CHAPTER XI.

THE REFORMS OF DIOCLETIAN

I.

THE SAFEGUARDING OF THE IMPERIAL THRONE. THE SUCCESSION AND CEREMONIAL

 

DIOCLETIAN had entered upon rule over a State that was, in general, again unified within and made safe without by the military prowess of his Illyrian predecessors. As one who had watched with open eyes the threatened collapse and the recovery, he came to the throne when he was of ripe years and we may assume that he had, before he began to rule, thought over the ways and means to become master for good of that critical situation. This need not imply that he must have come to power with a plan of reorganization already fully worked out, but he may have had, in connection with tendencies which had become apparent earlier, a goal before his eyes, which, in the last resort, envisaged the securing of the position of emperor as the firmest support of the unity of the Empire. The experiences of the last decades had shown, more clearly than ever, that the emperor must be, so to say, present everywhere at once and immortal, if all the duties connected with the maintenance of the State were to be performed. In the first place, the imperial power had to be protected from the interference of the armies, carried out by means of usurpations. But, as almost all experience had shown that the victory of a general in the absence of the emperor led to the elevation of the victor to the throne, this must be guarded against. For this reason, Maximian was sent as Caesar to the West to solve particularly pressing problems. With the title of Caesar, the reversion of the succession was given to him, but not yet the co-regency that was conferred on him with the title of Augustus. But even then the leadership of the whole remained with the Senior Augustus, who still set himself apart, as Jovius, from Maximian as Herculius. Pressing new problems and, at the same time, anxiety about the succession, led to the further step of the appointment of two Caesars as helpers and chosen successors: and this body of four emperors, this Tetrarchy, was to remain, according to Diocletian’s plan, the constitutional practice for the future, as Lactantius puts it: ‘ut duo sint in re publica maiores, qui summam rerum teneant, item duo minores, qui sint adiumento.’

Thus two pairs of rulers were to fulfil the vast task of defending the State and of administering it, wherein the Caesars were to have a full share of the imperial honours, but were to be a step lower in rank by comparison with the Augusti and, at the same time, the authority of the ‘senior Augustus’ was to guarantee unified conduct of affairs; for in him alone was vested the power of legislation for the whole Empire, with a supreme right of supervision, for instance over the administration of finance, and certainly also the final decision in the appointment of successors. As Diocletian had no male heirs of his body, it was not difficult for him to fall back upon the basic principle of the choice of the best man. That these ‘best men,’ in the pressing circumstances of his times, must be, before all else, distinguished soldiers, may have been intended to flatter the ambition of the generals, for whom, through this method of choosing, a legal expectation of the very highest position in the Empire seemed to be reserved. But in this the initiative remained with the emperor alone. Army and Senate were to play no part, even though we see that the appointment to the position of Caesar took place before the assembled soldiery and even if we must assume that the customary acclamation, the empty shell of an earlier right, followed on an imperial message to the Senate. The adoption of the Caesars by the Augusti, who appeared as fratres connected up with the rules for the succession of the Antonine period, and thus created an artificial imperial family. It also raised, at the same time and in a special sense, the designated candidates for the succession into the sphere of the superhuman that attached to the position of emperor.

The assignment to them of territorially defined areas of admini­stration, under the superior guidance of the Augusti, was designed to prepare the Caesars for their career as rulers. The right to intervene still rested with the Augusti, as Diocletian had already intervened earlier in the West, and, as occasion arose, the Caesar was employed in the immediate area ruled by his Augustus. The Caesar, chosen with the best knowledge and sense of responsibility and his capacity proved under the observation of his Augustus, was to succeed him automatically. When Diocletian then decided to abdicate along with Maximian, he seems to have made, by his rules for the succession, the abdication of the Augusti in some sense obligatory also on his successors in order to prevent the holder of the highest position in the State from growing too old in office. For this idea, the plan of abdication of Galerius is evidence, while we may recognize a connection with the rest of Diocletian’s dispensation in the fact that this same Galerius, without violating the scheme of Diocletian’s Tetrarchy, could recognize Constantine as Caesar, but, in his refusal to accept Maxentius, might conceal his personal dislike for him behind the constitutional doctrine that he was legally unable to create three Caesars. But it is not likely that Diocletian should have fixed the term of abdication at the twentieth year after a man’s elevation to the position of Caesar. The new arrangement passed over, at the first change of rulers, the natural heirs of Maximian and of Constantius. Diocletian’s personal dislike of hereditary dynastic claims may have helped to bring this about. But Galerius’ readiness to give way in the case of Constantine still leaves the conclusion possible that heirs of the body were not in principle excluded. At the first opportunity an attempt to form a dynasty met with widespread support; here, indeed, was a danger to the system of Diocletian, but its main principle, that of a division of responsibilities, continued to operate even after the later dynastic remodelling of the constitution.

The original division of responsibilities certainly took place mainly with military ends in view, and thus it is understandable that, at first, since each of the rulers held the supreme command in his own area, none of them should have been tied down to a fixed capital. Even if, in the end, Traves and Milan by the side of Aquileia, and also Sirmium and Nicomedia were preferred as imperial headquarters, all the same, the mobility of the court was in principle maintained. If men had already, earlier, as occasion arose, called the residence for the time being of the emperor castra, the imperial camp, as well as palatium, the imperial palace, the former term, as stratopedon, seems to have established itself more and more in the Greek­speaking world and simultaneously the court became the comitatus, the retinue. Rome, it is true, remained the Empire’s capital, with all the attendant privileges and expenditure for its inhabitants, and the imposing ruins of the Baths of Diocletian still proclaim that nothing was spared in the external embellishment of the City, while Roma aeterna still appears, even if more rarely, in the legends on coins, though the palatium in Rome was deserted. The consciousness that, in times not long past, the idea that he who has Rome has the Empire was still powerful, may have helped to produce the result that the City did not in any sense become the preferred residence of the Augustus of the West. At the same time, the influence which the Senate had ever and again brought to bear was thus most readily set wholly aside. Now it really became true that Rome was where the emperor was. We may still, to be sure, read in a panegyric of the time, written in connection with the meeting of the emperors in Milan, that sovereign Rome had gladly granted, by sending the bright luminaries of her Senate to Milan, the semblance of her majestic splendour to that city, so that the seat of the imperial government seemed to be there, whither both emperors had come. But in this connection, we must not forget that it is said, in another panegyric, that Rome herself would appear more reverend if the emperors were present in the City.

