PREVIEW： Epochs #272 ｜ Diocletian - Part 1
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Summary
In this episode of Epochs, I take a break from my series on the English monarchy to talk all about one of the greatest Roman monarchs of all time, Constantine the Great, and the events leading up to his fall from power in the third century.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome back to Epochs. If you watch Epochs every week you'll know that I recently
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I've been doing the series continuing my series all about the English monarchy and we got through
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to the end of Henry VIII so before I go on to his son Edward VI and then Lady Jane Grey and then
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Bloody Mary and then Elizabeth Good Queen Bess and on and on and on I thought I'd take a little
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bit of a break do something else for a few episodes a little bit of a palate cleanser one could have
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perhaps too much of the English monarchy if it's for months and months and months and then so
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going to do something a little bit different for a few episodes. Now what I've decided I want to do
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is I want to talk all about Constantine, Constantine the Great. So we're going back to the Roman era,
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the ancient world or late antiquity, the third century AD. Now Constantine the Great, Constantine
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the First, is such a giant figure, one of those titans of history, someone that dominates history
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in all sorts of ways. It's a huge figure that I want to be able to set up the story. I don't just
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want to start with Constantine's early life. I want to set up the whole story. And it's one of
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those things when you're trying to do a narrative to tell a story. Epoch's history is really
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storytelling, isn't it? Where to begin? You know, can you really tell the story of World War II
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without telling the story of the interwar years? Can you really tell that story without talking
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about world war one can you really tell that story without talking about bismarck without going back
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to the era and so on and so on where to begin really where to begin so for this i've decided
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i've made the executive decision the creative decision that i least want to talk all about
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the main reign that came directly before constantine which is that of diocletian
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so what i'm going to do is spend an episode or two maybe three who knows we'll see where it goes
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talking all about Diocletian so we lead the whole generation before Constantine so that it really
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really sets up that whole world why Constantine did what he did what was the world like when he
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was a child his formative years what was rolling around in his experience in his memory banks
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by the time he entered the stage of history so and and Diocletian is absolutely fascinating and
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a brilliant story all in and of himself. So I'm going to talk all about Diocletian here for an
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episode or two, but where to even begin that? So I've decided what I'll do is spend 5, 10, maybe 15
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minutes talking to you all about the period running up to Diocletian. That's where I'm going to start
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it. I'm going to do a brief overview of what led to the reign of Diocletian, ultimately all setting
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up the stage for the story of Constantine all right so Diocletian and the world he lived in
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that story is really the story of the so-called crisis of the third century the third century
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being the 200s AD so a little bit of an overview could do episodes multiple multiple episodes all
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about this but the creative decision I've made is to do that in a bit of an overview broad
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sweeps of the brush before we get start getting into all sorts of detail by the way i'm going to
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be reading from edward gibbon the decline and fall of the roman empire by edward gibbon written at
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the end of the 18th century so no woke to have to worry about revisionism and wokeness i'm a big fan
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i think i've mentioned it more than once in fact i know i have uh how good i think the decline and
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fall of the roman empire by edward gibbon is many consider it the gold standard of roman history
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Some people don't particularly like Gibbon, but I think they're wrong
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So, the crisis of the 3rd century, what was that?
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Well, it was where the Roman Empire began to fracture and fall apart
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And that is around the year zero, around the age of Christ
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so it begins his reign in 31 BC or arguably 27 BC in the decades before 0 AD and he doesn't die
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until sort of 14 AD that's Augustus now ever since then really the republic was dead historians
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scholars argue exactly when the republic died most agree it was probably under Julius Caesar
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Nonetheless, the pretense of the Republic was still continued
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And all the emperors pretended, paid lip service to
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all the institutions and norms of the republic but really the cockpit of power you know who gets
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to really set policy was with the emperors and their inner entourages you know like so Tiberius
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and Caligula really didn't particularly Caligula or by the age of Nero we're talking like the 60s
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AD then a generation or two after Augustus really the uh the senate was for rubber stamping only
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Again we're going to talk about the crisis of the 3rd century for a bit here
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So a couple of centuries after all of that has gone down
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By the beginning, the middle of the 3rd century, the 200s AD
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Rome in all sorts of ways has passed its glory days
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Again historians and scholars argue about really this
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uh antonius pious trajan hadrian all those the the second century right rome has declined by the
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third century rome has declined from its higher watermark a lot of people say the highest water
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mark is trajan or hadrian where hadrian decides to put definite limits on the empire no longer
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are they sort of the roman the roman world endlessly looking to expand hadrian says no look
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it's already too big in all sorts of ways we're going to try and hold on to what we've got and
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the empire stretches from northern england or modern-day scotland britannia they called it
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the roman province of britannia all the way from the hadrian's wall or the wall of the antonians
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up in scotland all the way out to modern-day iraq like the city of tessafor which is basically sort
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of modern-day Baghdad. So the Roman Empire, all of North Africa, all of Europe, not really much
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of Germany or Poland or Northern Europe, but all of modern-day France and Spain, Italy, the Balkans,
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Turkey, and the Levant, the Holy Land, and all the way out to Mesopotamia. So it's a giant,
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giant empire. And Hadrian decides to put limits on that. Okay, in the next century or so, Rome
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struggles to keep hold of that and it goes through all sorts of turmoil both military and economic
