation. With these territories, Rome would have an advance station north of Ctesiphon, and would be able to slow any future advance of Persian forces through the region. Many cities east of the Tigris came under Roman control, including
Tigranokert,
Saird,
Martyropolis,
Balalesa,
Moxos,
Daudia, and Arzan – though under what status is unclear. At the conclusion of the peace, Tiridates regained both his throne and the entirety of his ancestral claim. Rome secured a wide zone of cultural influence, which led to a wide diffusion of
Syriac Christianity from a center at Nisibis in later decades, and the eventual Christianization of Armenia.
To strengthen the defence of the east Diocletian had a fortified road constructed at the southern border, where the empire bordered the Arabs, in the year 300. This road would remain in use for centuries but proved ineffective in defending the border as conventional armies could not operate in the region.
Religious persecutions
Early persecutions
At the conclusion of the
Peace of Nisibis, Diocletian and Galerius returned to Syrian
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ ...
. At some time in 299, the emperors took part in a ceremony of
sacrifice and
divination in an attempt to predict the future. The
haruspices
In the religion of ancient Rome, a haruspex (plural haruspices; also called aruspex) was a person trained to practise a form of divination called haruspicy (''haruspicina''), the inspection of the entrails ('' exta''—hence also extispicy ...
were unable to read the entrails of the sacrificed animals and blamed Christians in the Imperial household. The emperors ordered all members of the court to perform a sacrifice to purify the palace. The emperors sent letters to the military command, demanding the entire army perform the required sacrifices or face discharge. Diocletian was conservative in matters of religion, a man faithful to the traditional Roman pantheon and understanding of demands for religious purification, but
Eusebius
Eusebius of Caesarea (; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος ; 260/265 – 30 May 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (from the grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος τοῦ Παμφίλου), was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Chris ...
,
Lactantius and
Constantine
Constantine most often refers to:
* Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I
*Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria
Constantine may also refer to:
People
* Constantine (name), a masculine given name ...
state that it was
Galerius
Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus (; 258 – May 311) was Roman emperor from 305 to 311. During his reign he campaigned, aided by Diocletian, against the Sasanian Empire, sacking their capital Ctesiphon in 299. He also campaigned across th ...
, not Diocletian, who was the prime supporter of the purge, and its greatest beneficiary. Galerius, even more devoted and passionate than Diocletian, saw political advantage in the politics of persecution. He was willing to break with a government policy of inaction on the issue.
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ ...
was Diocletian's primary residence from 299 to 302, while Galerius swapped places with his Augustus on the Middle and Lower Danube. Diocletian visited Egypt once, over the winter of 301–2, and issued a grain dole in Alexandria. Following some public disputes with
Manicheans
Manichaeism (;
in New Persian ; ) is a former major religionR. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 founded in the 3rd century AD by the Parthian prophet Mani ( ...
, Diocletian ordered that the leading followers of
Mani be burnt alive along with their scriptures. In a 31 March 302 rescript from Alexandria, he declared that low-status Manicheans must be executed by the blade, and high-status Manicheans must be sent to work in the quarries of Proconnesus (
Marmara Island
Marmara Island ( ) is a Turkish island in the Sea of Marmara. With an area of it is the largest island in the Sea of Marmara and is the second largest island of Turkey after Gökçeada (older name in Turkish: ; el, Ίμβρος, links=no '' ...
, Turkey) or the mines of
Phaeno in southern
Palestine. All Manichean property was to be seized and deposited in the
imperial treasury. Diocletian found much to be offended by in Manichean religion: its novelty, its alien origins, its perceived corruption of the morals of the Roman race, and its inherent opposition to long-standing religious traditions. His reasons for opposing Manichaeanism were also applied to his next target, Christianity.
Great Persecution
Diocletian returned to
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ ...
in the autumn of 302. He ordered that the
deacon
A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Chur ...
Romanus of Caesarea
Romanus of Caesarea (also known as Romanus of Antioch) is venerated as a martyr. A deacon of Caesarea, he was martyred at Antioch.
Life
In 303 or 304, at the beginning of the Diocletianic Persecution, a deacon called Romanus, served in Caesarea in ...
have his tongue removed for defying the order of the courts and interrupting official sacrifices. Romanus was then sent to prison, where he was executed on 17 November 303. Diocletian believed that Romanus of Caesarea was arrogant, and he left the city for Nicomedia in the winter, accompanied by Galerius. According to Lactantius, Diocletian and Galerius entered into an argument over imperial policy towards Christians while wintering at Nicomedia in 302. Diocletian argued that forbidding Christians from the bureaucracy and military would be sufficient to appease the gods, but Galerius pushed for extermination. The two men sought the advice of the
oracle of
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label= Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label ...
at
Didyma. The oracle responded that the impious on Earth hindered Apollo's ability to provide advice. Rhetorically Eusebius records the Oracle as saying "The just on Earth..." These impious, Diocletian was informed by members of the court, could only refer to the Christians of the empire. At the behest of his court, Diocletian acceded to demands for universal persecution.
On 23 February 303, Diocletian ordered that the newly built church at Nicomedia be razed. He demanded that its scriptures be burned, and seized its precious stores for the treasury. The next day, Diocletian's first "Edict against the Christians" was published. The edict ordered the destruction of Christian scriptures and places of worship across the empire, and prohibited Christians from assembling for worship. Before the end of February, a fire destroyed part of the Imperial palace. Galerius convinced Diocletian that the culprits were Christians, conspirators who had plotted with the
eunuchs of the palace. An investigation was commissioned, but no responsible party was found. Executions followed anyway, and the palace eunuchs Dorotheus and
Gorgonius
Saint Gorgonius of Nicomedia ( el, Ἅγιος Γοργόνιος Νικομηδείας) was a Christian martyr, part of the group Gorgonius, Peter Cubicularius and Dorotheus, who died in 304 AD at Nicomedia during the Diocletianic Persecution.
...
were executed. One individual,
Peter Cubicularius, was stripped, raised high, and scourged. Salt and vinegar were poured in his wounds, and he was
slowly boiled over an open flame. The executions continued until at least 24 April 303, when six individuals, including the
bishop
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is c ...
Anthimus, were
decapitated
Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the i ...