Emperor and court were now, for good and all, surrounded by the ceremonial forms which, reaching far back in their origins, at this time received the final shape that was to continue into the future. The authority of the imperial office was to be raised into something inviolate and sacred and thereby to be secured from attack. Without actually calling himself a god, Diocletian emphasized this unapproachable and superhuman quality of his authority, not least, be it said, by the name Jovius, which necessarily surrounded the person of the emperor with an especial aura of sanctity. In this connection it is a matter of no importance whether the adoration which was expected from the subject took the traditional forms of the imperial cult, which saw a god in the ruler of the world, or whether it was directed to the genius of the emperors as the very genius of Juppiter and of Hercules working in them  or whether, finally, in the Jovius and Herculius only the divinely-favoured agents, chosen by the gods to re-establish the Roman Empire, were to be recognized and revered. The assumption by Diocletian of the name Jovius resulted not only in fixing firmly and in a lasting form the Juppiter-like equipment of the imperator; but, in addition, it also, in the long run, allowed the desired sanctification of the imperial power and of its holder so firmly and completely to root itself that even the invasion of a new religion could not dislodge the idea of his divine consecration. Here we may mention that, on occasion, in this period the halo, the nimbus, appears as the outward expression of the inward glory of the divine illumination residing in the emperor’s person. In thus giving its final and obligatory form to court ceremonial, and only in this, can be seen some justification for the verdict of those authors who make Diocletian responsible for the introduction of this ceremonial, the characteristic which marks the fundamental division between the princeps and the autocratic emperor. The fact that both contemporaries and men who lived later saw parallels to this manifestation of developed autocracy in Persia, cannot, it is true, be used, after what has been said earlier to prove that Diocletian took over these arrangements directly from the court of the Sassanian kings, but it suggests the presumption that, however many approximations were already present, the Oriental model influenced his decision to create a fixed order of ceremonial. It would not be the only example in history of the victor taking over something from the vanquished.

The seclusion of the sacred person of the ruler is marked by the greater difficulty of gaining admission to him, apparent in the limitation of the adoratio to a strictly defined circle of persons, in which we may see a precursor of the future higher classes of rank. According to the Panegyrist, the adoratio took the form, at the meeting of the Emperors at Milan, of ‘an act of adoration like that performed in the holy of holies, which filled with wonder those to whom the rank of their dignities gave the right of admission to the rulers.’ What in this particular case brought the per­formance of this customary form of adoration (which was at once a duty and a coveted right) into some confusion, was the presence of two Augusti, for which the regulations for the order of precedence at court provided, it would seem, no ruling. It is worth observing that proskynesis was demanded even from the blood­relations of the emperors. The tradition that Diocletian introduced this ceremony may well contain a measure of truth so far as it was he who prescribed the procedure which was followed in the fourth century, namely, that of kneeling down and kissing a corner of the imperial robe. The emperor seldom showed himself in public; and his rare appearances became festive occasions. The overloaded splendour of the dress and the jewellery used as the expression of absolutist state then received their firmly fixed fashion. The diadem alone was not worn by Diocletian as a regular part of the insignia, if he ever wore it at all. That was reserved for Constantine. It is possible that, besides regulating the court ceremonial, in which the admissionales were employed, Diocletian also drew up new rules for the other court servants and among them for the chamberlains whose duties lay in the sacrum cubiculum, the cubicularii. Yet such hints as we possess for the development of the position of the highest chamberlain, the a cubiculo into that of praepositus sacri cubiculi point to Constantine as the innovator. In any event, there is no reason to ascribe to Diocletian the introduction of eunuchs as chamberlains.

II.

 ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS

 

