Diocletian

Diocletian
Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus (c. December 22, 244– December 3, 311), born Diocles and commonly known as Diocletian (pronounced /ˌdаɪəˈkliːʃən/ ), was Roman Emperor from November 20, 284 to May 1, 305. Born to a Dalmatian family of low status, he rose through the ranks of the military to become cavalry commander to the emperor Carus. After the deaths of Carus and his son Numerian on campaign in Persia, Diocletian was acclaimed emperor by the army. A brief confrontation with Carus' other surviving sonCarinus at the Battle of the Margus removed the only other claimant to the title. With his ascension to power, he ended the Crisis of the Third Century. Diocletian appointed fellow-officer Maximian his Augustus, his senior co-emperor, in 285. He delegated further on March 1, 293, appointing Galerius and Constantius as Caesars, junior co-emperors. Under this "Tetrarchy", or "rule of four", each emperor would rule over a quarter-division of the empire. In campaigns against Sarmatian and Danubian tribes (285–90), the Alamanni (288), and usurpers in Egypt (297–98), Diocletian secured the empire's borders and purged it of threats to his power. In 299, Diocletian led negotiations withSassanid Persia, the empire's traditional enemy, and achieved a lasting and favorable peace.

Diocletian separated and enlarged the empire's civil and military services and re-organized the empire's provincial divisions, establishing the largest and most bureaucratic government in the history of the empire. He established new administrative centers in Nicomedia,Mediolanum, Antioch, and Trier, closer to the empire's frontiers than the traditional capital at Rome had been. Building on third-century trends towards absolutism, Diocletian styled himself an autocrat, elevating himself above the empire's masses with imposing forms of court ceremonial 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 Diocletian's plans were successful; the //Edict on Maximum Prices// (301), Diocletian's attempt to curb inflation via price controls, was unsuccessful, 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. TheDiocletianic Persecution (303–11), the empire's last, largest, and bloodiest official persecution of Christianity, did not destroy the empire's Christian community; indeed, after 324 Christianity became the empire's preferred religion under its first Christian emperor, Constantine. In spite of his failures, Diocletian's reforms fundamentally changed the structure of Roman imperial government and helped stabilize the empire economically and militarily, enabling an empire that had seemed near the brink of collapse in Diocletian's youth to remain essentially intact for another hundred years. Weakened by illness, Diocletian left the imperial office on May 1, 305, and became the first Roman emperor to voluntarily abdicate the position. He lived out his retirement in his palace on the Dalmatian coast, tending to his vegetable gardens. His palace went on to become the core of the modern day city of Split.