Diocletian - Rome's First Retired Emperor

today's video is brought to you by athletic greens more on them in just a bit the first century 80 was not a good time for the Roman Empire the eagle standard had lost a lot of its luster in Rome was no longer this nigh invisible Juggernaut that could make the rest of Europe tremble into the might of its Legions the death of Emperor Severus Alexander in 235 A.D marked the end of the Severin Dynasty and plunged the empire into complete Anarchy the so-called crisis of the 3rd Century with no air numerous different generals and politicians tried to claim the throne for themselves but none of them had the strength to stand Undisputed Head and Shoulders Above the Rest the political instability was accompanied by constant incursions from Barbarian tribes Civil Wars peasant rebellions the debasement of the currency a collapsing economy and even a plague tacked on for good measure the Roman Empire saw over 20 Emperors in a 50-year period and that doesn't take into account the dozens of Pretenders to the throne who never got to enjoy their time in the spotlight most of them only stuck around for a cup of coffee and accomplished very little it wasn't until an emperor named aurelian came along in 270 A.D that he managed to restore some stemblance of stability but he was killed after only a few years leaving his work unfinished in Rome on the brink of falling back into chaos the very existence of the empire was under threat if another capable Emperor didn't finish what aurelian had started then Along Came Diocletian he had some far-out ideas about how to rule the Roman Empire and they were just crazy enough to work so did they well let's find out as we examine the life and career of Diocletian foreign was born on December 22nd Circa 245 A.D in the Roman province of Dalmatia most likely in the ancient city of Solona located in modern-day Croatia he came from Humble Origins and was known as darkly's birth although he later adopted the more grandiose appellation of garas Aurelius Valeria's dark lucianus because he was of low status nobody really bothered keeping records about him so the first half of diocletian's life has been lost in the midst of History his father was either a scribe or a former slave who once belonged to a senator named annelinas neither the fathers nor the mother's names have been recorded all we really know is that at some point darkisha married a woman named prisca and together they had a daughter called Valeria as we've probably mentioned in several other biographics videos your average Roman had two basic ways to climb up the social ladder either into politics or the military politics had a pretty rigid career path called the curses in aurum which included a series of public officers necessary in order to become a senator this route Was Out Of Reach for most Romans since it required a lot of money or connections or ideally both the military approach always more straightforward enlist stab a lot of people and get promoted Diocletian chose the latter we don't know where he went or what he did but we presume that he performed well as a soldier around 282 A.D he was promoted to domesticus regans aka the leader of the Imperial Cavalry that protected the emperor so obviously he must have been a pretty skilled Warrior and military commander are you looking to upgrade your daily nutrition routine and supercharger well look no further than ag-1 by athletic greens ag-1 is a part of my Wellness routine and I never skip it partly by something you can get for free mentioned later in today's ad read well basically it's very simple ag-1 is packed with 75 vitamins minerals and Whole Food Source ingredients that are essential for your body's well-being plus it tastes great it's vanillary it's pineappley they told me this recently before I was just like I don't know it just tastes good I just drink it it's kind of sweet and tasty and now I'm like you can really smell the pineapple which is kind of nice it doesn't look 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important he reigned for less than a year what you need to know is that when car has adopted the Imperial title of Augustus he bestowed the title of Caesar to his two sons numerian and karenus making them Junior Emperors and heirs to the throne in early 283 A.D car has decided to renew the Rivalry with one of Rome's classic foes Persia now in the form of the sasanian Empire he made his way into East Mesopotamia and Ford King Barham II and was Victorious car has even captured the sasanian capital of Stefan but he just didn't know when to walk away from the table he could have returned to Rome a triumphant hero but he decided to press on since it was a long-standing ambition of many Roman emperors to conquer all of Persia carus didn't achieve his goal you'll be shocked to find out instead he died sometime during the summer of 283. we don't know where we don't some ancient sources claim he was struck by lightning but a sudden illness seems more plausible if you are a fan of political Intrigue though we could suggest a more Sinister demise for car as perhaps planned by his perfidious praetorian prefect APA who was the kind of typical power-hungry advisor who wouldn't shy away from an assassination or two with dear old dad dead as a Dodo the mantle of Augustus was passed on to his sons Carlisle was in Gaul at