A most fascinating read from Wikipedia, seems like deja vu all over again.
Diocletian (Latin: Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus Augustus; c. 22 December 244 – 3 December 311, was a Roman Emperor from 284 to 305.
Administrative
In keeping with his move from an ideology of republicanism to one of autocracy, Diocletian's council of advisers, his consilium, differed from those of earlier Emperors. He destroyed the Augustan illusion of imperial government as a cooperative affair between Emperor, Army, and Senate.[198] In its place he established an effectively autocratic structure, a shift later epitomized in the institution's name: it would be called a consistorium ("consistory"), not a council.[199][notes 11] Diocletian regulated his court by distinguishing separate departments (scrina) for different tasks.[201] From this structure came the offices of different magistri, like the Magister officiorum ("Master of offices"), and associated secretariats. These were men suited to dealing with petitions, requests, correspondence, legal affairs, and foreign embassies. Within his court Diocletian maintained a permanent body of legal advisers, men with significant influence on his re-ordering of juridical affairs. There were also two finance ministers, dealing with the separate bodies of the public treasury and the private domains of the Emperor, and the praetorian prefect, the most significant person of the whole. Diocletian's reduction of the Praetorian Guards to the level of a simple city garrison for Rome lessened the military powers of the prefect, but the office retained much civil authority. The prefect kept a staff of hundreds and managed affairs in all segments of government: in taxation, administration, jurisprudence, and minor military commands, the praetorian prefect was often second only to the emperor himself.[202]
Altogether, Diocletian effected a large increase in the number of bureaucrats at the government's command; Lactantius was to claim that there were now more men using tax money than there were paying it.[203] The historian Warren Treadgold estimates that under Diocletian the number of men in the civil service doubled from 15,000 to 30,000.[204] The classicist Roger Bagnall estimated that there was one bureaucrat for every 5–10,000 people in Egypt based on 400 or 800 bureaucrats for 4 million inhabitants(no one knows the population of the province in 300 AD; Strabo 300 years earlier put it at 7.5 million, excluding Alexandria).(By comparison, the ratio in twelfth-century China was one bureaucrat for every 15,000 people.) Jones estimated 30,000 bureaucrats for an empire of 50-65 million inhabitants, which works out to approximately 1,667 or 2,167 inhabitants per imperial official as averages empire-wide. The actual numbers of officials and ratios per inhabitant varied, of course, per diocese depending on the number of provinces and population within a diocese. Provincial and diocesan paid officials (there were unpaid supernumeraries) numbered about 13-15,000 based on their staff establishments as set by law. The other 50% were with the emperor(s)in his or their Comitatus, with the praetorian prefects, with the grain supply officials in the capital (later, the capitals, Rome and Constantinople), Alexandria, and Carthage and officials from the central offices located in the provinces.[205]
To avoid the possibility of local usurpations,[206] to facilitate a more efficient collection of taxes and supplies, and to ease the enforcement of the law, Diocletian doubled the number of provinces from fifty to almost one hundred.[207] The provinces were grouped into twelve dioceses, each governed by an appointed official called a vicarius, or "deputy of the praetorian prefects".[208] Some of the provincial divisions required revision, and were modified either soon after 293 or early in the fourth century.[209] Rome herself (including her environs, as defined by a 100 miles (160 km)-radius perimeter around the City itself) was not under the authority of the praetorian prefect, as she was to be administered by a City Prefect of senatorial rank – the sole prestigious post with actual power reserved exclusively for senators, except for some governors in Italy with the titles of corrector and the proconsuls of Asia and Africa.[210] The dissemination of imperial law to the provinces was facilitated under Diocletian's reign, because Diocletian's reform of the Empire's provincial structure meant that there were now a greater number of governors (praesides) ruling over smaller regions and smaller populations.[211] Diocletian's reforms shifted the governors' main function to that of the presiding official in the lower courts:[212] whereas in the early Empire military and judicial functions were the function of governor, and procurators had supervised taxation; under the new system vicarii and governors were responsible for justice and taxation, and a new class of duces ("dukes"), acting independently of the civil service, had military command. These dukes sometimes administered two or three of the new provinces created by Diocletian, and had forces ranging from two thousand to more than twenty thousand men.[213] In addition to their roles as judges and tax collectors, governors were expected to maintain the postal service (cursus publicus) and ensure that town councils fulfilled their duties.[214]
This curtailment of governors' powers as the Emperors' representatives may have lessened the political dangers of an all-too-powerful class of Imperial delegates, but it also severely limited governors' ability to oppose local landed elites. On one occasion, Diocletian had to exhort a proconsul of Africa not to fear the consequences of treading on the toes of the local magnates of senatorial rank.[215] If a governor of senatorial rank himself felt these pressures, one can imagine the difficulties faced by a mere praeses.[216]
[edit] Legal
A 1581 reprint of the Digestorum from Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis (527–534). The Corpus drew on the codices of Gregorius and Hermogenian, drafted and published under Diocletian's reign.