The central administration remained in essentials unchanged. The Praetorian Prefects, who were still two in number, retained their spheres of duty, except that the new taxation system considerably increased their influence in the administration of the State finances, and except that, through personal attendance on the Augusti and the resultant absence from Rome, they lost the immediate command of the Praetorian Guard, which Diocletian finally degraded to being a garrison of Rome and of which he reduced the numbers very greatly. The frequent changes of residence on the part of the emperors had been the cause of making the personnel of the imperial chancery also, with its archives, easily movable. From the boxes to hold the documents, the scrinia, it seems that, under Diocletian, the designation scrinia, used for the separate departments of the chancery, arose. The heads of the departments were now certainly magistri. They belonged to the circle of those who made up the imperial consilium. There was also the permanent body of legal advisers and those summoned to the council from time to time for other affairs of State. Besides the designation of the body of advisers as consilia sacra, it seems that, as early as Diocletian, consistorium also arose as a name for it, although the earliest evidence of its use has been doubted, because the advisers who were members of the civil service were still called a consiliis sacris. But it is not rare to find examples, even in the usages of official speech, of a variation in such designations, until one of them finally becomes the definitive form. In the career of a certain C. Caelius Saturninus the position of a consiliis sacris is followed by that of magister libellorum, that of magister studiorum and then that of vicarius a consiliis sacris. The last seems to be the name for the position of deputy for the absent, or over-burdened Praetorian Prefect, who was also perhaps not learned in the law. This vicarius might therefore count as the predecessor of the quaestor sacri-palatii of Constantine. It remains doubtful how far he, at the same time, while deputizing for the Prefect, exercised some kind of supervision over the whole of the imperial scrinia, that is to say, a function of the later magister officiorum. The frumentarii, who acted as couriers in the service of the central administration of the Empire and especially as secret police, were abolished by Diocletian on account of deeply-rooted abuses. But, because, at least for the courier service, a substitute had to be created it is possible that he replaced them by the agentes in rebus, who, it is true, cannot be proved to have existed before 319. The central administration of the finances, controlled as before by the Finance Minister, the rationalis, and the Minister of Domains, the magister rei summae privatae, was so far extended that the rationales vicarii, were instituted, in connection with the regulations drawn up for the dioeceses which are to be described below. It is probable that the magister summarum rationum also, who was the immediate subdirector in the ministry of finance, now became the vicarius summae ret rationum. That the parallel arrangements for the res privata, which can be found in the Notitia Dignitatum, also date back to Diocletian, is indeed very probable, but cannot be proved with certainty.

Diocletian’s reform of the provincial administration went far deeper. The reform was intended to secure the position of the emperor from being assailed by officials who lusted after power, by a fundamental separation of civil and military authority and by a substantial reduction in size of the provinces. The reform had this problem to solve: how, in addition to the provision of the means for the defence of the Empire and for the carrying on of the internal administration, at the same time, to hold together, by the creation of a body of civil servants controlled down to the last detail, the heterogeneous elements in an Empire that was of great territorial extent, so as to form a unified State; and how to secure recognition for the imperial will which was the supreme representation of that unity. On the other hand the reduction in size of the provinces, and thus of the areas of jurisdiction, was to the advantage of the subject, in that Diocletian at once insisted on the regular exercise of their legal functions by the governors in person, and only granted them the right to appoint other judges (indices) to represent them on occasions when they were prevented by other official business from attending, and even then not for all kinds of legal cases. At the beginning of Diocletian’s reign there may have been, in round figures, fifty provinces in existence. By comparison with earlier conditions, Septimius Severus had already subdivided Syria and Britain and Aurelian had carried through the transference of the province of Dacia to the left bank of the Danube, thus reducing in size the neighbouring provinces. In all probability, Novempopulana also had been separated from Aquitania before Diocletian’s reign. The innovations of Dio­cletian, if we may anticipate, were not introduced at one blow, but were only carried out gradually. The separation into Imperial and senatorial provinces now ceased to exist, and therewith, for good and all, the Senate’s show of sovereignty in provincial administration; so also the privileged position of Italy, which was now included in the system of provincial administration. In this, too, the emperor could point to precedents. Dio had already pleaded for the administrative assimilation of Italy to the provinces, in so far as it was not subject to the City Prefect within a hundred miles from Rome, and from as early as the second century areas where trials were conducted by imperial iuridici, men of praetorian rank, were instituted while curatores had been appointed for the supervision of the municipalities. From the reign of Caracalla there were, in addition, at first special mandatories ad corrigendum statum Italiae, later mostly called correctores totius Italiae; but, all the same, there were already before Diocletian several correctores Italiae for particular areas, although these areas were not named in their titles, and so it still continued for a time until, for example, a corrector Italiae regionis Transpadanae, or a corrector Italiae Transpadanae, together with a corrector Campaniae appears. The final division into such areas seems to have been completed about a.d. 300. For these, it is true, the designation provincia was at first avoided, but technically there remained no difference. Even now Rome and the area as far as the hundredth milestone remained excepted.

As in the case of the division of Italy, so also the subdivision of the provinces was carried out gradually. The division of Egypt into three and, at the same time, the complete assimilation of it to the other provincial administrations only began after the suppression of the rebellion and Numidia was first divided in the last year of Diocletian. The list given in a manu­script from Verona, the laterculus Veronensiscomes nearest to the actual state of the division of provinces, as it was at the end of his reign. The details given in this manuscript, however, are not, as was long supposed, identical with the list in Diocletian’s time; on the contrary, a comparison of it with the list of provinces represented at the Council of Nicaea and with the account of a Synod of Antioch in a.d. 328, shows that, for the Eastern provinces, the laterculus is evidence only for conditions after the changes introduced by Constantine when he had taken possession of the Eastern part of the Empire, while, for the West, it represents only the provincial divisions after the year 358, unless it is assumed that the arrangements made by Diocletian were in part abrogated and then later reintroduced. But certainly the number of provinces increased, in round figures, to a hundred under the first Tetrarchy.

