Course
A107: From Late Antiquity to Byzantium
Diocletian
and 'Recovery'
Dates
284 20 Nov. Diocles
becomes emperor at Nicomedia and changes his name to Diocletian
285
Defeats his rival Carinus and becomes sole emperor
summer: Appoints Maximian caesar
286
Rebellion of Carausiuswho
proclaims himself augustus in Britain
287
Maximian second augustus
287
Diocletian makes a peace treaty with Persia
287/8
Maximian tries to suppress Carausius
289
Maximian's fleet is defeated (or wrecked in a storm). Carausius is left to
rule in Britain
290
Celebration at Milan to mark the military victories of the two augusti
293
Galerius and ConstantiusCaesars, creating
the tetrarchy. Galerius basedat Thessalonike
296
Constantius defeats Carausius and governs Britain
296
Revolt in Egypt headed by
Domitius Domitianus and Aurelius Achilles
296/7
Persian Narses expels Tiridates,
Roman protégé, king of Armenia
297
Galerius unsuccessfully invades Persia
297/8
Maximian fights against Moorish tribes in Africa and secures victory
298
Alexandria falls to Diocletian after a siege
Galerius wins a significant victory over Narses who is forced to concede territory
303 Persecution of Christians: Edicts
305
1 May , Diocletian and Maximian abdicate: Galerius and Constantius
Augusti
For the evolution of the tetrarchy see Tetrarchy Table
306
Constantius dies
311
Galerius dies: buried at Romuliana:
c.312
Death of Diocletian
Sources
and Documents:
- Lewis and Reinhold, Roman Civilization II, esp. 456-74
- Eusebius, History of the Church VIII
- Lactantius, On the
Deaths of the Persecutors (trans,. J. Creed, 1984)
- Justinian's
Digest contains extracts of contemporary jurists Hermogenian and Arcadius
Claudius
- Justinian's
Code preserves c. 13,000 constitutions of Diocletian
- Notitia
Dignitatum (from c. 408)
Bibliography
- A.H.M.Jones, The Later Roman Empire, ch. on Diocletian
- Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, N.Y The age of Diocletian,
a symposium, December 14-16, 1951 (New York, 1953)
- M. I. Finley ' The Emperor Diocletian ', in Aspects of antiquity
: discoveries and controversies (New York, 1968) [very hostile];
- T. D. Barnes, The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine
(Harvard, 1982)
- S. Williams, Diocletian and the Roman Recovery (New York,
1985)
- Averil Cameron, The Later Roman Empire, chap. 3
- Dragoslav Srejovic, ed., The age of tetrarchs : [a symposium
held from the 4th to the 9th October 1993] (Belgrade : Serbian Academy
of Sciences and Arts, c1995)
- Articles in Antiquité Tardive , vols II and III (1994,
1995), devoted to 'La Tétrarchie: histoire et Archéologie'
- Roger Rees,
Diocletian and the tetrarchy (Edinburgh, 2004)
- The
Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 12, The Crisis of Empire, AD 193–337,
edited by Alan Bowman, Averil Cameron, Peter Garnsey (Cambridge, 2005)
Economy
Administration
/ Economy
·
taxation "in kind" rather than in gold
· coinage reform
· introduction of some state factories
· peasants and their families tied to their land
M. H. Crawford, 'Finance, Coinage and Money from the Severans
to Constantine' ANRW (H.Temporini, ed., Aufstieg und Niedergang
der römischen Welt, 2.2 (1975), 560-93
C.R. Whittaker, 'Inflation and the economy in the fourth century',
in C. King, ed., Taxation, Imperial Revenues and Expenditure in the Fourth
Century (Oxford, 1980)
M. Hendy, Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy AD 300-1453
(see rev. by Millar, JRS 1988)
- ·Price Edict 301. See
the text: trans. in Lewis and Reinhold, II, 463-72; new ed. and notes
by J. Reynolds in C. M. Roueché, Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity (1989),
ch.12
- James W. Ermatinger, The economic reforms of Diocletian
(St. Katharinen, 1996).
- Edict on coinage; trans. in M. Crawford, ANRW, II.2 (1975),p.
579; cf. also in Roueché, op. cit.
Law
- Simon Corcoran, The Empire of the Tetrarchs. Imperial Pronouncements
and Government, AD 284-324 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996, and see now
the second, revised edition) Review BMCR 97.8.4
- Laws
on social/religious issues
Administration
The
Provinces
·
provinces divided into smaller units
· provinces grouped into 12 new dioceses under a new equestrian official (vicarius
or deputy of the praetorian prefect)
· separation of civilian and military duties
Innovations
· imported court ceremonial from the East
· New capital at Nicomedia
The
Army
·
creation of more units - legions and vexillationes
· introduction of measures to improve recruitment
· fortresses and military roads built
· change form the old forward defence system to deep fortified battle zones
behind the frontier
· major distinction made between mobile troops and static garrisons of the
forts
- R. Duncan-Jones, 'Pay and Numbers in Diocletian's Army', Chiron
8 (1978), 541-60 (repr. in Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy)
- Averil Cameron, The Later Roman Empire, chap.9
- E. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (Baltimore,
1976)
- A. Ferrill, The Fall of the Roman Empire.The Military Explanation
(London, 1986)
- R. MacMullen, Soldier and Civilian in the Later Roman Empire
- Hugh Elton, Warfare in the Roman World (Oxford, 1996)
- M. J. Nicasie, Twilight of empire: the Roman army from the
reign of Diocletian until the Battle of Adrianople. Dutch monographs
on ancient history and archaeology v. 19. (Amsterdam: Gieben, 1998)
- Wilkes, J. J., Diocletian's palace, Split, Sanders memorial
Lecture (Sheffield, 1986)
- Sheila McNally, The architectural ornament of Diocletian's
palace at Split (Oxford : Tempus Reparatum, 1996, BAR international
series ; 639)
- See also the drawings by Robert Adam, made in 1764.
See also Courtauld
archive
For Baths of Diocletian at Rome see 1 and 2
Art
- H.P. L'Orange, Art forms and civic life in the late Roman Empire
(Princeton University Press, 1965)
- Jas Elsner, Art and the Roman viewer : the transformation
of art from the pagan world to Christianity (Cambridge University Press,
1995)
- id. Imperial Rome and Christian triumph : the art of the Roman
Empire, AD 100-450 ( Oxford University Press, 1998)
- Statue of the
tetrarchs
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Updated
December 1, 2009
