ABSTRACT
Diocletian’s letter about the Manichaeans falls in the midst of a series of actions that appear to have been designed to stabilize the moral fabric of the Roman state. By 300, the Persians had been thoroughly defeated for the first time since Severus’ capture of Ctesiphon, Britain was recovered, and the Rhenish and Danubian frontiers were secured. On other fronts, the Hermogenian Code was complete, the new style of government could be seen to be taking hold with its new coins, palaces, and imperial attire, and the history of the third century was being rewritten to accommodate the ideology of Diocletian’s regime.