Of the former senatorial provinces, Africa and Asia retained a proconsul at the head of their governments, and were subject directly to the emperor, not to the Praetorian Prefects. A third proconsul was appointed for Achaea. Further, the governors, after this, bore the titles, with their emphasis on rank, of consularis, corrector and praeses. It is usually assumed, and doubtless on the point of principle rightly, that the first two groups of offices were filled from men from the senatorial class and, indeed, of the rank of ex-consuls, whereas the positions of correctores were filled from men of the rank of ex-praetors, and, on the other hand, the praesides were equites and viri perfectissimi. Whether Diocletian had in mind a rigid division between provinces governed by consularis and by senators is not certain, but he may well have allowed senators, now as earlier, to reach high civil office. Moreover, this period  affords but little certain evidence for the title consularis, as for instance the title of the governor of the still undivided Phrygia and Caria, of which the literal translation would be consularis praeses, though there is also the evidence of another title for the governor of the same province, praeses Phrygiae et Cariae legates propraetore Augustorum consularis. It almost seems as if only the title consularis was not yet firmly established, although it could be borne, in conjunction with another, by men of this rank even before Diocletian, as, for instance, also in the case of the consularis vir corrector Campaniae. On the other hand, the career of L. Aelius Helvius Dionysius gives evidence pointing in the other direction, for he was City Prefect in 301 and, after he had been corrector utriusque Italiae, and had thus administered areas in both parts of Italy, became governor of Coele Syria, and bore as his title there only praeses Syriae Coeles, when we might have expected, in the case of this man from the senatorial class, consularis. Besides this, there already occurs, soon after the abdication of Diocletian, a v(ir) p(erfectissimus) corrector) Apuli(ae) et Calabriae) and probably also the career of a certain eques, named Caecilianus, who was corrector of the same provinces, belongs to the period before the reign of Constantine. In any event, the differences of class cannot any longer have been so very keenly felt, when Constantine, even at the beginning of his reign, could ignore them.

In order better to control the provincial administration, the earlier extraordinary deputies of the Praetorian Prefects now became a permanent institution. The vicarii praefectorum praetor, or simply vicarii, had a definite area assigned to them, which in general corresponded with the extent of one of the twelve dioeceses which were created at this time. These were: Oriens, the lands south of the Taurus with Isauria as far as Egypt and Cyrenaica; Pontus (Eastern Asia Minor); Asiana (Western Asia Minor); Thrace, with Lower Moesia; Moesiae, with Macedonia, Epirus, Achaea and Crete; Pannoniae, with Dalmatia and Noricum; Italia, with Raetia; Africa (west of the Great Syrtes); Hispaniae with Mauretania Tingitana; Viennensis (southern and western France as far as the Loire); Galliae (the rest of France and the lands as far as the Rhine); Britanniae, now subdivided into four provinces. In addition, Italy was divided into two vicariates. The vicarius Italiaewith an official residence in Milan, had the districts north of the Apennines, Italia annonaria. Suburbicarian Italy, that is, the rest of the mainland and the islands, was subject to the vicarius in urbe Roma. The proconsuls were exempted from the supervision, which the vicarii had the right to exercise over the provincial administration; further, the praefectus Aegypti formed an intermediate authority between the stearins of the dioecesis Oriens and the governors of the newly-created Egyptian provinces. The activities of the vicarii meant a weakening of the Praetorian Prefecture, especially in that their jurisdiction competed with that of the Prefects in so far as appeals against their verdicts went direct to the emperor. The same intention of weakening the higher office may be recognized in the institution of a vicarius praefecturae urbis, side by side with the City Prefect. The vicarii were of the equestrian class and vir perfectissimi. It has been suggested that we should see, in the setting-up of the vicarii even over the great majority of the senatorial governors, an important principle at work, namely the tendency to bring those of higher standing into dependence upon officials of lower rank. And in fact, for the future, not only was the higher official responsible for the actions of his subordinates, but the latter also were responsible for the behaviour of their superior. In all this, however, there remains the doubt, whether the developments with regard to the vicariate did not arise from the intention to reserve these newly-created posts for equites who engaged in civil careers, in order not to make the latter too short in comparison with the military. Here also, it is wise to think of the difference as more closely connected with the real standing of an office than with the title of a class or rank, even if it did take some time before the designation of a class, vir Clarissimus, could become that of a rank, which then, in its turn, stood higher than the designation perfectissimus. Vicarii and governors were purely civil officials, concerned with justice and administration; hence, generally speaking, the term indices is used for such civil officials.

In the course of the reform, military authority, with a very few exceptions, was separated from the civil. Generals, as duces with the rank of viri perfectissimi, took command in the provinces that still had senatorial governors. As early as the year 289 we find a distinction made between indices and duces in a Panegyric. In the provinces under an equestrian praeses, who, at the outset, combined both powers, the separation was introduced only gradually as the reform was carried through and it had become so far universal by the end of Diocletian’s reign, that only in those provinces where the hostile character of the inhabitants or of the neighbours made a permanent state of siege necessary and those in which, because of their smallness, no danger of a pronunciamento was to be feared, as in Mauretania Caesariensis and Isauria, did the praeses remain at the same time the military commandant. The duces were dependent upon the cooperation of the civilian officers for their commissariat, a fact which also gave the desired occasion for mutual supervision.

The increase in the number of official positions had as a result the setting-up of a great number of official, and, even in the lower grades, a strict separation between the civil and military services was introduced. It is true that all officials were still called milites and that the cingulum militare formed part of the official costume which the City Prefect, who performed his functions in the civil dress, the toga, alone among the higher officials did not wear. The staff of a higher official could still be described as cohors. Service, cohortalis militia, a designation that was only later restricted to that of the subordinates of the governors, still did not, even in the reign of the Emperor Licinius, create a claim to the privileges of a veteran, that is, of the militia armata. Perhaps this happened on the analogy of the military career under Diocletian, who had not given to the veterans of the cohorts the same privileges as to those serving in legions and the vexillationes. The recruitment of the personnel of the civil offices was from the civil population. But, conformably with military usage, a strict order of advancement by seniority of service ruled also in the officia, and, as the general exercised jurisdiction over his soldiers, so the higher official became the regular judge of his staff. How far, moreover, the conception of militia could finally be extended beyond service actually rendered in the army, and in the officia, is shown by a quotation from St Ambrose: ‘omnes homines, qui sub ditione Romana sunt, vobis militant imperatoribus terrarum;’ and we need not hesitate to apply this dictum to the period of Diocletian. And this obligation to serve the State must be considered to have been civil in character for the majority of subjects.

