Diocletian 284 - 305 A.D.

By clicking on the pictures you'll be linked to a more complete description of the coin. At the bottom of this page there is a more elaborate biography of the emperor.

	Obverse: IMP C C VAL DIOCLETIANVS PF AVG
	Reverse: CONCORDIA MILITVM
	Fieldmarks: HB
	Exergue: -

Diocletian  284 - 305  A.D.

      Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus was born around 245 AD in Dalmatia probably near Spalatum, he was born with the name Diocles. His father was the scribe of a wealthy senator and might have been a former slave. Diocletian received very little education in his youth and got married to a woman named Prisca they had a daughter called Valeria. He joined the army at an early age and showed himself to be a very capable soldier and an ambitious individual. His first big promotion was to Dux Moesia with responsibility for border defense and it turned out he was also a very effective and capable officer. In 282, the legions of the upper Danube proclaimed the praetorian prefect Carus as emperor. Diocletian found favor under the new emperor, and was promoted to comes domesticorum, the commander of the cavalry arm of the imperial bodyguard. In 284 Carus was killed and left the empire in the hands of his two young sons, Numerian in the east and Carinus in the west. Diocletian kept his job as comes domesticorum under Numerian. Soon after his ascension Numerian died under mysterious circumstances near Nicomedia. Diocletian was hailed emperor by his troops on the 20th of November 284 AD and was asked to avenge Numerian's death, which he did by charging Arrius Aper, the praetorian prefect with Numerians murder. He sentenced him to death and personally executed him in front of the troops. At this time he officially changed his name from Diocles to Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus. Soon after Diocletian crossed the Bosporus into Europe and met the forces of Numerian's brother and co-emperor Carinus near Margum on the 1st of April 285 AD. The battle went well and Carinus was assassinated during the battle by one of  Diocletians officers. With no other candidate for the throne left on the battlefield Carinus' troops quickly turned and allied themselves with Diocletian making him the sole ruler of the entire empire. As a sign of goodwill to the supporters of Carinus, Diocletian kept Carinus' praetorian prefect, Aristobolus, as well as keeping many of Carinus' government officials in place.

      Soon after his ascension Diocletian started to completely reform the current Roman governmental, military and economic structure. Diocletian had seen that for several decades now emperors ruled for only very short periods and where increasingly depended on the army. The regular income of the soldiers was almost zero and they depended for income on the ever increasing gold donations the emperors gave on their ascension to their troops to assure their loyalty. This lead to armies throughout the empire beginning to set up their own generals as rival emperors. This of course lead to civil wars and a constant stream of usurpers and a severe weakening of the empire. Barbarians at the borders of the empire were more then happy to take advantage of this lack in cohesion and military strength. Another source of weakness was that an emperor constantly had to watch his back and was forced to take most of his legions with him to fight of invasions because leaving a large force behind might inspire another rebellion. In the mean time the Sassanide Persians or the Germanic barbarians, depending on which way the emperor went, took advantage of the absence of a large part of the army by organizing raids into Roman territory. Since the emperor was to far away to deal with this problem local rulers took matters in their own hand to defend their provinces. This in turn lead to locals starting to support their savior and this in turn lead to new usurpers.

      All these problems led Diocletian to the conclusion that the empire was simply to big to be ruled by just one man. To solve this problem he declared his friend Maximianus as Caesar in November 285 AD and granted him control over the western provinces. Diocletian urgently needed to deal with the problems on the Danubian borders and needed someone trustworthy in Rome to take care of government. Not having a son, it was a natural choice to pick one of his trusted military comrades. Only several months later, on the 1st of April 286 AD, he promoted Maximianus to the rank of Augustus. Diocletian however remained the senior ruler, possessing a veto over any edicts made by Maximianus. Later in the same year the commander of the North Sea fleet, Carausius, made himself emperor of Britannia. Maximianus could now deal with this problem while Diocletian could continue campaigning along the Danubian frontier, where he defeated several German and Sarmatian tribes. Other expeditions took him as far as Syria, where he campaigned against Saracen invaders from the Sinai Peninsula in 290 AD.

      Things got more and more under control and Diocletian took another step in changing the government. In 293 AD he declared that each emperor should adopt a son who would rule as his junior emperor. The two men who were appointed to these positions were Constantius Chlorus (Constantine the pale) in the west and Galerius in the east. Both men where chosen on their merits and not on their social states or family relations. In the future this would ensure that each emperor would adopt the best man for the job as their son and co-augustus and that no succession issues would arise since an heir apparent would be ready to take over at any time. This so-called Tetrarchy didn't split the empire in an eastern and western part, but allowed it to be ruled by four man who, together, could easily control all its borders and deal with any problems that might arise.

