Part 878

"The accession of Diocletian to power marks a new epoch in the history of the Roman empire. From this time the old names of the republic, the consuls, the tribunes, and the Senate itself, cease, even if still existing, to have any political significance. The government becomes avowedly a monarchical autocracy, and the officers by whom it is administered are simply the nominees of the despot on the throne. The empire of Rome is henceforth an Oriental sovereignty. Aurelian had already introduced the use of the Oriental diadem. The nobility of the empire derive their positions from the favor of the sovereign; the commons of the empire, who have long lost their political power, cease to enjoy even the name of citizens. The provinces are still administered under the imperial prefects by the magistrates and the assemblies of an earlier date, but the functions of both the one and the other are confined more strictly than ever to matters of police and finance. Hitherto, indeed, the Senate, however intrinsically weak, had found opportunities for putting forth its claims to authority. … The chosen of the legions had been for some time past the commander of an army, rather than the sovereign of the state. He had seldom quitted the camp, rarely or never presented himself in the capital. … The whole realm might split asunder at any moment into as many kingdoms as there were armies, unless the chiefs of the legions felt themselves controlled by the strength or genius of one more eminent than the rest. … {2718} The danger of disruption, thus far averted mainly by the awe which the name of Rome inspired, was becoming yearly more imminent, when Diocletian arose to re-establish the organic connection of the parts, and breathe a new life into the heart of the body politic. The jealous edict of Gallienus … had forbidden the senators to take service in the army, or to quit the limits of Italy. The degradation of that once illustrious order, which was thus rendered incapable of furnishing a candidate for the diadem, was completed by its indolent acquiescence in this disqualifying ordinance. The nobles of Rome relinquished all interest in affairs which they could no longer aspire to conduct. The emperors, on their part, ceased to regard them as a substantive power in the state; and in constructing his new imperial constitution Diocletian wholly overlooked their existence. … While he disregarded the possibility of opposition at Rome, he contrived a new check upon the rivalry of his distant lieutenants, by associating with himself three other chiefs, welded together by strict alliance into one imperial family, each of whom should take up his residence in a separate quarter of the empire, and combine with all the others in maintaining their common interest. His first step was to choose a single colleague in the person of a brave soldier of obscure origin, an Illyrian peasant, by name Maximianus, whom he invested with the title of Augustus in the year 286. The associated rulers assumed at the same time the fanciful epithets of Jovius and Herculius, auspicious names, which made them perhaps popular in the camps, where the commanding genius of the one and the laborious fortitude of the other were fully recognized. Maximianus was deputed to control the legions in Gaul, to make head against domestic sedition, as well as against the revolt of Carausius, a pretender to the purple in Britain, while Diocletian encountered the enemies or rivals who were now rising up in various quarters in the East.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 288-297.

His dangers still multiplied, and again the powers of the state were subdivided to meet them. In the year 292 Diocletian created two Cæsars; the one, Galerius, to act subordinately to himself in the East; the other, Constantius Chlorus, to divide the government of the western provinces with Maximian. The Cæsars were bound more closely to the Augusti by receiving their daughters in marriage; but though they acknowledged each a superior in his own half of the empire, and admitted a certain supremacy of Diocletian over all, yet each enjoyed kingly rule in his own territories, and each established a court and capital, as well as an army and a camp. Diocletian retained the wealthiest and most tranquil portion of the realm, and reigned in Nicomedia [see NICOMEDIA] over Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt; while he intrusted to the Cæsar Galerius, established at Sirmium, the more exposed provinces on the Danube. Maximian occupied Italy, the adjacent islands, and Africa, stationing himself, however, not in Rome, but at Milan. Constantius was required to defend the Rhenish frontier; and the martial provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain were given him to furnish the forces necessary for maintaining that important trust. The capital of the Western Cæsar was fixed at Treves. Inspired with a common interest, and controlled by the ascendency of Diocletian himself, all the emperors acted with vigor in their several provinces. Diocletian recovered Alexandria and quieted the revolt of Egypt.

See ALEXANDRIA: A. D. 296.