. A second fire occurred sixteen days after the first. Galerius left the city for Rome, declaring Nicomedia unsafe. Diocletian would soon follow.
Although further persecutory edicts followed, compelling the arrest of the Christian clergy and universal acts of sacrifice, the persecutory edicts were ultimately unsuccessful; most Christians escaped punishment, and pagans too were generally unsympathetic to the persecution. The
martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
s' sufferings strengthened the resolve of their fellow Christians. Constantius and Maximian did not apply the later persecutory edicts, and left the Christians of the West unharmed. Galerius rescinded the edict in 311, announcing that the persecution had failed to bring Christians back to traditional religion. The temporary apostasy of some Christians, and the surrendering of scriptures, during the persecution played a major role in the subsequent
Donatist
Donatism was a Christian sect leading to a schism in the Church, in the region of the Church of Carthage, from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and the ...
controversy. Within twenty-five years of the persecution's inauguration, the Christian emperor
Constantine
Constantine most often refers to:
* Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I
*Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria
Constantine may also refer to:
People
* Constantine (name), a masculine given name ...
would rule the empire alone. He would reverse the consequences of the edicts, and return all confiscated property to Christians. Under Constantine's rule, Christianity would become the empire's preferred religion. Diocletian was demonized by his Christian successors:
Lactantius intimated that Diocletian's ascendancy heralded the apocalypse, and in
Serbian mythology, Diocletian is remembered as
Dukljan, the
adversary
An adversary is generally considered to be a person, group, or force that opposes and/or attacks.
Adversary may also refer to:
* Satan ("adversary" in Hebrew), in Judeo-Christian religion
Entertainment Fiction
* Adversary (comics), villain fro ...
of
God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
.
Later life
Illness and abdication
Diocletian entered the city of Rome in the early winter of 303. On 20 November, he celebrated, with Maximian, the twentieth anniversary of his reign (), the tenth anniversary of the Tetrarchy (''
decennalia Decennalia (or Decennia, from Latin ''decennium'' - "tenth anniversary"; ''decem'', "ten" + ''annus'', "year") were Ancient Roman festivals celebrated with games every ten years by the Roman emperors.
The festival owed its origin to the fact that ...
''), and a triumph for the war with Persia. Diocletian soon grew impatient with the city, as the Romans acted towards him with what
Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 173716 January 1794) was an English historian, writer, and member of parliament. His most important work, '' The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, is ...
, following
Lactantius, calls "licentious familiarity". The Roman people did not give enough deference to his supreme authority; it expected him to act the part of an aristocratic ruler, not a monarchic one. On 20 December 303, Diocletian cut short his stay in Rome and left for the north. He did not even perform the ceremonies investing him with his ninth consulate; he did them in
Ravenna
Ravenna ( , , also ; rgn, Ravèna) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire from 408 until its collapse in 476. It then served as the ca ...
on 1 January 304 instead. There are suggestions in the ''
Panegyrici Latini
' or ''Twelve Latin Panegyrics'' is the conventional title of a collection of twelve ancient Roman and late antique prose panegyric orations written in Latin.
The authors of most of the speeches in the collection are anonymous, but appear to hav ...
'' and Lactantius's account that Diocletian arranged plans for his and Maximian's future retirement of power in Rome. Maximian, according to these accounts, swore to uphold Diocletian's plan in a ceremony in the
Temple of Jupiter.
From Ravenna, Diocletian left for the Danube. There, possibly in Galerius's company, he took part in a campaign against the Carpi. He contracted a minor illness while on campaign, but his condition quickly worsened and he chose to travel in a
litter
Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. Litter can also be used as a verb; to litter means to drop and leave objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups ...
. In the late summer he left for Nicomedia. On 20 November 304, he appeared in public to dedicate the opening of the circus beside his palace. He collapsed soon after the ceremonies. Over the winter of 304–5 he kept within his palace at all times. Rumours alleging that Diocletian's death was merely being kept secret until Galerius could come to assume power spread through the city. On 13 December, it was falsely announced that Diocletian had killed himself. The city was sent into a mourning from which it recovered after public declarations that Diocletian was still alive. When Diocletian reappeared in public on 1 March 305, he was emaciated and barely recognizable.
Galerius arrived in the city later in March. According to
Lactantius, he came armed with plans to reconstitute the Tetrarchy, force Diocletian to step down, and fill the Imperial office with men compliant to his will. Through coercion and threats, he eventually convinced Diocletian to comply with his plan. Lactantius also claims that he had done the same to Maximian at Sirmium. On 1 May 305, Diocletian called an assembly of his generals, traditional companion troops, and representatives from distant legions. They met at the same hill, out of Nicomedia, where Diocletian had been proclaimed emperor. In front of a statue of Jupiter, his patron deity, Diocletian addressed the crowd. With tears in his eyes, he told them of his weakness, his need for rest, and his will to resign. He declared that he needed to pass the duty of empire on to someone stronger. He thus became the first Roman emperor to voluntarily abdicate his title.
Most in the crowd believed they knew what would follow;
Constantine
Constantine most often refers to:
* Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I
*Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria
Constantine may also refer to:
People
* Constantine (name), a masculine given name ...
and Maxentius, the only adult sons of reigning emperors, men who had long been preparing to succeed their fathers, would be granted the title of ''Caesar''. Constantine had travelled through Palestine at the right hand of Diocletian, and was present at the palace in Nicomedia in 303 and 305. It is likely that Maxentius received the same treatment. In Lactantius's account, when Diocletian announced that he was to resign, the entire crowd turned to face Constantine. It was not to be:
Severus II
Flavius Valerius Severus (died September 307), also called Severus II, was a Roman emperor from 306 to 307. After failing to besiege Rome, he fled to Ravenna. It is thought that he was killed there or executed near Rome.
Background and early ...
and
Maximinus II
Galerius Valerius Maximinus, born as Daza (20 November 270 – July 313), was Roman emperor from 310 to 313 CE. He became embroiled in the Civil wars of the Tetrarchy between rival claimants for control of the empire, in which he was defeate ...
were declared caesars. Maximinus appeared and took Diocletian's robes. On the same day, Severus received his robes from Maximian in Milan. Constantius succeeded Maximian as ''Augustus'' of the West, but Constantine and Maxentius were entirely ignored in the transition of power. This did not bode well for the future security of the tetrarchic system.
