ABSTRACT
THE long peace was at last broken by the Emperor Diocletian (284-305). But the breach was not made willingly, and it is indeed a tragedy that the final struggle between Church and Empire should have begun in this reign. Diocletian was an able general, chosen by his comrades to rule the Empire as the one man who could reorganise both State and army. The difficulty of preserving their enormous territories was pressing heavily upon the government. Some of the outlying conquests had been abandoned, and a withdrawal effected within the line of the Danube and Euphrates. This still left a frontier of six thousand miles to guard, and the thirty legions were proving too few for the task. Many barbarians had been brought in to swell their ranks and the soldiers were growing ever more turbulent. Upon the civilians lay the burden of maintaining the growing army, and the consequent taxation was a fruitful source of discontent.