      To further ensure a successful future for the empire Diocletian started to reorganize the military and the local government. He doubled the number of existing provinces to approximately one hundred. This ensured that it was almost impossible for a local governor to launch a rebellion since he would only control a small area of the empire. These new provinces, were part of 12 bigger provinces called dioceses which acted as regional authorities over the smaller provinces. These dioceses were ruled by a vicarius who was controlled by one of the four main administrators of the empire, the praetorian prefects (one praetorian prefect per tetrarch). The administration of government was largely left in the hands of these prefects. By separating civil and military careers these praetorian prefects (who had been a great source of problems in the past) were no longer really military commanders, but far more they were expert jurists and administrators overseeing imperial administration. Diocletian next reintroduced a compulsory conscription of Roman Citizens into the army and divided the army itself into frontier troops, the so-called limitanei who were permanently stationed along the borders, and 4 highly mobile armies (1 for each Tetrarch) which were called the Comitatensis. This was the real field army often led by one of the emperors which was stationed more inland and could quickly be dispatched to trouble spots.

       This enormous expansion of the military, well over half a million men under arms, and the doubled number of provinces increased bureaucracy and put a huge tax burden on the Roman people. So huge reforms in this area where needed as well. Diocletian therefore introduced a new and complex taxation system which allowed for regional variations of harvests and trade. Areas with more fertile soil or wealthier trade were taxed harder than poorer regions. In 301 AD an Edict of Maximum Prices was imposed throughout the empire in an attempt to fix prices and wages in order to curb inflation. The system however did more damage than it did good. Regional price variations no longer existed and therefore trade suffered. Many goods also became unprofitable to sell, which therefore also meant that trade in those goods simply disappeared. Next was a coin reform necessary because the coinage had become almost worthless. Diocletian's attempt to reissue good gold and silver coins failed because there simply was not enough gold and silver available to restore confidence in the currency. Diocletian later on had to accepted the ruin of the money economy and revised the tax system so that it was based on payments in kind . The soldiers too came to be paid in kind.

      Under Diocletian the imperial court was expanded and elaborated, people were now required to kneel before their emperor, kissing the hem of his robes. Access to the emperor was restricted and he was to be addressed not as First Citizen (Princeps) or the soldierly general (Imperator), but as Lord and Master (Dominus Noster a title that is commonly found on most late bronze coins abbreviated as DN). All these measures were introduced to increase the authority of the imperial office. Under Diocletian the emperor became a godlike creature, detached from the worldly affairs of the lesser people around him. Later on Diocletian and Maximianus declared themselves the respective sons of Jupiter and Hercules. Diocletian adopted the title Jovianus and Maximianus the one of Herculianus, this was part of an effort to further set them apart from the world around them. Aurelian had started this trend but no-one had ever gone this far, it was the pagan equivalent of ruling 'by the will of God', which Christian emperors were to do in years to come.

      In 296 AD Maximianus' Caesar Constantine Chlorus managed to defeat the usurpers in Britannia and to bring back the breakaway province into the empire. In the same year the Persians, under leadership of their new king Bahram III, attacked the empire. They first invaded Armenia and defeated Rome's ally, king Tiridates, and then started to march on Antioch. Their successes inspired the revolt of Lucius Domitius Domitianus in Egypt, after his death Aurelius Achilleus succeeded him as 'emperor' of Egypt. Diocletian moved to put down the revolt and in early 298 AD Achilleus was defeated and killed at Alexandria. Meanwhile Galerius, the eastern Caesar being groomed to succeed Diocletian, successfully campaigned against the Persians and defeated them overwhelmingly in Armenia and reclaimed all lost territories. With this victory complete peace was finally returned to the empire.

      Diocletian also began to persecute Christians in an effort to strengthen Roman traditions and reviving the worship of the old Roman gods, of which he was now a part of course. In 297 or 298 AD all soldiers and administrators were ordered to make sacrifices to the gods anyone who refused to do so, was immediately dismissed. On the 24th February 303 AD another edict was issued this time Diocletian ordered the destruction of all churches and scriptures within the empire. More edicts followed that year, ordering all Christian clergy to be thrown in prison, to be released only after having made sacrifices to the Roman gods. In April 304 AD Diocletian issued his final religious edict ordering all Christians to sacrifice to the Roman gods, anyone who would refuse would be executed.

      Then, after a serious illness in 304 AD, Diocletian abdicated (a move no other emperor had ever made) from the throne on the 1st of May 305 AD, compelling a reluctant Maximianus to do the same. From his place of retirement at Spalatum in Dalmatia, Diocletian briefly returned to the political scene in 308 AD to aid Galerius at the Conference of Carnuntum. After this he withdrew back to Spalatum, where he died peacefully on the 3rd of December 311 AD.

For this biography I've used the texts from the following websites:
http://www.imperiumromanum.com/
http://www.roman-emperors.org/
http://www.roman-empire.net/
And from: Gibbon's Decline and fall of the Roman empire.