Retirement and death
![Croatia-01239 - The Peristil (9551533404)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Croatia-01239_-_The_Peristil_%289551533404%29.jpg)
Diocletian retired to his homeland,
Dalmatia. He moved into the expansive
Diocletian's Palace
Diocletian's Palace ( hr, Dioklecijanova palača, ) is an ancient palace built for the Roman emperor Diocletian at the turn of the fourth century AD, which today forms about half the old town of Split, Croatia. While it is referred to as a "pala ...
, a heavily fortified compound located by the small town of Spalatum on the shores of the
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Sea) to t ...
, and near the large provincial administrative center of
Salona
Salona ( grc, Σάλωνα) was an ancient city and the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia. Salona is located in the modern town of Solin, next to Split, in Croatia.
Salona was founded in the 3rd century BC and was mostly destroyed in ...
. The palace is preserved in great part to this day and forms the historic core of
Split
Split(s) or The Split may refer to:
Places
* Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia
* Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay
* Split Island, Falkland Islands
* Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua
Arts, entertai ...
, the second-largest city of modern
Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
.
Maximian retired to villas in
Campania
(man), it, Campana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 =
, demog ...
or
Lucania
Lucania was a historical region of Southern Italy. It was the land of the Lucani, an Oscan people. It extended from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Gulf of Taranto.
It bordered with Samnium and Campania in the north, Apulia in the east, and Bruttiu ...
. Their homes were distant from political life, but Diocletian and Maximian were close enough to remain in regular contact with each other. Galerius assumed the consular ''fasces'' in 308 with Diocletian as his colleague. In the autumn of 308, Galerius again conferred with Diocletian at
Carnuntum
Carnuntum ( according to Ptolemy) was a Roman legionary fortress ( la, castra legionis) and headquarters of the Pannonian fleet from 50 AD. After the 1st century, it was capital of the Pannonia Superior province. It also became a large ...
(
Petronell-Carnuntum
Petronell-Carnuntum is a community of Bruck an der Leitha in Austria. It is known for its annual World Theatre Festival.
History
The village derives the second half of its name, Carnuntum, from the ancient Roman legionary fortress and headquar ...
,
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
). Diocletian and Maximian were both present on 11 November 308, to see Galerius appoint
Licinius
Valerius Licinianus Licinius (c. 265 – 325) was Roman emperor from 308 to 324. For most of his reign he was the colleague and rival of Constantine I, with whom he co-authored the Edict of Milan, AD 313, that granted official toleration to C ...
to be Augustus in place of Severus, who had died at the hands of Maxentius. He ordered Maximian, who had attempted to return to power after his retirement, to step down permanently. At Carnuntum people begged Diocletian to return to the throne, to resolve the conflicts that had arisen through Constantine's rise to power and Maxentius's usurpation. Diocletian's reply: "If you could show the
cabbage that I planted with my own hands to your emperor, he definitely wouldn't dare suggest that I replace the peace and happiness of this place with the storms of a never-satisfied greed."
Diocletian lived on for four more years, spending his days in his palace gardens. He saw his tetrarchic system fail, torn by the selfish ambitions of his successors. He heard of Maximian's third claim to the throne, his forced suicide, and his ''
damnatio memoriae
is a modern Latin phrase meaning "condemnation of memory", indicating that a person is to be excluded from official accounts. Depending on the extent, it can be a case of historical negationism. There are and have been many routes to , includi ...
''. In his own palace, statues and portraits of his former companion emperor were torn down and destroyed. After an illness, Diocletian died on 3 December 311, with some proposing that he
took his own life in despair.
Others, however, have proposed that in retirement he no longer cared about the Empire's troubles and that he died content.
Reforms
Tetrarchic and ideological
Diocletian saw his work as that of a restorer, a figure of authority whose duty it was to return the empire to peace, to recreate stability and justice where barbarian hordes had destroyed it. He arrogated, regimented and centralized political authority on a massive scale. In his policies, he enforced an Imperial system of values on diverse and often unreceptive provincial audiences. In the Imperial propaganda from the period, recent history was perverted and minimized in the service of the theme of the tetrarchs as "restorers". Aurelian's achievements were ignored, the revolt of Carausius was backdated to the reign of Gallienus, and it was implied that the tetrarchs engineered Aurelian's defeat of the
Palmyrenes; the period between Gallienus and Diocletian was effectively erased. The history of the empire before the tetrarchy was portrayed as a time of civil war, savage despotism, and imperial collapse. In those inscriptions that bear their names, Diocletian, the “founder of eternal peace”, and his companions are referred to as "restorers of the whole world", men who succeeded in "defeating the nations of the barbarians, and confirming the tranquility of their world". The theme of restoration was conjoined to an emphasis on the uniqueness and accomplishments of the tetrarchs themselves.
The cities where emperors lived frequently in this period –
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
,
Trier
Trier ( , ; lb, Tréier ), formerly known in English as Trèves ( ;) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the ...
,
Arles
Arles (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Arle ; Classical la, Arelate) is a coastal city and commune in the South of France, a subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the former province of ...
,
Sirmium
Sirmium was a city in the Roman province of Pannonia, located on the Sava river, on the site of modern Sremska Mitrovica in the Vojvodina autonomous provice of Serbia. First mentioned in the 4th century BC and originally inhabited by Illyrian ...
,
Serdica
Serdika or Serdica ( Bulgarian: ) is the historical Roman name of Sofia, now the capital of Bulgaria.
Currently, Serdika is the name of a district located in the city. It includes four neighbourhoods: "Fondovi zhilishta"; "Banishora", "Orlandov ...
,
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...
,
Nicomedia
Nicomedia (; el, Νικομήδεια, ''Nikomedeia''; modern İzmit) was an ancient Greek city located in what is now Turkey. In 286, Nicomedia became the eastern and most senior capital city of the Roman Empire (chosen by the emperor Diocleti ...
and
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ ...
