Lecture 13: Imperial Politics and Religion
by Roman troops; the temptation to military leaders with
ambition was constant.• Diocletian was an exceptionally intelligent and strong leader who
literally saved the Roman Empire by centralizing authority and
instituting rigid control, especially of prices, throughout the empire.
o He established a hierarchical administrative structure with a
complex bureaucracy, including a division of responsibility
among an Augustus and a Caesar in both the east and west—so
that the empire was administered by a tetrarchy—together with
a plan for succession.o He increased the size of military forces, making increased
use of mercenaries for the defense of the empire—a practice
that broke with the tradition of a citizen army but secured the
borders and the Roman peace once more, at least temporarily.o He established rigid price controls and increased taxes
throughout the empire. “Police control” of the populace—
formerly a fear of those who were “enemies of the Roman
order,” such as philosophers and Christians—became a factor
in the lives of others.o With all this came the further exaltation of the supreme
leader; the cult of the emperor and the imperial family was the
essential religious glue of society.• Through his reforms, Diocletian laid the groundwork for the late
Roman Empire that, in all but one important way, would continue
as the Byzantine Empire until its final collapse in 1453.The Persecution under Diocletian
• The last great persecution of Christianity was also the most vicious,
and it was entirely consistent with Diocletian’s policy, for he sought
by persecution to make traditional Greco-Roman religion secure
and uniform throughout the empire. Christianity had become too
large a counterforce to the state religion to simply ignore or endure.