the time trying to suppress him revolts but numerian had been alongside his father fighting the sasanians he assumed control of the army and tried to settle things in the area before marching back to Rome the going was slow however and around Amisa and Syria numerian also fell ill they be told the soldiers that the new emperor suffered from some sort of inflammation of the eyes sunlight caused him harm which was why he rode around in an enclosed litter carried by troops by the time they reached nicomedia though in November 284 A.D there was a powerful stench coming from inside the litter the soldiers finally dared to open it and they discovered that they had been lugging around a corpse numerian had been dead for a while and it's unlikely that he died from eye inflammation an emergency Council was held after numerian's death with all of his top General's tribunes and advisors in attendance the question are was who they would put up for succession the choice was mainly between two guys a pub surprise surprise and the commander of the Imperial Guard Diocletian as a lifelong military man the latter had the support of the army but he made everyone's Choice even easier when he accused Aber of assassinating Mariam and then ran him through with his sword in front of the entire Army after a Diocletian himself had to swear an oath that he had nothing to do with numerian's death and then he was proclaimed the new Roman Emperor but who knows maybe APA wasn't the one who was guilty after all maybe both Father and Son really died from different illnesses or maybe it was all a cunning plot masterminded by Diocletian himself to seize the throne but guilty or innocent if he wanted to assume total power Diocletian still had the other Caesar karenus to deal with if Diocletian had one trait that helped him succeed where dozens of previous Emperors failed it was his awareness us and acceptance of his limitations unlike the stereotypical Roman Emperor who went mad with power Diocletian knew that he couldn't do everything himself and he never even tried his entire Reign was based on disseminating power to other people so that they could carry their share of the load karenus however was not one of those people instead Diocletian selected a man called Lucius saisonius bassas and officer and Senate who had accompanied Charis and numerian on their military expedition to Persia the Two Men were made consoles and this had a double effect first and foremost by selecting his own sidekick Diocletian firmly rejected karanis's Authority and any idea that they would rule together especially with himself as the junior colleague furthermore Diocletian knew the golden rule of long and stable Reign out of Rome's three major groups that's the Senate the Army and the people you needed the support of at least two of them if you didn't want to get poisoned during dinner or mold in the streets Diocletian already had the Army on his side which was why he didn't appoint a general as his co-consul and instead opted for a lifelong politician by allying himself with basses he was showing everyone that he was looking for a cordial relationship between the military and the Senate with battle lines drawn the two would-be Emperors gathered their men and met at the Battle of margas river in July 285 A.D karanus always the odds on favorite thanks to a bigger Army but the referee awarded the victory to Diocletian via assassination with murky on the details but carolus was killed by one of his own men at the outset of the battle so the fight was cooled off subsequently karenus was painted with a very unfavorable brush it was said that he slept with his officer's wives and that he had anyone who complained executed how much of that was true and how much was propaganda done to please Diocletian we cannot say but it could explain why his own men hated the guy anyway with Karen as dead the path was now clear for Diocletian to become the sole ruler of the Roman Empire or was it foreign was someone who understood that no man is an island at that point in time with Rome and the weakened and unstable state that it was it was simply too big for one guy to rule on his own the emperor had lots of fires to put out all over the Empire and no matter how capable he was he still couldn't be in multiple places at the same time so Diocletian did something that most other Emperors Kings pharaohs and other monarchs would rather die than do he willingly relinquished some of his power for the first time in history he divided the Roman empire into two halves with one Emperor ruling the west and another ruling the East but who to select as his co-emperer his fellow console bassers would have seemed like an obvious choice but he was snubbed for the position probably due to his Advanced age Diocletian opted to make him prefect of Rome which was still a nice gig but it was a few steps below Emperor instead Diocletian selected one of his most trusted generals maximian he too came from Humble origin so maybe that endeared him to the emperor but it's far more likely that maximian supported Diocletian during his conflicts with aper and karanus and had proved his loyalty to him even so better safe than sorry thought Diocletian so he put maximian on a trial run first he gave him the title of Caesar which was like a junior Emperor and only a year later in 286 A.D did maximian become Augustus