– were treated as alternate imperial seats, to the exclusion of Rome and its senatorial elite. A new style of ceremony was developed, emphasizing the distinction of the emperor from all other persons. The quasi-republican ideals of Augustus's ''
primus inter pares'' were abandoned for all but the tetrarchs themselves. Diocletian took to wearing a gold crown and jewels, and forbade the use of
purple cloth to all but the emperors. His subjects were required to prostrate themselves in his presence (''adoratio''); the most fortunate were allowed the privilege of kissing the hem of his robe (''
proskynesis
Proskynesis or proscynesis , or proskinesis ( Greek , ''proskýnēsis''; Latin adoratio) is a solemn gesture of respect for the gods and people; among the Persians, it referred to a man prostrating himself and kissing the earth, or the lim ...
'', προσκύνησις). Circuses and basilicas were designed to keep the face of the emperor perpetually in view, and always in a seat of authority. The emperor became a figure of transcendent authority, a man beyond the grip of the masses. His every appearance was stage-managed. This style of presentation was not new – many of its elements were first seen in the reigns of Aurelian and Severus – but it was only under the tetrarchs that it was refined into an explicit system.
Administrative
In keeping with his move from an ideology of republicanism to one of autocracy, Diocletian's council of advisers, his , differed from those of earlier emperors. He destroyed the Augustan illusion of imperial government as a cooperative affair among emperor, army, and senate. In its place he established an effectively autocratic structure, a shift later epitomized in the institution's name: it would be called a , not a council. Diocletian regulated his court by distinguishing separate departments () for different tasks. From this structure came the offices of different , like the ("Master of Offices"), and associated secretariats. These were men suited to dealing with petitions, requests, correspondence, legal affairs, and foreign embassies. Within his court Diocletian maintained a permanent body of legal advisers, men with significant influence on his re-ordering of juridical affairs. There were also two finance ministers, dealing with the separate bodies of the public treasury and the private domains of the emperor, and the praetorian prefect, the most significant person of the whole. Diocletian's reduction of the Praetorian Guards to the level of a simple city garrison for Rome lessened the military powers of the prefect – although a prefect like Asclepiodotus was still a trained general – but the office retained much civil authority. The prefect kept a staff of hundreds and managed affairs in all segments of government: in taxation, administration, jurisprudence, and minor military commands, the praetorian prefect was often second only to the emperor himself.
Altogether, Diocletian effected a large increase in the number of bureaucrats at the government's command; Lactantius was to claim that there were now more men using tax money than there were paying it. The historian Warren Treadgold estimates that under Diocletian the number of men in the
civil service doubled from 15,000 to 30,000. The classicist
Roger S. Bagnall estimates that there was one bureaucrat for every 5–10,000 people in Egypt based on 400 or 800 bureaucrats for 4 million inhabitants (no one knows the population of the province in 300 AD; Strabo, 300 years earlier, put it at 7.5 million, excluding Alexandria). (By comparison, the ratio in 12th-century
Song dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
China was one bureaucrat for every 15,000 people.) Jones estimated 30,000 bureaucrats for an empire of 50–65 million inhabitants, which works out to approximately 1,667 or 2,167 inhabitants per imperial official as averages empire-wide. The actual numbers of officials and ratios per inhabitant varied, of course, per
diocese
In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.
History
In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associa ...
depending on the number of provinces and population within a diocese. Provincial and diocesan paid officials (there were unpaid supernumeraries) numbered about 13–15,000 based on their staff establishments as set by law. The other 50% were with the emperor(s) in his or their , with the praetorian prefects, or with the grain supply officials in the capital (later, the capitals, Rome and Constantinople), Alexandria, and Carthage and officials from the central offices located in the provinces.
To avoid the possibility of local usurpations, to facilitate a more efficient collection of taxes and supplies, and to ease the enforcement of the law, Diocletian doubled the number of
provinces
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
from fifty to almost one hundred. The provinces were grouped into twelve
dioceses
In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.
History
In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...
, each governed by an appointed official called a , or "deputy of the praetorian prefects". Some of the provincial divisions required revision, and were modified either soon after 293 or early in the fourth century. Rome herself (including her environs, as defined by a -
radius
In classical geometry, a radius ( : radii) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The name comes from the latin ''radius'', meaning ray but also the ...
perimeter
A perimeter is a closed path that encompasses, surrounds, or outlines either a two dimensional shape or a one-dimensional length. The perimeter of a circle or an ellipse is called its circumference.
Calculating the perimeter has several pr ...
around the city itself) was not under the authority of the praetorian prefect, as she was to be administered by a city prefect of senatorial rank – the sole prestigious post with actual power reserved exclusively for senators, except for some governors in Italy with the titles of corrector and the proconsuls of Asia and Africa.
The dissemination of imperial law to the provinces was facilitated under Diocletian's reign, because Diocletian's reform of the Empire's provincial structure meant that there were now a greater number of governors () ruling over smaller regions and smaller populations. Diocletian's reforms shifted the governors' main function to that of the presiding official in the lower courts: whereas in the early Empire military and judicial functions were the function of the governor, and
procurators had supervised taxation, under the new system and governors were responsible for justice and taxation, and a new class of ("
duke
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are rank ...
s"), acting independently of the civil service, had military command. These dukes sometimes administered two or three of the new provinces created by Diocletian, and had forces ranging from two thousand to more than twenty thousand men. In addition to their roles as judges and tax collectors, governors were expected to maintain the postal service () and ensure that town councils fulfilled their duties.
This curtailment of governors' powers as the Emperors' representatives may have lessened the political dangers of an all-too-powerful class of Imperial delegates, but it also severely limited governors' ability to oppose local landed elites, especially those of senatorial status, which, although with reduced opportunities for office holding, retained wealth, social prestige, and personal connections, particularly in relatively peaceful regions without a great military presence. On one occasion, Diocletian had to exhort a proconsul of Africa not to fear the consequences of treading on the toes of the local magnates of senatorial rank. If a governor of senatorial rank himself felt these pressures, the difficulties faced by a mere
praeses
''Praeses'' (Latin ''praesides'') is a Latin word meaning "placed before" or "at the head". In antiquity, notably under the Roman Dominate, it was used to refer to Roman governors; it continues to see some use for various modern positions.
...
were likely greater. This led to a strained relationship between the central power and local elites: sometime during 303, an attempted military sedition in
Seleucia Pieria and
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ ...
prompted Diocletian to extract a bloody retribution on both cities by putting to death a number of their council members for failing in their duties of keeping order in their jurisdiction.
