Diocletian

Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus was Roman emperor in 284–305. He came from Dalmatia and was previously known as Diocles. Sources differ about his precise birthplace, family and date of death; his birth is generally placed around the mid-240s and his death in the early 310s.

Diocletian pursued a military career and was proclaimed emperor after Numerian’s death in November 284. His reign is associated with the end of the third-century crisis and the transformation of the late Roman state. He strengthened administration, military organisation and imperial ceremonial without abolishing all republican offices through a single decision.

Stories about a druidess’s prediction and the killing of the prefect Aper play on aper, “boar”. They belong to ancient biographical tradition rather than independent confirmation of his accession.

Accession and early rule

Diocletian began a AD in the Roman Empire, making the imperial power not only de facto, but also de jure unlimited-absolute monarchical power (dominant). The Emperor no longer shares it in the least with the Senate; he is the source of all power, above all laws, above all the inhabitants of the empire, whatever their rank. The first act of the new emperor was to kill Apra with his own hand, in front of the army. He did not touch any of his enemies, but confirmed them in their positions, and when he defeated Carinus, another son of the Emperor Carus, in Moesia, he even surprised his contemporaries with a gentleness that was not at all common in Rome among the victors of civil wars. The victory over Carinus restored the unity of the empire; but as circumstances were difficult, Diocletian took his old friend Maximian as his assistant, first giving him the title of Caesar, and after his suppression of the Bagaudian peasant revolt in Gaul (285) — and the title of Augustus (286). While Maximian was defending Gaul from the Germans, Diocletian was busy in the east; securing the empire's borders in Asia and Europe. First from Nicomedia, where he was stationed in late 285 and early 286, Diocletian moved to Syria to arrange business with Persia; When circumstances in the East turned favorable for Rome, he turned from Asia to Europe to protect the Danube line from the attacks of the Sarmatians. He managed to defend the former border along the Danube (Dacia) and secure the province of Rhaetia for Rome. The emperors postponed their triumphant arrival in Rome, but each adopted a new epithet: Diocletian began to add Latin to his names. Jovius (Jupiter), and Maximian — Lat. Herculius (Hercules). After defeating the Saracens (Arabian Bedouins) who were ravaging the borders of Syria, Diocletian returned to Europe again (at the end of 290). The division of the empire into four parts led to the transformation of the entire provincial administration. The Empire was fragmented into a large number of administrative districts. The entire empire was divided into 12 dioceses, each of which was divided into provinces: the smallest, Britannia, into four provinces, and the largest, Orient (Oriens), into 16. Such a management system required an increase in the number of officials, which accordingly led to an increase in taxes of the population. However, this reform met the needs of the time and was preserved after Diocletian.

Tetrarchy

In 293 two junior rulers, the Caesars Galerius and Constantius Chlorus, joined the Augusti Diocletian and Maximian. This arrangement is called the Tetrarchy. Constantius operated mainly in Gaul and Britain, Galerius along the Danube and in the East; their administrative territories did not become four independent states.

Dynastic marriages were intended to strengthen cooperation: Constantius married Theodora and Galerius Diocletian’s daughter Valeria. Diocletian retained seniority. The system sought effective frontier defence and orderly succession, but renewed conflicts undermined it soon after the senior emperors abdicated in 305.