he was equal to Diocletian well almost as the batter still retained the authority to veto any decisions made by the former as far as Their Kingdoms were concerned Diocletian had never been a fan of Rome considering it her City full of spoiled brats drunks and layabouts who are used to enjoying the fruits of the Empire simply because they lived in Rome therefore he elected to Reign Over the eastern half of the Empire and selected nicomedia as its new capital in itself this was a momentous event in the history of the Roman Empire up till that point the city of Rome had always been the Empire's Center of power for the first century and a half of the Empire's existence and certainly during the Republic yet every important political and administrative decision was made in Rome then during the 2nd Century A.D Hadrian had been the first emperor to spend the majority of his Reign outside the city but he still visited it from time to time and was regularly kept apprised of the goings-on inside the city but Diocletian had forsaken it completely turning nikomedia into the Empire's new center of power and his trusty sidekick maximian followed suit even though his side of the Empire actually included Rome he decided that he didn't like the city either and moved his Capital to medialarnum better known today as Milan now that the administrative issues all were dealt with the two Emperors moved to resolve the various armed conflicts that plagued their Empires truth be told maximian had his work cut out for him since his side of the empire was far more susceptible to Germanic incursions probably another reason why diet Alicia wanted a skill generally not a politician as his co-auugustus maximian was successful at putting down revolts and incursions from Frank's Saxons and Gauls but was bested by one of his own officers a guy named caracious who became powerful enough to revolt against the Roman Empire and claim Britain a northern Gaul for himself proclaiming to be the Augustus of that newly formed Kingdom meanwhile Diocletian was busy in the East with the psalmatians and the Persians but neither proved to be too difficult to deal with ultimately Darkly shouldn't realize that maximian could use his help so in 288 A.D he packed up his army and traveled to the West Side to lend a hand caracious had a strong foothold on his territory by this point as well as the North Sea so reluctantly the Emperors had to accept a humiliating peace between the two sides instead they decided to focus their wrath on the Germanic tribes that kept invading from the north particularly the Alemany the two armies attacked the German Confederation from different sides enacting scorched Earth policies along the way to deter them from returning with one major threat sorted Diocletian returned to the East and maximian was free to concentrate on carousius once again but Diocletian wasn't exactly a spring chicken anymore and Leading Armies was a young man's game the issue of succession came up and that's when he had a brain wave this whole two Emperor's idea seemed to be working so if two was good then four it would surely be better right in 293 A.D Diocletian instituted the tetricky or the rule of four each Augustus would select a junior Emperor or Caesar who would eventually become August I themselves when the originals retired and then appoint their own Caesars basically the concept followed the Sith guidelines for each half of the Empire always two there are a master and an apprentice and when we say that each Augustus chose their Caesar we actually mean that Diocletian chose them both unsurprisingly maximian all wanted his son maxentius to inherit his kingdom but Diocletian mixed the idea possibly feeling that maxentius or wasn't up to Snuff he had read a history book or two and knew what happened when nepo babies became Emperors Marcus Aurelius basically did the same thing as him much earlier but his plan backfired by electing his own son Commodus as his co-empora and he was a pants on head lunatic you don't believe us just check out our video on Commodus anyway Diocletian selected constantius clorus has maximum Caesar the father of Constantine the Great over on the east side he named galerius as his own Caesar and also gave him his daughter's hand in marriage the Caesars were both experienced military commanders they were expected to handle the bulk of the fighting from then on constantius probably had it the hardest since he now had the task of dealing with karasias fortunately for him crouses was betrayed and assassinated by his Treasurer electus and about 296 A.D constantius had managed to regain all of the territories once lost to the usurper Diocletian was probably hoping that this tetricky Malarkey would let him King up his feet a little bit and take it easy but that was not to be in 297 A.D he had his own usurper to deal with in Egypt a guy named achillius that was a pretty straightforward Affair though Diocletian laid Siege to Alexandria and eventually captured and executed the man but it took him eight months to do it more problematic for him was the sasanian Empire which was battered again they had a new king named narcis and unlike his predecessors he had no desire to stay subservient into Rome he declared war on the Roman Empire in 296 A.D and as was the tradition with the conflicts between the Romans and the Persians he invaded