Legal
![Digesto 02](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Digesto_02.jpg)
As with most emperors, much of Diocletian's daily routine rotated around legal affairs – responding to appeals and petitions, and delivering decisions on disputed matters. Rescripts, authoritative interpretations issued by the emperor in response to demands from disputants in both public and private cases, were a common duty of second- and third-century emperors. In the "nomadic" imperial courts of the later Empire, one can track the progress of the imperial retinue through the locations from whence particular rescripts were issued – the presence of the Emperor was what allowed the system to function. Whenever the imperial court would settle in one of the capitals, there was a glut in petitions, as in late 294 in Nicomedia, where Diocletian kept winter quarters.
Admittedly, Diocletian's praetorian prefects – Afranius Hannibalianus, Julius Asclepiodotus, and
Aurelius Hermogenianus – aided in regulating the flow and presentation of such paperwork, but the deep legalism of Roman culture kept the workload heavy. Emperors in the forty years preceding Diocletian's reign had not managed these duties so effectively, and their output in attested rescripts is low. Diocletian, by contrast, was prodigious in his affairs: there are around 1,200 rescripts in his name still surviving, and these probably represent only a small portion of the total issue. The sharp increase in the number of edicts and rescripts produced under Diocletian's rule has been read as evidence of an ongoing effort to realign the whole Empire on terms dictated by the imperial center.
Under the governance of the
jurists Gregorius, Aurelius Arcadius Charisius, and Hermogenianus, the imperial government began issuing official books of
precedent
A precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems place great valu ...
, collecting and listing all the rescripts that had been issued from the reign of
Hadrian (r. 117–38) to the reign of Diocletian. The
Codex Gregorianus The ''Codex Gregorianus'' (Eng. Gregorian Code) is the title of a collection of constitutions (legal pronouncements) of Roman emperors over a century and a half from the 130s to 290s AD. It is believed to have been produced around 291–4 but the e ...
includes rescripts up to 292, which the
Codex Hermogenianus
The ''Codex Hermogenianus'' (Eng. Hermogenian Code) is the title of a collection of constitutions (legal pronouncements) of the Roman emperors of the first tetrarchy (Diocletian, Maximian Augusti, and Constantius and Galerius Caesars), mostly from ...
updated with a comprehensive collection of rescripts issued by Diocletian in 293 and 294. Although the very act of codification was a radical innovation, given the precedent-based design of the Roman legal system, the jurists were generally conservative, and constantly looked to past Roman practice and theory for guidance. They were probably given more free rein over their codes than the later compilers of the ''
Codex Theodosianus'' (438) and ''
Codex Justinianeus
The Code of Justinian ( la, Codex Justinianus, or ) is one part of the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'', the codification of Roman law ordered early in the 6th century AD by Justinian I, who was Eastern Roman emperor in Constantinople. Two other units, t ...
'' (529) would have. Gregorius and Hermogenianus's codices lack the rigid structuring of later codes, and were not published in the name of the emperor, but in the names of their compilers. Their official character, however, was clear in that both collections were subsequently acknowledged by courts as authoritative records of imperial legislation up to the date of their publication and regularly updated.
After Diocletian's reform of the provinces, governors were called ''iudex'', or
judge. The governor became responsible for his decisions first to his immediate superiors, as well as to the more distant office of the emperor. It was most likely at this time that judicial records became verbatim accounts of what was said in trial, making it easier to determine bias or improper conduct on the part of the governor. With these records and the Empire's universal right of
appeal, Imperial authorities probably had a great deal of power to enforce behavior standards for their judges. In spite of Diocletian's attempts at reform, the provincial restructuring was far from clear, especially when citizens appealed the decisions of their governors. Proconsuls, for example, were often both judges of first instance and appeal, and the governors of some provinces took appellant cases from their neighbors. It soon became impossible to avoid taking some cases to the emperor for arbitration and judgment. Diocletian's reign marks the end of the classical period of Roman law. Where Diocletian's system of rescripts shows an adherence to classical tradition, Constantine's law is full of Greek and eastern influences
Military
It is archaeologically difficult to distinguish Diocletian's fortifications from those of his successors and predecessors. The
Devil's Dykes, for example—the Danubian earthworks traditionally attributed to Diocletian—cannot even be securely dated to a particular century. The most that can be said about built structures under Diocletian's reign is that he rebuilt and strengthened forts at the Upper Rhine frontier (where he followed the works built under
Probus along the
Lake Constance-
Basel
, french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese
, neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...
and the Rhine–
Iller
The Iller (; ancient name Ilargus) is a river of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It is a right tributary of the Danube, long.
It is formed at the confluence of the rivers Breitach, Stillach and Trettach near Oberstdorf in the Allg ...
–Danube line), on the Danube (where a new line of forts on the far side of the river, the ''Ripa Sarmatica'', was added to older, rehabilitated fortresses),
[Edward Luttwak (1979). ''The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire''. Baltimore: JHU Press, , p. 176] in Egypt and on the frontier with Persia. Beyond that, much discussion is speculative and reliant on the broad generalizations of written sources. Diocletian and the tetrarchs had no consistent plan for frontier advancement, and records of raids and forts built across the frontier are likely to indicate only temporary claims. The ''
Strata Diocletiana
The ''Strata Diocletiana'' (Latin for "Road of Diocletian") was a fortified road that ran along the eastern desert border, the ''limes Arabicus'', of the Roman Empire. As its name suggests and as it appears on milestones, it was constructed unde ...
'', built after the Persian Wars, which ran from the Euphrates North of Palmyra and South towards northeast Arabia in the general vicinity of
Bostra
Bosra ( ar, بُصْرَىٰ, Buṣrā), also spelled Bostra, Busrana, Bozrah, Bozra and officially called Busra al-Sham ( ar, بُصْرَىٰ ٱلشَّام, Buṣrā al-Shām), is a town in southern Syria, administratively belonging to the Dara ...
, is the classic Diocletianic frontier system, consisting of an outer road followed by tightly spaced forts – defensible hard-points manned by small garrisons – followed by further fortifications in the rear.
[ In an attempt to resolve the difficulty and slowness of transmitting orders to the frontier, the new capitals of the tetrarchic era were all much closer to the empire's frontiers than Rome had been: Trier sat on the Moselle, a ]tributary
A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drai ...
of the Rhine, Sirmium and Serdica were close to the Danube, Thessaloniki was on the route leading eastward, and Nicomedia and Antioch were important points in dealings with Persia.