Restoration of the Empire

One of the new emperors immediately had the difficult task of wresting Britain from the usurper Carausius, whom Diocletian and Maximian had to endure until then, which Constantius achieved, as well as the pacification of Gaul. Maximian had to defend the Rhine borders from German incursions (296), and in the following year — to pacify the Moors in Africa. It fell to Galerius to defend, under the general direction of Diocletian himself, the frontier on the lower Danube, where the Iazyges, Carpi, Bastarnae, and Jutungi gave the Roman troops a great deal of work. Having restored peace to the European East, Diocletian was to go to Egypt, which was then in the hands of the usurper Achilleus. After an eight-month siege, Diocletian captured Alexandria in 298. At the same time, Diocletian made arrangements for a more convenient administration of Egypt, dividing it into three provinces (Thebaid, Aegyptus Jovia, and Aegyptus Herculia), and for persuading the masses to side with the Roman government by distributing bread to the poor at public expense. At the same time, there is a strange edict that ordered to collect all the ancient books that taught how to make gold and silver, and burn them. This was explained by Diocletian's desire to destroy the source of wealth, and at the same time the arrogance of the Egyptians. Finally, by a treaty with the Blemmians and Nobates, he secured the southern border of Egypt from the attacks of these barbarian tribes, promising to pay them an annual tribute. During the Egyptian campaign, he commissioned Galerius to march to Mesopotamia against the Persians, who were at war at that time with the Roman-protected pretender to the independent Armenian throne, Tiridates. Galerius failed, and fled to the aid of Diocletian, who was marching from Antioch, and who, as a punishment, forced him to follow his carriage a mile on foot in purple. Galerius' second campaign was more successful. He routed the Persians in Armenia and forced them to cede to the Romans five provinces on the other side of the Tigris (297). In 303, Diocletian began the persecution of Christians, which resulted in many martyrs. The emperor ordered the churches to be closed and the books destroyed. He was least fortunate in his efforts to maintain paganism as a State religious system and in his fierce struggle against Christianity. In the very year of his death, the edict Constantine the Great granted the right of free conversion to Christianity to anyone who wished. The assessment of Diocletian's personality and activity differs between pagan and Christian writers. But pagan writers also reproach him for introducing Oriental pomp into court etiquette, and for the haughty halo with which he surrounded the person of the Roman emperor, demanding that they prostrate themselves before him, and appearing before his subjects as a deity. The colossal ruins of Diocletian's baths, built, according to legend, by Christians condemned to death, remained a real monument of his activity in Rome.

Results

On 1 May 305 Diocletian abdicated; Maximian did so at the same time. Galerius and Constantius became Augusti, Severus and Maximinus Daia Caesars. This unusual attempt at an orderly transfer of power did not prevent further civil wars.

Diocletian retired to his palace near Salona, on the site of modern Split. Ancient tradition attributes to him a refusal to return to power and a remark about cabbages he had grown himself. The breakdown of the Tetrarchy and danger to his family overshadowed his final years. His exact death date and circumstances remain disputed; it is generally placed in the early 310s.

Related topics

• Roman Empire
• Dominate
• Emperors of Rome
• Constantine I the Great
• The struggle between paganism and Christianity

Literature and sources

• Bernhardt,«Geschichte Roms von Valerian bis zu Diocletians Tode» (B.,1867);
• Preuss,«Kaiser D. und seine Zeit» (Leipzig,1869);
• Bernhardt,«Untersuchung über Diocletian im Verhältniss zu den Christen» (B.,1862);
• Mason,«The Persecutions of D.» (London,1876);
• Allard,«La persécution de D. et le triomphe de l’Eglise, d’après les documents archéologiques» (Paris,1890);
• Belser,«Zur Diocletianischen Christenverfolgung» (Tübingen,1891);
• Casagrandi,«Diocleziano» (Genoa,1876);
• Cohen,«L’abdicazione di D.» (1887);
• Morosi,«L’abdicazione dell’imp. D.» (1880).
• Knyazkiy I. The Emperor Diocletian and the Decline of the ancient world.
• Alethea,2010.
• 144 p.
• (Antique Library. Research). — 1000 copies. — ISBN 978-5-91419-310-9.
• Stephen Williams. Diocletian. Restorer of the Roman Empire / Translator Irina Khazanova, Moscow: Evraziya, CLIO,2010,368 p. (Clio). — 2000 copies. — ISBN 978-5-91852-058-1,978-5-906518-17-0.
• Novitskaya K. I., Nekotorye voprosy agrarnoi politiki nachala Dominata, Vestnik drevnoi istorii,1961, No. 4;
• S. I. Arkhangelsky, Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices, Nizhny Novgorod,1928;
• Seston W., Dioclétien et la tétrarchie, P.,1946.
• Diocletian / / Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional ones).
• St. Petersburg,1890-1907.

• Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices