ABSTRACT
THE great merit of the soldiers’ new Emperor, the Dalmatian Diocletius, who changed his name, which revealed a very humble origin, into Diocletianus, was that he did away with all fictions.1 The Roman people had for several centuries been a phantom only. But the Senate kept something of its ancient prestige. The semblance of a Roman Republic directed by it had been given new life in the third century. But the history of the favourite Emperors of the Senate, Alexander Severus, the Gordians, and Tacitus, had shown up glaringly all the impotence of this decrepit body. Diocletian deliberately ignored i t : even for the making of laws and administrative regulations it was no longer consulted. On whom was he to lean ? On the very day following his victory over Carinus (284) Diocletian realized that he would be no more successful than his predecessors had been for half a century in keeping the reins of government entirely in his own hands ; it was only too evident that in future the Empire could no longer be directed by a single ruler. Wisdom demanded that he should meet the inevitable half-way and provide himself with a colleague, choosing such a one as would not threaten to become a rival and an enemy. Diocletian’s glance fell upon a comrade-in-arms, Maximian, to whom he was bound by a tie of friendship. The latter, albeit un lettered and rude, had at least military gifts, which seem
to have been lacking in the Emperor, and he respected Diocletian for his superior ability; he consented to be the hand that served the brain. The titles Jovius and Herculius adopted officially by the two friends openly proclaimed this conception. The choice was a happy one : Hercules never betrayed Jupiter. Maximian was given the title of Caesar, and very soon after (from 286) of “ Augustus ” , and was truly Diocletian’s right-hand man.