 

III

THE STRENGTHENING OF IMPERIAL DEFENCE

 

The fundamental principle of the universal obligation to serve in the army was not removed; but in fact recruitment was already before, and especially after the time of Diocletian, conducted by a mixture of conscription and enlistment. The method of finding men for the army, as we see it generally practised in later times, may be regarded as derived from a concentration and extension of existing conditions. The levy, which took place under the direction of protectores, affected the sons of soldiers, who were subject to an hereditary obligation to serve which as early as 313 came to be regarded as a matter of course; further, all those fit for service who, as vacantes or otiosi, belonged to no corporation that had obligations to the State or the municipality, or who, as vagi, men without a domicile, were not attached to a cultivable holding of land. An indirect form of levy existed in the obligation to provide recruits, laid upon the landowners by the State, which must have helped not a little to bind the coloni to the soil they cultivated. Owing to the scarcity of labourers it seems that this obligation was not without its hardships, although the capitularis functio, the duty of providing one recruit only, was mostly performed by several landowners together. As, with the increase in the numbers of the army made by Diocletian, this demand was also intensified, and gave rise to many abuses, the Emperor appears to have acceded more often than his predecessors to requests to commute the provision of recruits to the payment of money. With the money thus obtained, volunteers could then be enlisted from the free peasantry of races skilled in warfare, especially, as heretofore, the Illyrians, also, and to an increasing degree, from tribes outside the Empire, later especially from Germans. The laeti, prisoners of war settled in separate, self-contained groups on the land of the Empire, took a special place among the elements of the population which were liable to military service, and so did also the gentiles, who came of peoples which acknow­ledged the sovereignty of the Empire but which were not subject to its administration.

Diocletian carried further the reform of the army begun by Gallienus, and greatly increased the numbers of troops under arms. Special attention was still paid to the system of frontier defence. It is only necessary here to cite one particularly impressive example of the efforts made in the building-up of the frontier defences, the strata Diocletiana, that solid and fortified military road from Damascus by way of Palmyra to Suraon the Euphrates, together with the extension of the forts and watchtowers on the road from Petra by way of Palmyra to Circesium. In connection with the gradual development of the division of the provinces, the frontier provinces, now made smaller, received, according to the practice developed in the course of the third century, in the ordinary way two legions each, under the duces. For the other bodies of troops also this formation in pairs was generally introduced. Thus the total number of legions, which is reported to have been thirty-three under Caracalla, and which, probably before the reign of Diocletian, had undergone a certain amount of augmentation, was increased to sixty, in round figures, and the total, also, of the auxilia connected with them, the cohorts and the alae, was similarly increased. Lactantius blames Diocletian for having so multiplied the army that each of the four emperors had more troops under arms than the earlier principes. That is a gross exaggeration; for we can hardly suppose that the number of troops under arms had been even doubled. Although the newly-raised legions may perhaps have had at first the nominal strength of six thousand men, they must later have been much smaller, and can hardly have exceeded the strength of the original detachments from which, in part at least, the new legions had originated, as, for example, the legions of the same name which were created from the V Macedonica and XIII Gemina for service in Egypt.

The aim of frontier defence is apparent also in the new distribution of the legions. Thus there were now stationed on the Danube, from Noricum to its mouth, sixteen legions in place of eleven from the beginning of the century, in Egypt six, after this, in place of one; in the frontier provinces of the dioecesis Oriens, from Arabia to Mesopotamia, twelve instead of eight. We may, perhaps, hazard a guess, that the increase set in earliest on the Danubian frontier; for detachments from each pair of the legions there, under praepositi, are found among the troops used to suppress the revolt in Egypt, and also the reinforcements employed to carry the Persian war to a successful conclusion were drawn by Galerius from that area. We must assume, in this connection, without, it is true, knowing about the participation of more than one single regiment of cavalry, designated comites, and of one further vexillatio in the Egyptian campaign that independent cavalry took part in it. For, even before 293, the tactically independent cavalry of the legions was known as vexillatio. And in an inscription from Noricum of the year 311 or 312, before Constantine had established his rule there, a praepositus equitibus Dalmatis comitatensibus appears. Thus it is obvious that the separation of cavalry and infantry, which was to be the distinguishing mark of the late Roman army, was further advanced by Diocletian, and that, in this connection, at least a certain number of cavalry regiments, if not all already, were distinguished by the name of comitatenses. But as the Praetorians were no longer available as a reserve for use in emergencies, Diocletian needed a substitute for them. It has been conjectured that he retained a certain number of the detachments from the legions as permanent formations for special service, evidence for this being found in the presence in garrisons at Aquileia of a detachment of the XI Claudia, from which the later legion of comitatenses, the undecimani, may have sprung. In any event, however, the establishment of a corps d'élite, composed of veteran legionaries called lanciarii, marks a fully-authenticated step in the direction of separating off a mobile reserve. One of these legionaries is called lectus in sacro comitatus lanciarius. In this case, the conclusion is permissible, that at least this troop of infantry should be considered comitatenses. And when the Caesar Julian extols Maximian Herculius, Constantius I and Constantine as the creators of the army stationed in Gallia, which he commanded, we may assume here too independent new formations, which later appear under the name of auxilia palatina. So much is certain, that the comitatenses were not first created, as a mobile fighting army, by Constantine, however much he may afterwards have done towards developing the organization which Diocletian had initiated.