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the empire keeps getting invaded endlessly really by all the quote-unquote barbaric peoples that
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surround it kind of endlessly it goes through political turmoil as well as military turmoil
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lots and lots and lots of different emperors they keep usurping each other the empire breaks up a
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bit and then is reunited under Aurelian. I could have considered starting this story with Aurelian,
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a great, one of the great, great emperors in the crisis of the third century where it looked like
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the Roman Empire was truly fracturing and for good. Aurelian unites it again under the control
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of one man, him. Aurelian could be, could have been a Constantine type figure, dominated history,
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invasions from all the different tribes around them and they had to increase the pay of the
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soldiers something in the order of 50 percent and the roman economy just wasn't up to that
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essentially so they had to devalue their money they had to make their gold and more importantly
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silver pieces they had to water down the amount of actual silver that's in it okay so it's a crisis
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Diocletian brings in a whole new system of government
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it's supposed to be the princeps, the first citizen.
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Some historians and scholars say that all of those emperors,
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I don't agree with this, a lot of people don't agree with it,
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that all of those emperors from Augustus to Diocletian
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They were supposed to be merely the first citizen
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That was what the government was supposed to be
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The empire is embodied in the person of the emperor now
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He doesn't have to have any recourse to a senate
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He is a true, true emperor in the classic sense of the word
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And so, although that had been the case in practice
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he makes a decision, a big, big decision, like that of Hadrian, to put limits on the empire.
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He decides he's going to change the game a bit, and he's going to make four emperors, him being
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one of them. The empire is just too big to be ruled by one person. He's going to break it up
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into four segments. The tetrarchy, it's called, the rule of four, the tetrarchy. And what you,
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What in his idea was that you would have two senior emperors
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What in his idea was that you would have two senior emperors
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And they will name, formally, legally, name their successor
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Okay, so you can already see a couple of centuries out
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From the original Julius Caesar and Octavian, Augustus
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the Augustus a couple of centuries out the Roman world is already looking back on that
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with rose tinted glasses already it's already something that's completely in the past
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just just a part of their history they're now playing a different game an entirely different
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game and this tetrarchy you'll have two senior emperors the Augusti and two junior ones and as
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soon as one of those Augustuses Augusti as soon as they die or if they might like to retire
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then the idea is that there'll be no succession crisis because you've already got another guy
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your Caesar will take over and become be promoted effectively to an Augustus and he at that point
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will then name a new Caesar so there'll be no succession crisis that's the idea and that with
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the empire broken up into four bits each one of these Augusti or Caesars they will be able to rule
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their portion of the empire much more effectively efficiently and it will prevent again in theory it
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will prevent something like the crisis of the third century just playing out endlessly i.e
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just succession crisis after succession crisis after succession crisis that's the idea of it
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of course you might already be asking yourself well what if these four emperors don't necessarily
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all agree perfectly with each other and are all on the same page with each other in terms of policy
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100% of the time what if they start fighting among themselves I mean it's a good question
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so all right with all of that said give you a bit of an overview of what's going to go down
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let's start talking about and reading about Diocletian himself so as I said going to be
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reading from Edward Gibbon, and in chapter 13 of his seminal work, he says this, quote,
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As the reign of Diocletian was more illustrious than that of any of his predecessors,
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so was his birth more abject and obscure. The strong claims of merit and of violence
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had frequently superseded the ideal prerogatives of nobility. What he's talking about there is
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usurpations, the idea that you're of a noble family like the Julio-Claudian dynasty, that that
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protects you in some way, that you won't be usurped because the name, your very name and your family
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means that no one could really take your position because they won't be illustrious enough, they
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won't be noble enough. Well all of that's out of the window a long time ago. But a distinct line
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of separation was hitherto preserved between the free and the servile part of mankind. The parents
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of Diocletian had been slaves in the house of Annulinius, a Roman senator, nor was he himself
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distinguished by any other name than that which he derived from a small town in Dalmatia, from
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whence his mother deduced her origin. It is, however, probable that his father obtained the
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freedom of the family and that he soon acquired an office of scribe, which was commonly exercised
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by persons of his condition. Favorable oracles, or rather the consciousness of superior merit,
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prompted his aspiring son to pursue the profession of arms and the hopes of fortune, i.e. joining the
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army. And it would be extremely curious to observe the graduation of arts and accidents which enabled
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him in the end to fulfill these oracles and to display that merit to the world. Diocletian was
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Successfully promoted to the government of Maesia
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And the important command of the guards of the palace
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Not sort of a true peasant living in filth and penury
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But he joined the army and through his own merits
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Now you remember me telling you just a few moments ago
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about how many of the institutions of the Republic had still survived, like consuls,
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creators, pro-consuls, creators, all that sort of thing, tribunes. They still all existed. Of course,
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they didn't have anywhere near the power or the prestige that they had once done during the age
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of the Republic, but they all still existed. So to become a consul was still massively important.