Maximian routed the unruly hordes of Maurentia, and overthrew a pretender to sovereignty in that distant quarter. Constantius discomfited an invading host of Alemanni, kept in check Carausius, who for a moment had seized upon Britain, and again wrested that province from Allectus, who had murdered and succeeded to him. Galerius brought the legions of Illyria to the defence of Syria against the Persians, and though once defeated on the plains of Carrhæ, at last reduced the enemy to submission.

See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627].

Thus victorious in every quarter, Diocletian celebrated the commencement of his twentieth year of power with a triumph at the ancient capital, and again taking leave of the imperial city, returned to his customary residence at Nicomedia. The illness with which he was attacked on his journey suggested or fixed his resolution to relieve himself from his cares, and on May 1, in the year 305, being then fifty-nine years of age, he performed the solemn act of abdication at Morgus, in Mæsia, the spot where he had first assumed the purple at the bidding of his soldiers. Strange to say, he did not renounce the object of his ambition alone. On the same day a similar scene was enacted by his colleague Maximian at Milan; but the abdication of Maximian was not, it is said, a spontaneous sacrifice, but imposed upon him by the influence or authority of his elder and greater colleague. Diocletian had established the principle of succession by which the supreme power was to descend. Having seen the completion of all his arrangements, and congratulated himself on the success, thus far, of his great political experiments, he crowned his career of moderation and self-restraint by strictly confining himself during the remainder of his life to the tranquil enjoyment of a private station. Retiring to the residence he had prepared for himself at Salona, he found occupation and amusement in the cultivation of his garden."

_C. Merivale, General History of Rome, chapter 70._

ALSO IN: _E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 13._

_W. T. Arnold, The Roman System of Provincial Administration, chapter 4._

See, also, DIOCLETIAN.

ROME: A. D. 287. Insurrection of the Bagauds in Gaul.

See BAGAUDS; also, DEDITITIUS.

ROME: A. D. 303-305. The persecution of Christians under Diocletian.

"Dreams concerning the overthrow of the Empire had long been cast into the forms of prophecies amongst the Christians. … There were some to repeat the predictions and to count the proofs of overthrow impending upon the Empire. But there were more, far more, to desire its preservation. Many even laboured for it. The number of those holding offices of distinction at the courts and in the armies implies the activity of a still larger number in inferior stations. … Never, on the other hand, had the generality of Christians been the objects of deeper or more bitter suspicions. … By the lower orders, they would be hated as conspiring against the customs of their province or the glories of their race. By men of position and of education, they would be despised as opposing every interest of learning, of property, and of rank. Darker still were the sentiments of the sovereigns. {2719} By them the Christians were scorned as unruly subjects, building temples without authority, appointing priests without license, while they lived and died for principles the most adverse to the laws and to the rulers of the Empire. … Everywhere they were advancing. Everywhere they met with reviving foes. At the head of these stood the Cæsar, afterwards the Emperor Galerius. He who had been a herdsman of Dacia was of the stamp to become a wanton ruler. He showed his temper in his treatment of the Heathen. He showed it still more clearly in his hostility towards the