 

IV

THE REFORM OF TAXATION AND THE REGULATION OF THE COINAGE

 

The carrying-on of wars and the increase in the size of the army, as well as the increase in the administrative apparatus, with the heightened expenditure of the court, and finally the cost of the new buildings put a very heavy burden on the finances. For, besides fortresses and other military buildings, Diocletian himself, and, in imitation of him or at his suggestion, his co­regents also, did much building, so that an unfriendly critic could even speak of Diocletian’s ‘building mania.’ The palace near Salonae, the home of the Emperor’s old age, in which the Old Town of Spalato fitted comfortably, and the vast ruins of the Baths of Diocletian in Rome, still today perpetuate the splendid ideas of their builder and at the same time give permanent expression to the effort, in taxes and labour-services, which his government demanded from the subjects for their erection. All this, which provoked Lactantius to the criticism, that the number of beneficiaries had begun to grow greater than the number of tax-payers, demanded, in view of the precarious state of the finances, a reform of the system of taxation. Because of the terrible debasement of the coinage, the receipts from taxation could not cover the needs of the State, even when what had formally been regarded as the norm was no longer strictly observed. As a result, special levies in kind, destined to secure the support of the army, became even commoner, and were raised by special order of the emperor from the provinces forming the area on the line of march. For these special levies, the designation annonae was already established. The reform of Diocletian converted this extraordinary levy into a regular official tax. Its yield, the annona, formed for the future the chief foundation for the State economy. The tax was a payment made in kind, levied, as far as was possible, evenly over the whole Empire, and directly connected with the produce of agriculture. Town-dwellers who had no landed property were thus exempted from it. Italy was so far included in it, that the northern districts had to provide the annona, and were thus known as the regio annonaria. The rest of Italy, the regio suburbicaria had, on the other hand, to undertake the provisioning of Rome with cattle, wine, wood and lime. For the carrying-out of the new tax-regulations, it was necessary to establish, by means of a State-conducted census, the number of the units, for purposes of taxation, which had to pay the annona. Every five years verifications took place, which were later consolidated into a cycle of fifteen years, and this was, in its turn, also called indictio. A unit for the purposes of taxation was an area of cultivable land (iugum) which could be worked by one man (caput) and which would provide him with the means of existence. The unit was thus both the land and the labour on it, in which connection a female worker counted as half a caput. The numbers of iuga and capita had therefore to correspond with one another. According to this method of assessment, the tax could also be designated iugatio or capitatio. The extent of the iugum vtas determined by its productivity and the type of cultivation it underwent. Thus, in Syria, the unit consisted, according to the quality of the land, of 20, 40 or 60 acres of plough-land, or of 5 acres of vineyard, or of 225 or, in mountainous districts, 450 olive-trees. On the other hand, in Africa the unit remained fixed on the arrangement, which had existed up till now, of the centuria of 200 acres, whose basis was the obligation to make payment in kind for the victualling of Rome. Besides this, there was also the capitatio Humana and, Birther, the capitatio animaliu-, in this way the poll-tax and animal-tax of the period previous to Diocletian were included in his new system. A recently-discovered papyrus has furnished us with a copy of the edict, dated 16 March 297, of the Prefect of Egypt, which brought the new tax-regulations into force for that country. With the words: ‘therefore I have publicly set forth the quota of each with respect to the quality of the soil, and the quota of each head of the peasants,’ the iugatio and the capitatio Humana are intro­duced at the same time.

Commissioners for valuation (censitores) carried out the assessment. The State had the greatest possible interest in the maintenance of the units that had once been established. Thus, if fields were abandoned by their cultivators, the government took steps to grant them to others (adlectio), who would then be responsible for the taxes. Once the census had been completed it was only in exceptional cases possible to secure the sending by the emperor of inspectores or peraequatores for the purpose of a revision; for indeed, in such cases, a reduction of the number of tax-units might have to be faced. The amount of the tax demanded from the unit was, it is true, by no means always the same. Every year, by the imperial indictio, the total needs of the State were publicly announced; then the Praetorian Prefect’s office, which even now continued to have the administration of the annona and remained, for the future, the most influential financial authority, apportioned it among the provinces, where it was the duty of the governors to take the necessary steps for the collection. If, for whatever reason, the sum estimated by the indiciia proved not to be sufficient, an additional assessment, the superindictio was imposed.

The collection of the taxes had to be carried out by the governor’s subordinates, under his supervision, and, in particular, by the members of the councils of the municipalities, as an obligatory duty. From among the latter the collectors (susceptares) and the recoverers of arrears (exactores) were appointed. Those responsible for the collection had to make good any deficits resulting from uncollectable taxes, and in the event of their inability to pay, the liability falls upon the whole body of councillors that had appointed them. It is not surprising that the State, in face of the anxiety to escape such burdens, now first fully and completely developed the hereditary fixation of individuals in a class. In just the same way, the tax-regulations must have had as a result a growth of hereditary obligations and the binding to the soil, first and at once, of the coloni, the tenants (in this case, perhaps, in connection with the effect of a system of tenure based on a fixed percentage of produce), and also of the small independent peasantry. The landowner paid the tax for that part of his property the cultivation of which he managed himself; the coloni were responsible directly to the collecting authority for their share. Moreover, at first the annona had to be paid by all agricultural land, even by the imperial domains. It was reserved for later arrangement to break through the original intention to equalize the burdens of taxation, by means of privileged exemption. In the edict already cited, the reason for the new regulations is given as the desire to put an end to the former arbitrariness and inequality, with their disastrous results, and ‘to give a saving norm to which the taxes shall conform. And Aurelius Victor thought, at its first application, that the reform was quite tolerable. Only Lactantius, whose hostility to Diocletian is plain to see, asserts that the heavy burdens of the indictiones had immediately broken down the strength of the coloni and, at the same time, caused a flight from the land. The attempt of Galerius to impose the capitals and indeed the capi­tals humana on the populations of the towns also, and even on Rome, which was in part the cause of the elevation of Maxentius to the throne, seems, after all, to have been confined to his own half of the Empire.