Armenia the kingdom that had the misfortune of constantly acting as a buffer between the two larger more powerful Empires afterward he pressed on to Syria which was a Roman province so a pitched battle between the two sides became inevitable first up was hilarious he was the young Caesar after all it was his job to deal with Invaders In The East the two armies fought somewhere near kahei but narciss delivered a stunning and decisive defeat to the Romans prompting galarius to fall back and regroup with Diocletian who was returning from Egypt According to some sources Diocletian wasn't thrilled with his Junior Emperor's performance and upon meeting Galleria he humiliated him in public by refusing to a lamb inside his Carriage instead making him walk in front of it who knows maybe the humiliation little far under hilarious or maybe it was all the extra soldiers but he now launched a successful counter-attack on narcissus pushing the sasanians out of the Roman Empire and delivering them a crushing defeat at satala into 198 A.D before advancing into Persian territory and capturing the sasanian capital of stessifon we don't know if Diocletian also tagged along or not but ultimately a humbled narcissus was forced to admit defeat and ended the war with the Peace of nisibis in 299 a treaty that unsurprisingly favored the Romans with the new century Dawning on the Roman Empire Diocletian had been successful in ridding his kingdom of external threats so he turned his gaze inwards to see who threatened the Empire from within the answer was those pesky Christians by that point Christianity had been around in the Roman Empire for centuries some Emperors were more tolerant than others but none of them fully embraced this new religion yet Diocletian had ever been a fan of Christianity he thought that any deviation from the traditional Roman gods caused instability and he was all about restoring stability to the shaken Empire so maybe it was time for some good old-fashioned persecutions we can't really say for sure what prompted him maybe he always wanted to do it but he was too busy with other stuff in the first two decades of his Reign or maybe his ego got too big and he was angry at the Christians because they refused to acknowledge him as a living God maybe it was glarius who actually had it in for the Christians since he not only encouraged their oppression but continued it well after Diocletian was out of the picture whatever the reason at the outset of the 4th century be directly and enacted some of the harshest persecutions that Roman Christians ever had to endure churches were raised to the ground holy scriptures were burned Christians were arrested had their property confiscated and were tortured and even executed this became known as the great persecution it lasted from 303 to 311 A.D and I think we all know how effective it was at eradicating Christianity from the Empire just a few years later Constantine the Great became the first Christian Roman Emperor maybe it was Karma but in 304 A.D Diocletian suffered a big Health scare we're not sure what it was but it incapacitated him for a while as fears grew that he might even die he survived but the close school made Diocletian realize that just like Danny Glover he was getting too old for this bit just the previous year it celebrated 20 years on the throne so maybe it was time for him to hang up his sandals as we've already seen Diocletian wasn't a guy who had problems letting go of power so he decided to do something that no other Roman Emperor had done before him essentially said screw you guys I'm retiring although it probably sounded more magisterial in Latin and so it was on May the first 305 A.D Diocletian abdicated allowing hilarious to become the new Augustus he persuaded maximian to do the same thing for constantius so technically both of them became the first Roman Emperor to retire since they did it on the same day however it became pretty clear that this hadn't been entirely voluntary on maximian's part since he tried to regain power a few years later lost and then was forced to commit suicide Fierce bar Diocletian was happy with his retired life he retreated to his Palace and his homeland of Dalmatia where he spent most of his time in his Gardens tending to vegetables he was even asked to come back in 308 but he turned down the opportunity saying that anyone who could see how big and lovely his cabbages were would understand Diocletian died peacefully of old age Circa 311 A.D he lived long enough to see his tetricky fail and collapse into chaos plunging Rome into Total War once more although the idea might have been good on paper it constantly relied on four men all being satisfied with only a fraction of the power Diocletian had selected his Confederates carefully and all of them were happy with the system but as soon as the original four were out of the picture it was back to betrayals rebellions murder plots and conspiracies just like the good old Rome that we know and love

Channel: Biographics

Views: 116,618

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler, diocletian, diocletian persecution of christianity, christian persecution roman empire, christian persecution, christian persecution in rome, the great persecution diocletian, rome

Id: okKcnNkNlug

Length: 20min 22sec (1222 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 03 2023