Christians. … He turned to Diocletian. The elder Emperor was in the mood to hear his vindictive son-in-law. Already had Diocletian fulminated his edicts against the Christians. Once it was because his priests declared them to be denounced in an oracle from Apollo, as opposing the worship of that deity. At another time, it was because his soothsayers complained of the presence of his Christian attendants as interfering with the omens on which the Heathen depended. Diocletian was superstitious. But he yielded less to his superstition as a man than to his imperiousness as a sovereign, when he ordered that all employed in the imperial service should take part in the public sacrifices under pain of scourging and dismissal. … At this crisis he was accosted by Galerius. Imperious as he was, Diocletian was still circumspect. … Galerius urged instant suppression. 'The world,' replied his father-in-law, 'will be thrown into confusion, if we attack the Christians.' But Galerius insisted. Not all the caution of the elder Emperor was proof against the passions thus excited by his son-in-law. The wives of Diocletian and Galerius, both said to have been Christians, interceded in vain. Without consulting the other sovereigns, it was determined between Diocletian and Galerius to sound the alarum of persecution throughout their realms. Never had persecution begun more fearfully. Without a note of warning, the Christians of Nicomedia were startled, one morning, by the sack and demolition of their church. … Not until the next day, however, was there any formal declaration of hostilities. An edict then appeared commanding instant and terrible proceedings against the Christians. Their churches were to be razed. Their Scriptures were to be destroyed. They themselves were to be deprived of their estates and offices. … Some days or weeks, crowded with resistance as well as suffering, went by. Suddenly a fire broke out in the palace at Nicomedia. It was of course laid at the charge of the Christians. … Some movements occurring in the eastern provinces were also ascribed to Christian machinations. … The Empresses, suspected of sharing the faith of the sufferers, were compelled to offer public sacrifice. Fiercer assaults ensued. A second edict from the palace ordered the arrest of the Christian priests. A third commanded that the prisoners should be forced to sacrifice according to the Heathen ritual under pain of torture. When the dungeons were filled, and the racks within them were busy with their horrid work, a fourth edict, more searching and more pitiless than any, was published. By this the proper officers were directed to arrest every Christian whom they could discover, and bring him to one of the Heathen temples. … Letters were despatched to demand the co-operation of the Emperor Maximian and the Cæsar Constantius. The latter, it is said, refused; yet there were no limits that could be set to the persecution by any one of the sovereigns. … None suffered more than the Christians in Britain. … The intensity of the persecution was in no degree diminished by the extent over which it spread. … Some were thrown into dungeons to renounce their faith or to die amidst the agonies of which they had no fear. Long trains of those who survived imprisonment were sent across the country or beyond the sea to labour like brutes in the public mines. In many cities the streets must have been literally blocked up with the stakes and scaffolds where death was dealt alike to men and women and little children. It mattered nothing of what rank the victims were. The poorest slave and the first officer of the imperial treasury were massacred with equal savageness. … The memory of man embraces no such strife, if that can be called a strife in which there was but one side armed, but one side slain."