The fact that there was, in the reorganization of the administration of the State finances, a recognition of a fully-developed system of natural economy, has given rise to the opinion that, as a result of the disorganization of the coinage, a general retrogression to a natural economy set in. But an examination of the papyri has proved for Egypt that in contracts concerning future payments and also in those concerning leases of land, letting of houses, loans and service, the system of natural economy, during the inflation period, made only small headway, and even then only in cases where payments in kind were already usual. There are, too, enough examples of conditions in the rest of the Empire to prove that private transactions were in no way predominantly based on a natural economy; on the contrary, money was still the chief medium of exchange. But why then had the emperor given preference to a, tax founded on payments in kind? Payments in kind were a direct guarantee of the supplies for the army and thus served to ensure the security both of the Empire and of the throne. And, in addition, it may well have been the case that those who were in receipt of salaries and wages, that is to say the influential members of the bureaucracy, with memories of unpleasant experiences during the period of inflation, save in the fixing of their incomes in kind an assurance of their future stability. If, having established the system, the State wished to cover its other needs completely, it had to insist more than ever upon the performance of the unpaid services of its subjects, but this is treated of elsewhere. Thus, as regards the membership of the municipal councils, Diocletian’s rescripts show that an obligation to serve already existed, and it may be assumed that by now it was no longer an easy task to find the necessary number of persons to undertake such duties; in consequence reasons for being exempted from undertaking them, which had formerly been in force, such as illness, illiteracy and infamia (loss of honour), were not regarded now as valid; similarly the previous consent of the father was no longer necessary for the nomination of a son who was still subject to parental authority.

Diocletian’s reform of the coinage proves that he did not intend to change the existing economic system, and it was much rather directed to making ends meet and to creating an easier circulation of money, with the security necessary for this. In the first place, his minting of coins was a continuation of the methods of previous reigns, although in the case of gold coins the standard used at the beginning, of 70 aurei to the pound, was soon set at 60. After the naming of the Caesars, a reform of the coinage was planned and, even before 295/6, was so tar carried into effect, that in Alexandria the new imperial coinage was already being minted, although the old provincial coins were not yet wholly given up. Soon after this, the last relics of a local system were cleared away. The difficulty of changing money was to be disposed of by this means. All mints, of which the number was increased, struck, under a strict imperial control, Empire coins of uniform types. The separate mints distinguished their coins with the abbreviations of the names of the towns in which they were situated, together with special marks for the officinae and the issues. The distribution of mints, which was by no means uniform over all the dioeceses (Spain, for instance, had none at all), seems to have been determined by a consideration of the local needs of trade and necessity of assuring the supplies for the army. The reform further raised the standard of the aureus to 60 to the pound, and also introduced a silver coin, of which 96 went to the pound and which thus resembled the denarius of Nero, but which was not given this name and was probably simply called the argenteus. In order to provide small change, Diocletian continued the minting of billon, of an alloy of copper with a very small addition of silver, and, to be precise, in three denominations: one, weighing about 150 grains (9.72 grammes), with the laurel-wreathed head of the emperor and the type Genius Populi Romani, usually known as the follis; a middling-sized one, weighing about 60 grains (3.89 gr.), with the head crowned with rays (radiati)\ and a small one, weighing about 20 grains (1.3 gr-) again with the laurel-wreath. The second denomination was about the size and weight of the xx.1 coins of Aurelian, which had passed as the equivalent of two sestertii of 10 libellae each. Diocletian also, in his turn, built on the foundation of the sestertius, although he identified the tenth part of it, the libella, with the denarius communis, of which no more than 50,000 might be paid for the gold pound, whereas 40 were reckoned to the argenteus, 20 to the follis, which also had the mark xx.1, and 5 to the middling-sized piece. Thus the coin of Aurelian, which corresponded to the last of these, was devalued to one quarter. In this connection, we must assume that there was a valuation of the different coins of the separate denominations in relation to one another and the denarii com­munes, so that we get at least an approximation to the already- mentioned highest price of gold, reached in the maximum standard of Diocletian, namely: 60 aurei,= 1200 argentei,=24.00 folles,= 96oo radiati,—24.000 of the small coins,=48000 denarii.

It is possible that the revaluation of the billon coins, because of their nominal value being estimated too high in relation to their real, was the cause of a further disturbance of the markets, which made itself especially strongly felt where troops passed on the march. The protection of the soldiery against an artificial raising of prices is the reason given, in the preamble, for the publication of the Edict on Prices of the year 301, together with the general intention to prevent a real rise in prices also. For food-stuffs and for the most varied kinds of merchandise, maximum prices are given in denarii.The price of bread-corn and luxury goods, the daily wages of artisans, as well as the authorized fees for the services of an advocate, all found a place here, and the whole offers to the economic historian an opportunity’ of deep insight into the commodities and the possibilities of employment in those days, and also, because of the fixing of the maximum price for gold, the possibility of obtaining an idea of relative values. We may say with confidence that this edict is by far the most consistent attempt to regulate prices and wages of which we know and that it was therefore designed for the whole Empire. As all the surviving fragments of the inscription have been found in the East, it may be inferred that Diocletian was concerned that its provisions should continue to be known, whereas, in the West, the customary’ form of announcement was considered sufficient. But in spite of threats and the imposition of the most rigorous sentences, the authority of the State found its match in the opposition of traders and merchants; and the Edict had to be revoked

 

V.

