Diocletian the Roman Emperor part 9 Roman Empire Split

Diocletian the Roman Emperors Part 9.

The book, “Ten Caesar’s Roman Emperor’s from Augustus to Constatine” mentions the 10 Roman Emperor’s that were from the Caesar family. The book starts with Augustus Caesar and ends with the emperor who led to the collapse - Constatine the Christian. I wanted to read about Rome because I loved visiting Italy and learning about Italian history, especially the Roman Republic/Empire. The Roman Republic/Empire was one of my favorite topics to learn about in school. The Roman Empire has a slight importance to Catholicism which is very enlightening because that’s the religion I was brought up to practice.

The Roman Emperor Diocletian was a career soldier from the Balkans, was a talented leader who came into power after assassinating his former commander’s son, was alive and ruled during a period of battles on the frontier of the Roman Empire and created the first four-way division of the Roman Empire. Diocletian grew up poor in the Balkans and rose through the ranks of the military eventually commanding a praetorian like group called the imperial guard. He was a talented leader who become emperor after Assassinating his commander’s son after his commander died of natural causes after one year of ruling. He grew up, rose through the ranks and became emperor during a time of Roman overextension and battles on the frontier, offensive and defensive. He solved this problem by separating the Empire into four parts ruled by four rulers.

The Emperor Diocletian was a career soldier who grew up extremely poor in the Balkans. Diocletian was one of the longest-reigning Roman Emperor and one of the most important/impactful. Diocletian was responsible for changing and redoing the Roman Empire into different parts, allowing the Roman Empire to be better run and less overextended. It was divided into East, north and south and West North and South which ended up becoming permanent divisions and important things. Each part of the empire had a main emperor, and a second emperor or sub emperor had helped them better manage the overextended empire that was getting attacked by Muslims, Mongols/horsemen and Barbarians from the North. Diocletian was a particularly talented emperor and came after a series of very short reigns on the empire when he slowly rose from the ranks out of poverty.

He was extremely talented at leadership and eventually became a general on the Danube. He was a commander under the emperor Marcus Aurelius Carus in 283. He eventually became the general of the imperial bodyguard, when he was just about to turn 40, an elite force a generation before/ and different from/ the praetorian guard. Carus died a year later only being in power for one year and captured the Sasanian capital in Iraq. The division between east and west was not formal at this point, yet. He became emperor after defeating his former boss’s son by using a traitor who killed his former boss’s son in an assassination.

In Spring 285 Carinus, the successor after Carus, his son fought a big battle that he won, then quickly lost! Diocletian had a traitor kill Carinus and overthrow the empire into his rule. The Roman Senate in this time was not directly influencing politics or military in their power except for the army’s choice of emperor, which was the only exception. Diocletian went to Rome. However, senators typically plotted and promoted behind the scenes which could give them some influence in the events. Right before Diocletian became emperor and during his reign there were increasing amounts of battles fought defensively and offensively on the Roman Frontier.

Rome’s armies after 240 AD fought wars on the eastern and western borders from invading armies and invaded to expand the empire west and east. Gaul declared independence as a third century emperor. The 240’s brought an end to the favorable climate that produced boundless/plentiful food due to a major drought.  The emperor Aurelian ruled from 270-275 and built massive city walls which are still able to be seen today, however they were renovated in medieval and early modern times, so they do look a little different now than they did back then. Diocletian was smart and decided to divide the empire into different parts and share his power with other leaders due to the overextension that the empire faced.

Diocletian understood that to be able to keep and maintain power he needed to share power. He picked a professional soldier from his home territory to share power with named Maximian, he was a few years younger and was a son of a grocery store owner in todays Serbia. Picking a coruler was not unusual in Roman History. What was unusual was adding another two rulers on top of the co-ruler which happened in 293. Rome had become too big for a single ruler to rule the entire Roman empire, so it was split into four parts with four men ruling it, it had become too overextended.

The Roman Empire reached a decisive point under Diocletian’s rule due to overextension and fighting expansionary, revolutionary and defensive battles/wars on the Eastern and Western frontier, so he decided to split the Roman empire into two parts, which were ruled by four rulers, informally but not formally. For some perspective on why this was necessary, Diocletian traveled on average 10 miles a day during his time as emperor which is crazy. The Roman Empire, at this time, before it was split, qualified as one of the largest empires in history up there with the Soviet Union, China, Great Britain, and the Ottoman Empire. The Roman Emperor Diocletian is one of the craziest stories of a rise from poverty to greatness, especially back then, when it was even harder.