As with most Emperors, much of Diocletian's daily routine rotated around legal affairs—responding to appeals and petitions, and delivering decisions on disputed matters. Rescripts, authoritative interpretations issued by the Emperor in response to demands from disputants in both public and private cases, were a common duty of second- and third-century Emperors. Diocletian was awash in paperwork, and was nearly incapable of delegating his duties. It would have been seen as a dereliction of duty to ignore them. Diocletian's praetorian prefects—Afranius Hannibalianus, Julius Asclepiodotus, and Aurelius Hermogenianus—aided in regulating the flow and presentation of such paperwork, but the deep legalism of Roman culture kept the workload heavy.[217] Emperors in the forty years preceding Diocletian's reign had not managed these duties so effectively, and their output in attested rescripts is low. Diocletian, by contrast, was prodigious in his affairs: there are around 1,200 rescripts in his name still surviving, and these probably represent only a small portion of the total issue.[218] The sharp increase in the number of edicts and rescripts produced under Diocletian's rule has been read as evidence of an ongoing effort to realign the whole Empire on terms dictated by the imperial center.[219]
Under the governance of the jurists Gregorius, Aurelius Arcadius Charisius, and Hermogenianus, the imperial government began issuing official books of precedent, collecting and listing all the rescripts that had been issued from the reign of Hadrian (r. 117–38) to the reign of Diocletian.[220] The Codex Gregorianus includes rescripts up to 292, which the Codex Hermogenianus updated with a comprehensive collection of rescripts issued by Diocletian in 293 and 294.[209] Although the very act of codification was a radical innovation, given the precedent-based design of the Roman legal system,[221] the jurists themselves were generally conservative, and constantly looked to past Roman practice and theory for guidance.[222] They were probably given more free rein over their codes than the later compilers of the Codex Theodosianus (438) and Codex Justinianus (529) would have. Gregorius and Hermogenianus' codices lack the rigid structuring of later codes,[223] and were not published in the name of the emperor, but in the names of their compilers.[224]
After Diocletian's reform of the provinces, governors were called iudex, or judge. The governor became responsible for his decisions first to his immediate superiors, as well as to the more distant office of the Emperor.[225] It was most likely at this time that judicial records became verbatim accounts of what was said in trial, making it easier to determine bias or improper conduct on the part of the governor. With these records and the Empire's universal right of appeal, Imperial authorities probably had a great deal of power to enforce behavior standards for their judges.[226] In spite of Diocletian's attempts at reform, the provincial restructuring was far from clear, especially when citizens appealed the decisions of their governors. Proconsuls, for example, were often both judges of first instance and appeal, and the governors of some provinces took appellant cases from their neighbors. It soon became impossible to avoid taking some cases to the Emperor for arbitration and judgment.[227] Diocletian's reign marks the end of the classical period of Roman law. Where Diocletian's system of rescripts shows an adherence to classical tradition, Constantine's law is full of Greek and eastern influences.[228]
[edit] Military
See also: Late Roman army: Diocletian
It is archaeologically difficult to distinguish Diocletian's fortifications from those of his successors and predecessors. The Devil's Dyke, for example, the Danubian earthworks traditionally attributed to Diocletian, cannot even be securely dated to a particular century. The most that can be said about built structures under Diocletian's reign is that he rebuilt and strengthened forts at the Upper Rhine frontier (where he followed the works made under Probus's reign, both along the Lake Constance-Basel as well as along the Rhine–Iller–Danube line),[229] in Egypt, and on the frontier with Persia. Beyond that, much discussion is speculative, and reliant on the broad generalizations of written sources. Diocletian and the Tetrarchs had no consistent plan for frontier advancement, and records of raids and forts built across the frontier are likely to indicate only temporary claims. The Strata Diocletiana, which ran from the Euphrates to Palmyra and northeast Arabia, is the classic Diocletianic frontier system, consisting of an outer road followed by tightly spaced forts followed by further fortifications in the rear.[230] In an attempt to resolve the difficulty and slowness of transmitting orders to the frontier, the new capitals of the Tetrarchic era were all much closer to the Empire's frontiers than Rome had been:[231] Trier sat on the Rhine, Sirmium and Serdica were close to the Danube, Thessaloniki was on the route leading eastward, and Nicomedia and Antioch were important points in dealings with Persia.[232]