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He was still one of the most powerful people in the empire, and he was able to do that through
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his own merits and became and this is the key the command of the guards of the palace and that's a
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classic thing all down through history isn't it whoever gets put in charge of the actual personal
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safety of the emperor that's extremely powerful isn't it extremely extremely powerful or if you're
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the one who gate keeps the emperor this is all through Chinese history medieval history all down
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through history if you can if you're in charge of gatekeeping the emperor and you're in charge of
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his personal safety. You're very, very close to being as powerful as him. It's in your hands
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to have him murdered if you wanted to. You're in charge of whether his enemies get access to him
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and murder him and conduct a coup d'etat. Well, in a de facto sense, you're almost as powerful as
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him. If not more, you could argue. If you look at the Carolingian Empire, the people that controlled
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the palace, the security of the palace, eventually became the kings. Story as old as time. Okay, so
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that's where Diocletian finds himself. Gibbon goes on saying, he distinguished his abilities in the
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Persian war, and after the death of Numerian, the emperor, the slave, by the confession and
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judgment of his rivals, was declared the most worthy of the imperial throne. So one of the
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Emperor's Numerian did in fact get himself killed and usurped and it's none other than the commander
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of the palace and an ex-consul Diocletian who takes the throne next or is given the throne next
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the imperial diadem. The malice of religious zeal whilst it arraigns the savage fierceness of his
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colleague Maximian has affected to cast suspicion on the personal courage of the Emperor Diocletian
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end quote so something to say there diocletian had a right-hand man this chap called maximian
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now maximian plays a massive role in our story here the story of diocletian is also the story
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of maximian okay we talked about the the rule of four which doesn't happen yet it's not for a few
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years good couple of years yet before this happens but this maximian is one of the augustus
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the augusti diocletian makes himself and maximian the two senior emperors his colleague
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as edward gibbon describes it and this maximian is supposed to be very very short he's a true
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military man a true just uh soldier soldier for anyone or anything ever gets in his way he just
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destroys them kills them diocletian isn't necessarily like that sometimes he's a bit but
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he tries to rule as something other than a completely naked military despot, whereas Maximian
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doesn't. Maximian doesn't care. Okay, so that's a name to remember. And Edward Gibbon mentions there
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that Diocletian himself might not necessarily have been, you know, a true soldier in that sense of
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getting involved in swordplay whenever he can, being the first over a wall, being the first
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But that's not the type of guy that Diocletian was
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And some warrior emperors throughout time, don't we?
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Julius Caesar himself would get involved in battles
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but he appears not to have possessed the daring and generous spirit of a hero who courts danger
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and fame, disdains artifice and boldly challenges the allegiance of his equals. His abilities were
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useful rather than splendid, a vigorous mind improved by the experience and study of mankind,
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i.e. he wasn't a mindless soldier, a mindless butcher, but he sort of studied people and
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understood human psychology and politics. Gibbon says he had dexterity and application in business,
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a judicious mixture of liberality and economy, of mildness and rigor, profound dissimulation
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under the disguise of military frankness, steadiness to pursue his ends, flexibility to
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vary his means and above all the great art of submitting his own passions as well as those of
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others to the interests of his ambition and of colouring his ambition with the most specious
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pretenses of justice and public utility, end quote. It's a way of saying, a very roundabout
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late 19th century way of saying that he was prudent. He would do what was ever in his best
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interests or the empire's best interests at any given moment. He wasn't ruled by his passions,
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that he wasn't massively headstrong or an ideologue he was prudent a politician you might say
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