Roman Civilization

CMS 206 /History 206   

The three articles that I will be examining are "Ancient History Sourcebook: Efforts to Stabilize the Economy," "Diocletian," and "Civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean: Greece and Rome." By analyzing these three articles, I will attempt to show how certain changes within Roman society were brought about with the leadership of Diocletian.

Though the Emperor Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletian reigned for twenty-one years, his length of office was overshadowed by the importance of his achievements and significance of his failures. In particular, Diocletian was most notable for having made noteworthy military, administrative, and economic reforms that put an end to the era of Roman government known as the "Imperial Crisis."

Diocletian began his journey to power by enlisting in the army in the border defense. In 282, his legion, along with other legions guarding the upper Danube River proclaimed Carus as emperor. Carus soon took Diocletian under his wing as he was promoted to the commander of the cavalry arm of the imperial bodyguard. One year later he was named consulate. In 284, Carus was killed and his two sons inherited the empire. Shortly later, the two sons were killed and Diocletian was appointed as emperor, taking control of the entire empire.

As emperor, Diocletian took strict measures to bring about societal reform. Although Diocletian was faced with many problems, he was most concerned with strengthening Rome's military, initiating a more effective government, and fixing the economy. Diocletian took all necessary steps to bring order to the empire even though many of his attempts at reform received little success.

To begin with, Diocletian hoped to reform the Roman army by eliminating all mutinous attitudes and securing the frontiers from invasion. He was able to make these key changes to the army by subdividing the fifty existing provinces into ninety-six entities. These provinces were governed by twelve "dioceses" who answered to their separate "vicars" who in turn answered to four "prefectures" who were each under the command of a "praetorian prefect." Obviously, this reform vastly increased the size of the Roman bureaucracy and brought the government into closer contact with Romans, while separating them from the emperors. Under this chain of command, citizens would be separated into careers in civil and military life. The army was then divided into a citizen militia known as "border troops" and a field army known as the "palace troops." Under this reform, Italy lost its favored status and was treated equally to the other provinces. The Senate also lost an incredible amount of power as the emperor was now in charge of all appointments.

Diocletian then observed that Rome had grown too large to be properly governed by a single emperor. In order to bring about increased efficiency, in 285 Diocletian created the "Tetrarchy," or "Rule by Four." Basically, he subdivided the Roman Empire into quarters, giving power to four individuals who would control different geographical areas. Diocletian gave the western half of the empire to Maximianus. Underneath Diocletian and Maximianus (who were given the titles of "Augustus"), Diocletian appointed Constantius and Galerius who were given the title of "Caesar," a sort of second-in-command type role. By creating this Tetrarchy, Diocletian hoped to solve the problem of choosing new emperors. Up until then there was no constitutional way of choosing emperors. By this reform, each Augustus would be replaced by his respective Caesar who would then name a new Caesar.

The other key issue of the time was the sorry state of the economy. By the third century, the silver content of the denarius was down to .02 percent, suggesting an inflation of 15,000 percent. The currency has become nearly worthless and Diocletian's initial attempts toreissue silver and gold coins failed due to the lack of its availability and the citizens' lack of general confidence with the currency. In order to curb this inflation, Diocletian issues his Price Edict in 301 in an attempt to control prices. Although this failed by driving goods onto the black market, Diocletian did succeed in reorganizing Rome's system of taxation by establishing a new land and poll tax. He also introduced a much-needed annual budget. Diocletian also hoped to help Rome out of its recession by identifying certain occupations, which he felt were necessary for the long-term survival of the Empire. These included jobs ranging from soldiers to farmers. It is noted by DiMaio that the citizens were not pleased with being told what jobs they must undertake and because of that, this law was not widely obeyed.

A final failure in Diocletian's onset of reforms came when he tried to wipe out Christianity. Beginning in 303, Diocletian attempted to eliminate all churches and scriptures along with firing Christians from governmental positions and imprisoning clergymen. Under penalty of death, Christians were forced to sacrifice to the Roman gods. This reform failed soon after Diocletian's reign ended and Galerius was named as Augustus.

On May 1, 305, Diocletian resigned after being emperor for 21 years. He was the first person in Roman history since Sulla to give up his power voluntarily. He convinced Maximianus to do the same and Constantius and Galerius became the new Augustuses. They continued the Tetrarchy system by appointing Maximinus and Severus as Caesars. Diocletian later died in 316 after retiring to his home on the Croatian Adriatic coast.