Lactantius criticized Diocletian for an excessive increase in troop sizes, declaring that "each of the four [Tetrarchs] strove to have a far larger number of troops than previous emperors had when they were governing the state alone".[233] The fifth-century pagan Zosimus, by contrast, praised Diocletian for keeping troops on the borders, rather than keeping them in the cities, as Constantine was held to have done.[234] Both these views had some truth to them, despite the biases of their authors: Diocletian and the Tetrarchs did greatly expand the army, and the growth was mostly in frontier regions, although it is difficult to establish the precise details of these shifts given the weakness of the sources.[235] The army expanded to about 580,000 men from a 285 strength of 390,000. of which 310,000 men were stationed in the East, most of whom manned the Persian frontier. The navy's forces increased from approximately 45,000 men to approximately 65,000 men.[236][notes 12]
Diocletian's expansion of the army and civil service meant that the Empire's tax burden grew. Since military upkeep took the largest portion of the imperial budget, any reforms here would be especially costly.[239] The proportion of the adult male population, excluding slaves, serving in the army increased from roughly 1 in 25 to 1 in 15, an increase judged excessive by some modern commentators. Official troop allowances were kept to low levels, and the mass of troops often resorted to extortion or the taking of civilian jobs.[240] Arrears became the norm for most troops. Many were even given payment in kind in place of their salaries.[241] Were he unable to pay for his enlarged army, there would likely be civil conflict, potentially open revolt. Diocletian was led to devise a new system of taxation.[240]
[edit] Economic
[edit] Taxation
In the early Empire (30 BC- AD 235) the Roman government paid for what it needed in gold and silver. The coinage was stable. Requisition, forced purchase, was used to supply armies on the march. During the third century crisis (235-285), the government resorted to requisition rather than payment in debased coinage, since it could never be sure of the value of money. Requisition was nothing more or less than seizure. Diocletian made requisition into tax. He introduced an extensive new tax system based on heads (capita) and land (iuga) and tied to a new, regular census of the Empire's population and wealth. Census officials traveled throughout the Empire, assessed the value of labor and land for each landowner, and joined the landowners' totals together to make city-wide totals of capita and iuga.[242] The iugum was not a consistent measure of land, but varied according to the type of land and crop, and the amount of labor necessary for sustenance. The caput was not consistent either: women, for instance, were often valued at half a caput, and sometimes at other values.[241] Cities provided animals, money, and manpower in proportion to its capita, and grain in proportion to its iuga.[242][notes 13]
Most taxes were due on each year on 1 September, and levied from individual landowners by decuriones (decurions). These decurions, analogous to city councilors, were responsible for paying from their own pocket what they failed to collect.[244] Diocletian's reforms also increased the number of financial officials in the provinces: more rationales and magistri privatae are attested under Diocletian's reign than before. These officials managed represented the interests of the fisc, which collected taxes in gold, and the Imperial properties.[209] Fluctuations in the value of the currency made collection of taxes in kind the norm, although these could be converted into coin. Rates shifted to take inflation into account.[242] In 296, Diocletian issued an edict reforming census procedures. This edict introduced a general five-year census for the whole Empire, replacing prior censuses that had operated at different speeds throughout the Empire. The new censuses would keep up with changes in the values of capita and iuga.[245]
Italy, which had long been exempt from taxes, was included in the tax system from 290/291 as other provinces.[246] The city of Rome itself and the surrounding Suburbicarian diocese (where Roman senators held the bulk of their landed property), however, remained exempt.[247]