Lactantius criticized Diocletian for an excessive increase in troop sizes, declaring that “each of the four princes strove to maintain a much more considerable military force than any sole emperor had done in times past. There began to be fewer men who paid taxes than there were who received wages; so that the means of the husbandmen being exhausted by enormous impositions, the farms were abandoned, cultivated grounds became woodland, and universal dismay prevailed". The fifth-century pagan Zosimus Zosimus, Zosimos, Zosima or Zosimas may refer to:
People
*
* Rufus and Zosimus (died 107), Christian saints
* Zosimus (martyr) (died 110), Christian martyr who was executed in Umbria, Italy
* Zosimos of Panopolis, also known as ''Zosimus Alchem ...
, by contrast, praised Diocletian for keeping troops on the borders, rather than keeping them in the cities, as Constantine was held to have done. Both these views had some truth to them, despite the biases of their authors: Diocletian and the tetrarchs did greatly expand the army, and the growth was mostly in frontier regions, where the increased effectiveness of the new Diocletianic legions seem to have been mostly spread across a network of strongholds. Nevertheless, it is difficult to establish the precise details of these shifts given the weakness of the sources. The army expanded to about 580,000 men from a 285 strength of 390,000, of which 310,000 men were stationed in the East, most of whom manned the Persian frontier. The navy's forces increased from approximately 45,000 men to approximately 65,000 men.
Diocletian's expansion of the army and civil service meant that the empire's tax burden grew. Since military upkeep took the largest portion of the imperial budget, any reforms here would be especially costly. The proportion of the adult male population, excluding slaves, serving in the army increased from roughly 1 in 25 to 1 in 15, an increase judged excessive by some modern commentators. Official troop allowances were kept to low levels, and the mass of troops often resorted to extortion or the taking of civilian jobs. Arrears became the norm for most troops. Many were even given payment in kind in place of their salaries. Were he unable to pay for his enlarged army, there would likely be civil conflict, potentially open revolt. Diocletian was led to devise a new system of taxation.
Economic
Taxation
In the early empire (30 BC – AD 235) the Roman government paid for what it needed in gold and silver. The coinage was stable. Requisition, forced purchase, was used to supply armies on the march. During the third century crisis (235–285), the government resorted to requisition rather than payment in debased coinage, since it could never be sure of the value of money. Requisition was nothing more or less than seizure. Diocletian made requisition into tax. He introduced an extensive new tax system based on heads (''capita'') and land (''iugera'') – with one iugerum equal to approximately 0.65 acres – and tied to a new, regular census of the empire's population and wealth. Census officials traveled throughout the empire, assessed the value of labor and land for each landowner, and joined the landowners' totals together to make citywide totals of ''capita'' and ''iuga''. The ''iugum'' was not a consistent measure of land, but varied according to the type of land and crop, and the amount of labor necessary for sustenance. The ''caput'' was not consistent either: women, for instance, were often valued at half a ''caput'', and sometimes at other values. Cities provided animals, money, and manpower in proportion to its ''capita'', and grain in proportion to its ''iuga''.
Most taxes were due on each year on 1 September, and levied from individual landowners by ''decuriones
''Decurio'' was an official title in Ancient Rome, used in various connections:
* Decurion (administrative), a member of the senatorial order in the Italian towns under the administration of Rome, and later in provincial towns organized on the Ita ...
'' (decurions). These decurions, analogous to city councilors, were responsible for paying from their own pocket what they failed to collect. Diocletian's reforms also increased the number of financial officials in the provinces: more ''rationales'' and ''magistri privatae'' are attested under Diocletian's reign than before. These officials represented the interests of the fisc, which collected taxes in gold, and the Imperial properties. Fluctuations in the value of the currency made collection of taxes in kind the norm, although these could be converted into coin. Rates shifted to take inflation into account. In 296, Diocletian issued an edict reforming census procedures. This edict introduced a general five-year census for the whole empire, replacing prior censuses that had operated at different speeds throughout the empire. The new censuses would keep up with changes in the values of ''capita'' and ''iuga''.
Italy, which had long been exempt from taxes, was included in the tax system from 290/291 as a diocesis. The city of Rome itself, however, remained exempt; the "regions" (i.e., provinces) South of Rome (generally called "suburbicarian", as opposed to the Northern, "annonaria" region) seem to have been relatively less taxed, in what probably was a sop offered to the great senatorial families and their landed properties.
Diocletian's edicts emphasized the common liability of all taxpayers. Public records of all taxes were made public. The position of ''decurion'', member of the city council, had been an honor sought by wealthy aristocrats and the middle classes who displayed their wealth by paying for city amenities and public works. Decurions were made liable for any shortfall in the amount of tax collected. Many tried to find ways to escape the obligation. By 300, civilians across the empire complained that there were more tax collectors than there were people to pay taxes.
Currency and inflation
Aurelian's attempt to reform the currency had failed; the denarius was dead. Diocletian restored the three-metal coinage and issued better quality pieces. The new system consisted of five coins: the ''aureus''/''solidus
Solidus (Latin for "solid") may refer to:
* Solidus (coin), a Roman coin of nearly solid gold
* Solidus (punctuation), or slash, a punctuation mark
* Solidus (chemistry), the line on a phase diagram below which a substance is completely solid
* ...
'', a gold coin weighing, like its predecessors, one-sixtieth of a pound; the ''argenteus
The ''argenteus'' ( ''argentei'', 'of silver') was a silver coin produced by the Roman Empire from the time of Diocletian's coinage reform in AD 294 to ca. AD 310. It was of similar weight and fineness to the denarius of the time of Nero. The c ...
'', a coin weighing one ninety-sixth of a pound and containing ninety-five percent pure silver; the ''follis
The follis (plural ''folles''; it, follaro, ar, فلس, Fels) was a type of coin in the Roman and Byzantine traditions.
Roman coin
In the past, the term ''follis'' was used to describe a large bronze Roman coin introduced in about 294 (the ...