 CONSERVATIVE TENDENCIES IN DIOCLETIAN’S GOVERNMENT

 

In spite of the many connections with earlier tendencies, we have, in general, had to deal with innovations in the administration of the Empire, in the reform of taxation and in the regulation of the coinage. But on the other hand, in one thing Diocletian followed wholly in the steps of his Illyrian and Pannonian predecessors and compatriots, namely, in his attempt to maintain and invigorate the idea of Rome. It would be wrong to believe that in this he was inspired by memories of the historical glories of Ancient Rome or that he was moved by a romantic passion for the past. He lacked almost all the qualities of a romantic. But he had, in the long years of his service and in the course of his many journeys to and fro across the Empire, become imbued with the idea that the emperors, their army and their civil service, and so, also, the subjects were, or at least should be, Roman. True, it was a Romanness of his own day, with an Illyrian-Pannonian stamp, that had revealed itself to him, but one which none the less, conscious of the continuing influence of a great past and united by a momentous task to be performed in the present, displayed a vigorous self-confidence that could face the future without dismay. The various elements in the population of the Empire, often so markedly different from one another, were to be welded together into a unity by this idea of Rome, of which the emperors were reckoned the most impressive exponents, and which should find its expression in law and religion. As a result of such principles, the government of Diocletian, in spite of all its innovations, took on a markedly conservative aspect.

Besides the attempt to create for Roman law a larger sphere of influence, we encounter, in the many rescripts of Diocletian, again and again the endeavour to check the further infiltration of non-Roman, and especially of Greek, legal concepts into the law of the Empire. But even he was not able wholly to prevent this process. Moreover, the number of cases for which the imperial decision was invoked, shows, if not a lack of legal knowledge in the judges of the courts of lower instance, at all events at least a strong mistrust of their judgments in the parties seeking justice. On the other hand the members of the imperial consistorium ,who must be regarded as the authors of the imperial rescripts ‘the character of which is often reminiscent of classical jurisprudence,’ are praised by a distinguished jurist for their knowledge, which was as clear as it was comprehensive. Possibly we may per­haps see in this holding fast to the old a proof of a lack of originality, if it were not for the existence of certain innovations in private law, which the Emperor allowed as being in the spirit of the old, truly Roman law. His insistence, also, upon Latin as the official language, which was in itself promoted by the increase in numbers of the civil service, and also upon the spreading of a knowledge of Latin in general, points in the same direction, although, it is true, this belated attempt at romanization did not have any great success outside the circles interested in the civil service as a career or outside the offices themselves, and even here such success was not lasting.

Diocletian’s religious policy was also conservative. Care for religion was one of the duties of the emperor. But, over and above this, he was concerned to win the protection of the gods by a revival of Roman piety and morals. If, in dedications, we encounter the old formulas, and if the Jovius laid great emphasis on the worship of Juppiter Optimus Maximus, we must not forget, in this connection, that we may indeed observe the form, but cannot be sure of the content. In all probability, Diocletian recognized in Juppiter, as Aurelian in Sol Invictus, only a manifestation of the one highest, supreme godhead, so that, here also, it is apparent that old ideas have changed. But, in spite of changed conceptions and of the greatest possible freedom in permitted modes of adoration, the intention remained fixed, to make plain in the State religion the unity of men of the same way of thinking and to release the forces, which tended to work in parallel directions, in the interests of the Roman world and its imperial master. Ever since Decius, in view of the aggressive power of the Sassanian Persia, which was strengthened by its State religion, had tried to carry out a consolidation of forces on the same lines, the idea remained operative. It is true that Diocletian practised toleration for a long time, perhaps in conformity with the same train of thought to which he gave expression in his Edict on Prices, where he justified his forbearance on the ground that he cherished the hope that men would better themselves without compulsion. But, in the long run, he could not avoid the cogent necessity of settling, once for all, this problem also among those which the emperor had to face. The execution of this very important section of his religious policy against the Christians is treated elsewhere. Hence more or less clearly, we see the ultimate aim of the autocratic emperors: the will make a single ruler, a single law and a single religion the firm bonds of imperial unity.

In conclusion, we may say that, however much may have been earlier achieved in most directions, Diocletian was the first to gather together into a completed whole the various experiments and expedients of his predecessors, and that he thus created the firm foundation for a new imperial system on which Constantine, in particular, was destined to build. But, none the less, in spite of changes and developments in details, his successors could not deviate far from the main lines which he laid down. Thus it comes about that the institutions of the late-Roman, or if we prefer it, the early-Byzantine, State show a certain rigidity, which was not so much the result of ingenious planning as the expression of an unavoidable development. When the very existence of the Empire was at stake, autocratic absolutism became a neces­sity, while the external pressure, which hardly ever relaxed, and the internal demands, made by the maintenance of the administrative machinery, led to a constant strain upon the resources of the Empire and even to their exhaustion. In this sense, Diocletian’s financial policy, and the reform of taxation which maintained that policy, were and remained the centre of his reorganization of the Empire, round which was built up all the inexorable fiscal system with all its consequences that in later times was the hall-mark of this State. But, in spite of all, Diocletian did not succeed in training the subject, who became more and more a mere carrier of State burdens, to take a personal interest in the political life around him. And so the State created by Diocletian resembled, not the new house that he intended to build, but rather an emergency shelter, which could indeed offer protection from the storm, but in which the lack of light and warmth became more and more obvious. But, in spite of all, we can understand why it was that, after all the miseries of a period that was often anarchic, a writer of the fourth century could still call him The man whom the State needed,’ ‘vir rei publicae necessarius.’