Diocletian's edicts emphasize the common liability of all taxpayers. Public records of all taxes were made public.[248] The position of decurion, member of the city council, had been an honor sought by wealthy aristocrats and the middle classes who displayed their wealth by paying for city amenities and public works. Decurions were made liable for any shortfall in the amount of tax collected. Many tried to find ways to escape the obligation.[244]
[edit] Currency and inflation
A fragment of the Edict on Maximum Prices (301), on display in Berlin
Part of the prices edict in Greek in its original area built into a medieval church, Geraki, Greece
Aurelian's attempt to reform the currency had failed; the denarius was dead.[249] Diocletian restored the three-metal coinage and issued better quality pieces.[250] The new system consisted of five coins: the aureus/solidus, a gold coin weighing, like its predecessors, one-sixtieth of a pound; the argenteus, a coin weighing one ninety-sixth of a pound and containing ninety-five percent pure silver; the follis, sometimes referred to as the laureatus A, which is a copper coin with added silver struck at the rate of thirty-two to the pound; the radiatus, a small copper coin struck at the rate of 108 to the pound, with no added silver; and a coin known today as the laureatus B, a smaller copper coin struck at the rate of 192 to the pound.[251][notes 14] Since the nominal values of these new issues were lower than their intrinsic worth as metals, the state was minting these coins at a loss. This practice could be sustained only by requisitioning precious metals from private citizens in exchange for state-minted coin (of a far lower value than the price of the precious metals requisitioned).[252]
By 301, however, the system was in trouble, strained by a new bout of inflation. Diocletian therefore issued his Edict on Coinage, an act re-tariffing all debts so that the nummi, the most common coin in circulation, would be worth half as much.[253] In the edict, preserved in an inscription from the city of Aphrodisias in Caria (near Geyre, Turkey), it was declared that all debts contracted before 1 September 301 must be repaid at the old standards, while all debts contracted after that date would be repaid at the new standards.[254] It appears that the edict was made in an attempt to preserve the current price of gold and to keep the Empire's coinage on silver, Rome's traditional metal currency.[255] This edict risked giving further momentum to inflationary trends, as had happened after Aurelian's currency reforms. The government's response was to issue a price freeze.[256]
The Edict on Maximum Prices (Edictum De Pretiis Rerum Venalium) was issued two to three months after the coinage edict,[249] somewhere between 20 November and 10 December 301.[254] The best-preserved Latin inscription surviving from the Greek East,[257] the edict survives in many versions, on materials as varied as wood, papyrus, and stone.[258] In the edict, Diocletian declared that the current pricing crisis resulted from the unchecked greed of merchants, and had resulted in turmoil for the mass of common citizens. The language of the edict calls on the people's memory of their benevolent leaders, and exhorts them to enforce the provisions of the edict, and thereby restore perfection to the world. The edict goes on to list in detail over one thousand goods and accompanying retail prices not to be exceeded. Penalties are laid out for various pricing transgressions.[259]
In the most basic terms, the edict was ignorant of the law of supply and demand: it ignored the fact that prices might vary from region to region according to product availability, and it ignored the impact of transportation costs in the retail price of goods. In the judgment of the historian David Potter, the edict was "an act of economic lunacy".[260] Inflation, speculation, and monetary instability continued, and a black market arose to trade in goods forced out of official markets.[261] The edict's penalties were applied unevenly across the empire (some scholars believe they were applied only in Diocletian's domains),[262] widely resisted, and eventually dropped, perhaps within a year of the edict's issue.[263] Lactantius has written of the perverse accompaniments to the edict; of goods withdrawn from the market, of brawls over minute variations in price, of the deaths that came when its provisions were enforced. His account may be true, but it seems to modern historians exaggerated and hyperbolic,[264] and the impact of the law is recorded in no other ancient source.[265]
[edit] Legacy