'', sometimes referred to as the ''laureatus'' A, which is a copper coin with added silver struck at the rate of thirty-two to the pound; the ''radiatus'', a small copper coin struck at the rate of 108 to the pound, with no added silver; and a coin known today as the ''laureatus'' B, a smaller copper coin struck at the rate of 192 to the pound. Since the nominal values of these new issues were lower than their intrinsic worth as metals, the state was minting these coins at a loss. This practice could be sustained only by requisitioning precious metals from private citizens in exchange for state-minted coin (of a far lower value than the price of the precious metals requisitioned).
By 301, however, the system was in trouble, strained by a new bout of inflation. Diocletian therefore issued his ''Edict on Coinage'', an act re-tariffing all debts so that the ''nummus
''Nummus'' ( el, νοῦμμος, ''noummos''), plural ''nummi'' () is a Latin term meaning "coin", but used technically by modern writers for a range of low-value copper coins issued by the Roman and Byzantine empires during Late Antiquity. It ...
'', the most common coin in circulation, would be worth half as much. In the edict, preserved in an inscription from the city of Aphrodisias
Aphrodisias (; grc, Ἀφροδισιάς, Aphrodisiás) was a small ancient Greek Hellenistic city in the historic Caria cultural region of western Anatolia, Turkey. It is located near the modern village of Geyre, about east/inland from the ...
in Caria
Caria (; from Greek: Καρία, ''Karia''; tr, Karya) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid- Ionia (Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionian and Dorian Greeks colonized the west of it and joined ...
(near Geyre
Geyre is a small town in the District of Karacasu, Aydın Province, Turkey. Also known as ''Yeni koy'' (the "new village"), it was relocated around 1960, from over the ancient Greek city of Aphrodisias archeological site to a new location nearby.N ...
, Turkey), it was declared that all debts contracted before 1 September 301 must be repaid at the old standards, while all debts contracted after that date would be repaid at the new standards. It appears that the edict was made in an attempt to preserve the current price of gold and to keep the Empire's coinage on silver, Rome's traditional metal currency. This edict risked giving further momentum to inflationary trends, as had happened after Aurelian's currency reforms. The government's response was to issue a price freeze.
The ''Edict on Maximum Prices
The Edict on Maximum Prices (Latin: ''Edictum de Pretiis Rerum Venalium'', "Edict Concerning the Sale Price of Goods"; also known as the Edict on Prices or the Edict of Diocletian) was issued in 301 AD by Diocletian. The document denounces mon ...
'' (''Edictum De Pretiis Rerum Venalium'') was issued two to three months after the coinage edict, somewhere between 20 November and 10 December 301. The best-preserved Latin inscription surviving from the Greek East
Greek East and Latin West are terms used to distinguish between the two parts of the Greco-Roman world and of Medieval Christendom, specifically the eastern regions where Greek was the ''lingua franca'' (Greece, Anatolia, the southern Balkans, the ...
, the edict survives in many versions, on materials as varied as wood, papyrus, and stone. In the edict, Diocletian declared that the current pricing crisis resulted from the unchecked greed of merchants, and had resulted in turmoil for the mass of common citizens. The language of the edict calls on the people's memory of their benevolent leaders, and exhorts them to enforce the provisions of the edict, and thereby restore perfection to the world. The edict goes on to list in detail over one thousand goods and accompanying retail prices not to be exceeded. Penalties are laid out for various pricing transgressions.
In the most basic terms, the edict was ignorant of the law of supply and demand: it ignored the fact that prices might vary from region to region according to product availability, and it ignored the impact of transportation costs in the retail price of goods. In the judgment of the historian David Potter, the edict was "an act of economic lunacy". The fact that the edict began with a long rhetorical preamble betrays at the same time a moralizing stance as well as a weak grasp of economics – perhaps simply the wishful thinking that criminalizing a practice was enough to stop it. There is no consensus about how effectively the edict was enforced.
Supposedly, inflation, speculation, and monetary instability continued, and a black market arose to trade in goods forced out of official markets. The edict's penalties were applied unevenly across the empire (some scholars believe they were applied only in Diocletian's domains), widely resisted, and eventually dropped, perhaps within a year of the edict's issue. Lactantius has written of the perverse accompaniments to the edict; of goods withdrawn from the market, of brawls over minute variations in price, of the deaths that came when its provisions were enforced. His account may be true, but it seems to modern historians exaggerated and hyperbolic, and the impact of the law is recorded in no other ancient source.
Social and professional mobility
Partly in response to economic pressures and in order to protect the vital functions of the state, Diocletian restricted social and professional mobility. Peasants became tied to the land in a way that presaged later systems of land tenure and workers such as bakers, armourers, public entertainers and workers in the mint had their occupations made hereditary. Soldiers' children were also forcibly enrolled, something that followed spontaneous tendencies among the rank-and-file, but also expressed increasing difficulties in recruitment.
Family tree
Legacy
The historian A.H.M. Jones observed that "It is perhaps Diocletian's greatest achievement that he reigned twenty-one years and then abdicated voluntarily, and spent the remaining years of his life in peaceful retirement." Diocletian was one of the few emperors of the third and fourth centuries to die naturally, and the first in the history of the empire to retire voluntarily. Once he retired, however, his tetrarchic system collapsed. Without the guiding hand of Diocletian, the empire fell into civil wars. Stability emerged after the defeat of Licinius by Constantine in 324. Under the Christian Constantine, Diocletian was maligned. Constantine's rule, however, demonstrated benefits of Diocletian's achievements and the autocratic principle he represented: the borders remained secure, in spite of Constantine's large expenditure of forces during his civil wars; the bureaucratic transformation of Roman government was completed; and Constantine took Diocletian's court ceremonies and made them even more extravagant.
Constantine ignored those aspects of Diocletian's reign that did not suit him. Diocletian's policy of preserving a stable silver coinage was abandoned, and the gold ''solidus
Solidus (Latin for "solid") may refer to:
* Solidus (coin), a Roman coin of nearly solid gold
* Solidus (punctuation), or slash, a punctuation mark
* Solidus (chemistry), the line on a phase diagram below which a substance is completely solid
* ...
