Western Civilization.p

The Origins of Christianity and the Decline of the Roman Empire 109

him, and to his successors, only a command economy
in which the government regulated nearly every aspect
of economic life could provide the resources needed to
maintain both the army and a newly expanded bureau-
cracy. All pretense of a free market was abandoned.
Diocletian attempted to solve the labor shortage by
forbidding workers to leave their trades and by binding
tenants to the great estates for life. In later years, these
provisions were made hereditary, but they did nothing
to retard economic stagnation. In the long run, restrict-
ing the free movement of labor probably made matters
worse, as did continued tax increases and a new, more
efficient system of forced requisitions that he intro-
duced early in his reign.
The long-term effect of these changes was obscured
by peace, which enabled the economy to recover some-
what in spite of them, but Diocletian’s effort to control
inflation failed quickly and visibly (see table 6.2). He re-
stored the metal content of silver and gold coins, deval-
ued under his predecessors, but could not issue enough
of them to meet demand. Silver-washed copper coins
known as nummiremained the most common money in
circulation and depreciated even faster in relation to the
new coinage. Prices continued to rise. In 301, Diocletian
responded by placing a ceiling on wages and prices.
Like all such measures, the edict proved impossible to
enforce. Riots and black marketeering greeted its intro-
duction in the more commercial east, while the agricul-
tural west seems to have ignored it altogether. The
program was abandoned after a year.
Whatever their shortcomings, the reforms of Dio-
cletian were perhaps the best answer that administrative
genius alone could apply to the problems of the later
empire. Little else could have been done within the con-
straints imposed by Rome’s defensive needs. To preserve
his achievements, Diocletian abdicated in 305 and re-
tired to the magnificent fortified palace he constructed
on the shores of the Adriatic (see illustration 6.4).
Though many of his reforms endured, all plans for
an orderly succession collapsed long before he died
in 313.

The Age of Constantine

Even had Diocletian’s colleagues been fully willing to
accept his settlement, their sons were not. Maximian,
the western augustus, abdicated in favor of his caesar,
Constantius, but when the latter died in 306, his son
Constantine was proclaimed augustus by the troops and
Maximian’s son, Maxentius, rebelled against him. In

312 Constantine defeated Maxentius at the battle of

the Milvian bridge and became undisputed augustus of

the west. In the east, Licinius, who governed the dioce-

ses on the Danube frontier, eventually succeeded Ga-

lerius and made an uneasy alliance with Constantine

that ended, after much maneuvering, with the defeat

and execution of Licinius in 324. Constantine, known

thereafter as “the Great,” had reunited the empire under

his personal rule.

Constantine, like Diocletian and the rest of his im-

perial colleagues, came from the provinces along the

lower Danube and had only an approximate acquain-

tance with traditional Roman culture. In administrative

The emperor Diocletian’s reforms included an important effort to

control the inflation of prices. His edict stated the maximum

permissible price of wages in many jobs, of many commodities,

and of transportation. Although the edict was often circum-

vented, it provides a remarkable portrait of daily life in the Ro-

man Empire.

For one modius For 1 sextarius

(c. 2 gallons): (approx. 16 ounces):

Wheat 100 denarii Wine 30 denarii Honey 40

Rye 60 Ordinary 1 pheasant 250 denarii

Millet 50 wine 8 2 chickens 60

Beans 60 Beer 4 10 sparrows 16

Rice 200 Egyptian 100 oysters 100

Salt 100 beer 2 12 oz. pork 12

Olive oil 40 12 oz. fish 24

For daily labor: For skilled wages:

Farm laborer 25 denarii Scribe, per 100 lines 25

Carpenter 50 Notary, per document 10

Painter 75 Tailor, cutting one cloak 60

Baker 50 Tailor, for breeches 20

Shipwright 60

Camel driver 25 Monthly scale for teachers,

Shepherd 20 per pupil

Sewer cleaner 25 Elementary teacher 50

Arithmetic teacher 75

For lawyer, simple Teacher of Greek 200

case 1,000 Rhetoric teacher 250

Transactions of the American Philological Association,71 (1940), 157.

TABLE 6.2

Diocletian: Edict of Maximum Prices, A.D. 301