Third Century Crisis - The Tetrarchy - Extra History - #4

saint mark's square venice march 2020 the square is empty ghostly monuments usually haloed by tourists now stand alone and bear metal catwalks deployed when the rising waters cover the flagstones sit unused in a stack it's not the high water that worries people now only at the corner of the church do four men gather arms interlocked faces nearly meeting stone men this statue was not made by the venetian republic rampaging soldiers looted it from constantinople in 1204 where they decorated a pair of columns forming a gateway to a public square a representation of four men who bound the empire together before tearing it apart the tetrarchy [Music] last week we talked about how diocletian embarked on his program of reform by remaking the roman army relieving them of most civic administrative duties and stationing them closer to the borders and he would soon test the medal of this new army against the sarmesians the persians an uprising in gaul an uprising in britain and the ever-present threat of germanic incursion in fact he would be fighting for much of his reign aside from war diocletian had a to do list of three things secure the empire stabilize the economy and tax collection and solve the succession problem with his military reforms he did have item one secure the frontiers mostly in hand but to really create lasting security he needed to tackle the economy and create an administrative system that supported that new expanded military and look i know that administration and tax reform is not as let's say sexy as assassination and civil war but it's important to remember that both of those things are bad no matter how catchy a song we sang about them in episode 1. diocletian wanted to stop this cycle of instability and like many times in history the exciting problems needed rather dull solutions and while the tetrarchy his solution to the succession crisis is what diocletian is most famous for it was actually his administrative and tax reforms that truly lasted in fact when the byzantine empire fell in 1453 it was still using diocletian system over a thousand years later and getting the economy on an even keel was just as important as military reform because while ordinary people didn't much care who the emperor was the cous of the third century crisis being mostly an elite and military affair the people cared a lot when inflation meant they couldn't afford food that of course led to civil unrest during the crisis armies had marched around forcefully requisitioning goods to supply themselves and paying largely in a nearly worthless debased coin a fact that meant bad currency was spreading around the empire feeding the inflation crisis diocletian tried to reform the coinage minting a new set of coins that he hoped would stabilize currency but unfortunately these coins effectively cost the government more to produce than they were actually worth and to make it work he had to seize medals from rich roman families and then repay them in the same value in coin he did many things to fight inflation from trying to restructure people's debts to creating an empire-wide edict stating the maximum price for a thousand types of goods but none of it really worked because even basic economic forces like supply and demand were not yet understood back then and that meant that pretty much any of diocletian's economic policies were dead on arrival his work on the tax system though was extremely successful see the problem was that he needed revenue to support the army but rome's current tax system was broken and easy to evade in fact really there wasn't much of a formal system at all when it needed support the state just sort of took what it needed in forced wealthy romans would also contribute to institutions or works as a way to up their prestige though that system was also breaking down to set things right diocletian instituted a new class of tax assessors and census takers who would fan out all over the empire every five years and assess the value of land based on acreage the number of tenants living on it and the goods it produced then the assessor would create a tax rate based on that equation which the landowner would pay to a new type of local tax official who said these solutions weren't going to be sexy and if revenues fell short of what they should be that tax official would have to make up the difference themselves punishments for non-payment could also fall on the land owners in the form of collective fines and since the amount paid by each landowner was public knowledge if someone didn't pay their fair share and everyone in the region had to pay a fine they knew exactly who to blame overall diocletian's tax system was a step forward but it also fell heavy on local elites accelerating a decline in their wealth and status which had already dropped during the crisis because you see with the military seizing so much authority power and wealth tended to cluster around army officers that moved around rather than aristocrats who were rooted in place as a result these local elites started giving less to institutions particularly temples right at a time when roman polytheism was starting to lose ground to a wave of more mystical religions including christianity which is ironic because while diocletian was no friend to christianity a fact we'll talk about next episode his reforms were not just giving the upstart religion space to grow but they were actively building structures it would model itself on part of diocletian's administrative reforms were an enormous expansion of the roman civil service possibly even doubling the number of bureaucrats he did away with the idea of the emperor ruling in conjunction with the senate and military and demoted his council of advisors to government functionaries at times this was for safety for instance the praetorian guard responsible for so many imperial murders now became rome city garrison rather than the emperor's guards slash assassins in waiting he also doubled the number of provinces from 50 to 100 facilitating tax collection and ensuring that no local official could create a big enough power base to oppose him multiple provinces would also be drawn into larger groups called a diocese and overseen by a government official known as a vicarius and if you're thinking those terms sound familiar it's because when christianity became the official religion of the empire the church would adopt this organization for itself catholic churches still have diocese and vicars also fun trivia diocletian created a local military rank called the duck which is where we get the word duke which additional fun fact that just came to my mind was the name of my first dog oh miss you buddy the result of all of this was that rome became an autocracy with the emperor at the top making executive decisions that would be implemented by a strict hierarchy of administrators organized into specific departments in the early roman empire there was always a feeling that the emperor was a man of the people the first citizen in fact there are stories of emperors being approached on the street by citizens or speaking to large crowds but no more of that stuff in diocletian's empire the emperor would be a distant god-like figure rarely seen in public and when he did show himself it was a carefully managed performance where he stood like a statue and you did not look directly at the emperor he was the gods representative on earth a fact that conveniently made any military coup against him sacrilege but there was still too much empire to govern even for a god-appointed ruler and succession was still a problem in 285 the first year of his reign diocletian appointed his trusted captain max simeon to be his caesar a title that designated a sort of junior emperor and one which was ultimately subordinate to diocletian who had the more senior imperial title augustus diocletian would rule his home territory in the more powerful and prosperous east while maximian would handle the west now you would think that the chief emperor would rule from rome but the fact was that rome was becoming less and less important to the roman empire the senate was an irrelevant joke the territory was no longer the wealthiest and its location not very strategic so maximian instead ruled from milan but eight years into this power-sharing agreement it was clear that even this division was not enough the empire was still too big and the succession uncertain and maximian had been bogged down the entire time fighting a breakaway state in gaul so diocletian unveiled a new concept the tetrarchy or rule of four he would elevate maximian from caesar to diocletian's rank of augustus they would be fully co-equal and each take on a caesar of their own who would serve as a junior partner and replace them when they died max simeon shows his son-in-law constantius who ruled gaul in britain while maximian handled italy spain and north africa then diocletian would rule the east giving greece and the balkan region to his own son-in-law galerius the concept quickly proved its worth with both father-son teams departing to win victories over breakaway elements and uprisings a few years later they would turn back a persian invasion and even strike back into persia it worked it would endure diocletian had found the perfect solution finally solving the succession problem everything was going to be okay so tune in next week as the tetrarchy falls apart before his eyes legendary patron roll call ahmed ziad turk alicia bramble casey muestia dominic valenciana gunnar clovis kyle murgatroyd and oreos1 thank you so much [Music] you

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Length: 9min 55sec (595 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Mythosaurus]

It's such a delicious paradox.

Autocrats need to streamline taxation and governance to make their imperial armies easier to supply. But that streamlining makes it easier for a rival to just replace them at the head of the system.

And by splitting the Empire between 4 relatively equal rulers, you tempt them to just seize everything and rule alone like you did before.