'' became the empire's primary currency instead. Diocletian's persecution of Christians
The persecution of Christians can be historically traced from the first century of the Christian era to the present day. Christian missionaries and converts to Christianity have both been targeted for persecution, sometimes to the point of ...
was repudiated and changed to a policy of toleration and then favoritism. Christianity eventually became the official religion in 380. Most importantly, Diocletian's tax system and administrative reforms lasted, with some modifications, until the advent of the Muslims in the 630s. The combination of state autocracy and state religion was instilled in much of Europe, particularly in the lands which adopted Orthodox Christianity.
The ''Era of Martyrs
The Era of the Martyrs ( la, anno martyrum), also known as the ''Diocletian era'' ( la, anno Diocletiani), is a method of numbering years used by the Church of Alexandria beginning in the 4th century AD/CE and by the Coptic Orthodox Church of ...
'' (Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
: ''anno martyrum'' or AM), also known as the ''Diocletian era'' (Latin: ''anno Diocletiani''), is a method of numbering years used by the Church of Alexandria
The Church of Alexandria in Egypt is the Christian Church headed by the Patriarch of Alexandria. It is one of the original Apostolic Sees of Christianity, alongside Rome, Antioch, Constantinople and Jerusalem.
Tradition holds that the Church ...
beginning in the 4th century ''anno Domini'' and by the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria
The Coptic Orthodox Church ( cop, Ϯⲉⲕ̀ⲕⲗⲏⲥⲓⲁ ⲛ̀ⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ⲛ̀ⲟⲣⲑⲟⲇⲟⲝⲟⲥ, translit=Ti.eklyseya en.remenkimi en.orthodoxos, lit=the Egyptian Orthodox Church; ar, الكنيسة القبطي ...
from the 5th century to the present. In this system of counting, the beginning of Diocletian's reign in 284 was used as the epoch
In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured.
The moment of epoch is usually decided by ...
, making Diocletian's first year in power into the Year 1 of that calendar. Western Christians were aware of this count but did not use it; Dionysius Exiguus
Dionysius Exiguus (Latin for "Dionysius the Humble", Greek: Διονύσιος; – ) was a 6th-century Eastern Roman monk born in Scythia Minor. He was a member of a community of Scythian monks concentrated in Tomis (present day Constanța ...
replaced the ''anno Diocletiani'' era with his anno Domini
The terms (AD) and before Christ (BC) are used to label or number years in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The term is Medieval Latin and means 'in the year of the Lord', but is often presented using "our Lord" instead of "the Lord", ...
era because he did not wish to continue the memory of a tyrant who persecuted Christians. The anno Domini era became dominant in the Latin West but was not used in the Greek East until modern times.
'' Dukljan'', a major villain in Serbian mythology who is presented as the adversary of God is considered to be a mythological reflection of the historical Diocletian.
The Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...
includes several semi-legendary accounts of Diocletian. One of them recounts that Diocletian was originally a swineherd, and that in this part of his life he was teased and abused by young Jews. When he became the Emperor he called up the leaders of the Jews, who were fearful, saying "We have teased Diocletian the Swineherd but we respect Diocletian the Emperor" – to which Diocletian responded "You must show respect even to the smallest and lowest of the Romans, because you can never know which one of us will rise to greatness.""The Legends of King Diocletian" (in Hebrew)
Rabbi Meir Ba'al Ha'nes Synagogue, Tel Aviv.
See also
*
20,000 Martyrs of Nicomedia
*
Camp of Diocletian
*
Civil Wars of the Tetrarchy (306–324)
* ''
Dioclesian
''Dioclesian'' (''The Prophetess: or, The History of Dioclesian'') is an English tragicomic semi-opera in five acts by Henry Purcell to a libretto by Thomas Betterton based on the play '' The Prophetess'', by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, ...
'', Henry Purcell's 1690 tragicomic semi-opera, loosely based on the life of the historical Diocletian
*
Diocletian Era, used for dating in late antiquity and in the Coptic calendar
*
Diocletian window
Diocletian windows, also called thermal windows, are large semicircular windows characteristic of the enormous public baths (''thermae'') of Ancient Rome. They have been revived on a limited basis by some classical revivalist architects in more m ...
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Diocletianopolis (disambiguation)
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Dominate
The Dominate, also known as the late Roman Empire, is the name sometimes given to the " despotic" later phase of imperial government in the ancient Roman Empire. It followed the earlier period known as the "Principate". Until the empire was reuni ...
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Illyrian emperors
The ''Illyriciani'' or Illyrian emperors were a group of Roman emperors during the Crisis of the Third Century who were of Illyrian origins and hailed from the region of Illyricum (in the western Balkans), and were raised chiefly from the ranks ...
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Pompey's Pillar (column)
Pompey's Pillar ( ar, عمود السواري, translit='Amud El-Sawari) is the name given to a Roman triumphal column in Alexandria, Egypt. Set up in honour of the Roman emperor Diocletian between 298–302 AD, the giant Corinthian column ori ...
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Rags to riches
Rags to riches refers to any situation in which a person rises from poverty to wealth, and in some cases from absolute obscurity to heights of fame, fortune and celebrity—sometimes instantly. This is a common archetype in literature and popul ...
Notes
References
Bibliography
Ancient sources
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XII Panegyrici Latini'' (''Twelve Latin Panegyrics'') relevant panegyrics dated 289, 291, 297, 298, and 307.
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Modern sources
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Further reading
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External links
from the ''
Catholic Encyclopedia
The ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'' (also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedia'') i ...
''.
12 Byzantine Rulers, by
Lars Brownworth. 15 minute audio lecture on Diocletian.
02. The Crisis of the Third Century and the Diocletianic Reforms Professor Freedman on Yalecourses
Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in DalmatiaBy Robert Adam, 1764. Plates made available by the
University of Wisconsin
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...
Digital Collections Center. (N.B. "Spalatro" was a less used alternative form of "Spalato", the Italian name for Croatian "Split").
{{Authority control
3rd-century Roman emperors
4th-century Roman emperors
240s births
311 deaths
Crisis of the Third Century
Deified Roman emperors
Imperial Roman consuls
Monarchs who abdicated
People from Roman Dalmatia
Burials in Croatia
History of Split, Croatia
Aurelii
Valerii
Tetrarchy
People of the Roman–Sasanian Wars
Imperial Roman slaves and freedmen
Roman emperors to suffer posthumous denigration or damnatio memoriae
Roman pharaohs
Illyrian emperors