The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, 395-700 AD

THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITY

PART II

The fourth century

Although the overall period covered in this book begins only in 395, it will be
useful to provide a short introduction to the fourth century.^26 Traditionally,
and certainly in English-speaking scholarship since Jones’s Later Roman Empire,
the ‘later Roman empire’ has been thought of as beginning with the reign of
Diocletian (284–305). A strong division was made between the mid-third cen-
tury, seen as a time of civil strife, usurpation and financial crisis manifested in
debasement of the coinage and spiralling prices, or even the virtual collapse of
the monetary economy, and the era which followed, when policies associated
with Diocletian led to greater bureaucratization, attempts to control prices
by law, an attempted power-sharing between two Augusti and two Caesars,
collectively known as the ‘tetrarchs’, and a new division of the provinces and
separation of civil and military rule, together with a much increased pomp
and ceremony surrounding the imperial court (‘an Oriental despotism’).^27 The
extent of the so-called ‘third-century crisis’ remains debated, and some recent
works also resist this sharp dividing line and lay emphasis on the connections
between the later empire and what went before.^28 ‘Late antiquity’ as defined
by Peter Brown in The World of Late Antiquity of 1971 (subtitled From Marcus
Aurelius to Muhammad) is generously envisaged as inclusive at both ends of its
chronological range.
Scholars are still divided on whether the reign of Constantine (306–37, sole
reign 324–37) represented a ‘revolution’, or substantially continued trends
already evident during the immediately preceding period.^29 Constantine’s
famous ‘conversion’ before his defeat of Maxentius at the Battle of the Mil-
vian Bridge in AD 312 and his religious stance and policies are still at the centre
of the debate, which shows no sign of abating, but the administrative, finan-
cial and military aspects of his reign are also important. Constantine himself
was a product of the tetrarchic period. He was the son of Constantius Chlo-
rus, who had risen through the army to be promoted by Diocletian to Caesar
and subsequently became Augustus, and had successfully circumvented the
hostility of his rivals to have himself declared Augustus by his father’s troops
when the latter died at York in 306; the years 306–312 were spent eliminating
rival contenders in the west, and his final defeat of Licinius, emperor of the
east, in AD 324, made him sole ruler of the empire. This spelled the end of
the tetrarchic system introduced by Diocletian; instead, Constantine adopted
a dynastic policy for the succession. He promoted his own sons to the rank
of Caesar and at the end of his life he initiated a new settlement in the hope
of guaranteeing the succession. These hopes were not realized, but after 324,
Constantine had been able, as no other emperor had been able to do for many
years, to preside over a more secure and settled empire.
Constantine’s victory in 324, followed by the death of Licinius, was marked
by the immediate issue of important legislation reinforcing the new security