_S. Eliot, History of the Early Christians, book 3, chapter 10 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN: _A. Carr, The Church and the Roman Empire, chapter 2._

_G. Uhlhorn, The Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism, book 3, chapter 1._

ROME: A. D. 305-323. The wars of Constantine and his rivals. His triumph. His reunion of the Empire.

On the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian, Constantius and Galerius, who had previously held the subordinate rank of Cæsars, succeeded to the superior throne, as Augusti. A nephew of Galerius, named Maximin, and one Severus, who was his favorite, were then appointed Cæsars, to the exclusion of Constantine, son of Constantius, and Maxentius, son of Maximian, who might have naturally expected the elevation. Little more than a year afterwards, Constantius died, in Britain, and Constantine was proclaimed Augustus and Emperor, in his place, by the armies of the West. Galerius had not courage to oppose this military election, except so far as to withhold from Constantine the supreme rank of Augustus, which he conferred on his creature, Severus. Constantine acquiesced, for the moment, and contented himself with the name of Cæsar, while events and his own prudence were preparing for him a far greater elevation. In October, 306, there was a successful rising at Rome against Severus, Maxentius was raised to the throne by the voice of the feeble senate and the people, and his father, Maximian, the abdicated monarch, came out of his retirement to resume the purple, in association at first, but afterwards in rivalry with his son. Severus was besieged at Ravenna and, having surrendered, was condemned to death. Galerius undertook to avenge his death by invading Italy, but retreated ignominiously. Thereupon he invested his friend Licinius with the emblems and the rank of the deceased Severus. The Roman world had then six emperors—each claiming the great title of "Augustus": Galerius, Licinius, and Maximin in the East (including Africa), making common cause against Maximian, Maxentius and Constantine in the West. The first, in these combinations, to fall out, were the father and son, Maximian and Maxentius, both claiming authority in Italy. The old emperor appealed to his former army and it declared against him. {2720} He fled, taking shelter, first, with his enemy Galerius, but soon repairing to the court of Constantine, who had married his daughter Fausta. A little later, the dissatisfied and restless old man conspired to dethrone his son-in-law and was put to death. The next year (May, A. D. 311) Galerius died at Nicomedia, and his dominions were divided between Licinius and Maximin. The combinations were now changed, and Constantine and Licinius entered into an alliance against Maxentius and Maximin. Rome and Italy had wearied by this time of Maxentius, who was both vicious and tyrannical, and invited Constantine to deliver them. He responded by a bold invasion of Italy, with a small army of but 40,000 men; defeated the greater army of Maxentius at Turin; occupied the imperial city of Milan; took Verona, after a siege and a desperate battle fought outside its walls, and finished his antagonist in a third encounter (October 28, A. D. 312), at Saxa Rubra, within nine miles of Rome. Maxentius perished in the flight from this decisive field and Constantine possessed his dominions. In the next year, Maximin, rashly venturing to attack Licinius, was defeated near Heraclea, on the Propontis, and died soon afterwards. The six emperors of the year 308 were now (A. D. 313) reduced to two, and the friendship between them was ostentatious. But it endured little longer than a single year. Licinius was accused of conspiring against Constantine, and the latter declared war. The first battle was fought near Cibalis, in Pannonia, the second on the plain of Mardia, in Thrace, and Constantine was the victor in both. Licinius sued for peace and obtained it (December, A. D. 315) by the cession of all his dominion in Europe, except Thrace. For eight years, Constantine was contented with the great empire he then possessed. In 323 he determined to grasp the entire Roman world. Licinius opposed him with a vigor unexpected and the war was prepared for on a mighty scale. It was practically decided by the first great battle, at Hadrianople, on the 3d of July, 323. Licinius, defeated, took refuge in Byzantium, which Constantine besieged. Escaping from Byzantium into Asia, Licinius fought once more at Chrysopolis and then yielded to his fate. He died soon after. The Roman empire was again united and Constantine was its single lord.

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 14._

ALSO IN: _E. L. Cutts, Constantine the Great, chapters 7-22._

ROME: A. D. 306. Constantine's defeat of the Franks.

See FRANKS: A. D. 306.

ROME: A. D. 313. Constantine's Edict of Milan. Declared toleration of Christianity.

After the extension of the sovereignty of Constantine over the Italian provinces as well as Gaul and the West, he went, in January, A. D. 313, to Milan, and there held a conference with Licinius, his eastern colleague in the empire. One of the results of that conference was the famous Edict of Milan, which recognized Christianity and admitted it to a footing of equal toleration with the paganisms of the empire—in terms as follows: "Wherefore, as I, Constantine Augustus, and I, Licinius Augustus, came under favourable auspices to Milan, and took under consideration all affairs that pertained to the public benefit and welfare, these things among the rest appeared to us to be most advantageous and profitable to all. We have resolved among the first things to ordain, those matters by which reverence and worship to the Deity might be exhibited. That is, how we may grant likewise to the Christians, and to all, the free choice to follow that mode of worship which they may wish. That whatsoever divinity and celestial power may exist may be propitious to us, and to all that live under our government. Therefore, we have decreed the following ordinance as our will, with a salutary and most correct intention, that no freedom at all shall be refused to Christians, to follow or to keep their observances or worship. But that to each one power be granted to devote his mind to that worship which he may think adapted to himself. That the Deity may in all things exhibit to us His accustomed favour and kindness. … And this we further decree, with respect to the Christians, that the places in which they were formerly accustomed to assemble, concerning which also we formerly wrote to your fidelity, in a different form, that if any persons have purchased these, either from our treasurer, or from any other one, these shall restore them to the Christians, without money and without demanding any price. … They who as we have said restore them without valuation and price may expect their indemnity from our munificence and liberality."

_Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book 10, chapter 5._

ALSO IN: _P. Schaff, Progress of Religious Freedom, chapter 2._

ROME: A. D. 318-325. The Arian Controversy and the Council of Nicæa.

See ARIANISM; and NICÆA: A. D. 325.

ROME: A. D. 323. The conversion of Constantine. His Christianity. His character.