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Rome at the Rise of Diocletian
A Balkan peasant who rose through the army, Diocletian (reigned from 284-304 CE) and his successor Constantine (reigned 313-337 CE) reformed the imperial system to the point of remaking Roman state and society. When Diocletian became emperor, borders had been barely reestablished, Germanic and Sassanid threats continued, and commerce and farming had decreased. On top of this, inflation was on the rise due to the continually decreasing silver content of Roman coins. Upon taking the throne, Diocletian withdrew to a secluded palace in Nicomedia (in Asia Minor), acting essentially as a remote, semi-deified monarch and doing away with senatorial cooperation entirely.
Diocletian’s Political and Military Reforms
Diocletian then took several measures to reinvigorate and reform the Roman State. Most importantly, given constant military threats in East and West, he divided the Empire into two. His co-emperor, Maximian, ruled in Italy, Gaul, North Africa, and Iberia. Diocletian reserved all else, including the Balkans, for himself. He then established the Tetrarchate, a system under which he and Maximian, both titled Augustus, adopted trusted generals as sons, both titled Caesar. They would act as deputies that would assume the throne upon their Augustus's retirement. He further reformed imperial administration by further subdividing existing provinces and creating a bureaucracy that both prevented rebellions and increased efficiency.
Diocletian’s next challenge was the military. Defending long frontiers was increasingly impossible, given the army’s size, and so he doubled it from 300,000 soldiers to 600,000. In order to fill the ranks, he decreed that sons of soldiers had to serve as well, essentially creating a caste that, while producing a ready supply of troops, also increased gaps in Roman society. Supplementing this decree was empire-wide conscription. Since many coastal and older Roman regions could evade the draft, most soldiers from the 300s CE onward came from the Balkan and Germanic peoples who had newly entered Roman lands.
Diocletian’s Economic Reforms
Runaway inflation had plagued Rome since the beginning of the Severan dynasty. The state had increasing trouble paying its debts, paying its soldiers, and raising new revenues. To end inflation and raise revenues, Diocletian issued a new currency, consisting of gold and silver coins. He also imposed a new land tax, planning for the government to estimate available and needed revenues for each year and generate a budget fully supported by taxes. However, problems emerged when the exchange rate between the gold and silver coins was incorrect, leaving peasants unable to cover their tax burden. Many who could not pay fled to the cities, leading to overcrowding and food scarcity.
In response, in 302 CE, Diocletian prohibited peasants from leaving their plots of land. Though still free in other terms, this laid the foundation for medieval serfdom and the rise of manorial systems. Further, taxes were now payable in kind (i.e., in goods that the state could use). Finally, he implemented price and wage controls for the entire empire in the hopes of preventing inflation and guaranteeing commoners' livelihoods. He also established a system of tax collectors among the provincial urban business classes, the decurions, as well as sate workshops, where slave and conscript workers produced arms and uniforms for the army and the bureaucracy.
Diocletian’s Legacy
Diocletian and, later, Constantine, brought the metamorphosis of the Roman state to its logical conclusion. Emperors became purposely secluded leaders, and the Senate was sidelined in terms of governing, consultative, and fiscal powers. Political and social hierarchies became much more rigid, at least on paper. Diocletian’s policies, such as binding peasants to their land, worked together with existing social and economic trends, such as latifundia, to amplify an already emerging societal stratification.
At the same time, Rome became more and more militarized, though Diocletian did try to keep civilian provincial administration separate from military matters. This was both for the sake of government efficiency and to prevent generals from accumulating a threatening amount of power.
