Diocletian

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Eleven minutes on an accident of the record: Aurelian reunified the empire in five years and is thinly documented, while Diocletian got a biography.

Part of Lost Roman Heroes · Matteo and Matthew Storm, 101 episodes

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Ninety minutes on the man who ended the third-century crisis by splitting the empire four ways and then walked away from the throne alive. The retirement is as remarkable as the reforms, and the score has to hold both.

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Seventy minutes on the colleague nobody discusses, which is the reason to hear it. Diocletian's tetrarchy needed a second man who would take orders and then step down, and Maximian did both and then unretired twice.

Part of The Ancients

With David Gwynn

The most systematic Roman attempt to destroy Christianity, launched in 303, over within a decade, and followed by a Christian emperor. Also good on the four-emperor system that worked exactly once.

Part of Ithaca Bound · Andrew Schiestel on the Mediterranean, 2021 to 2022; only the Roman episodes are indexed

Part of Lost Roman Heroes

The rise, from the bodyguard ranks to sole rule, in just under an hour. The first of two.

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Caillan Davenport

The last and largest persecution, run as administration: edicts, registers of scripture, and officials asked to prove compliance. Forty-two minutes on bureaucracy turned on a religion.

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

With Jason Klazmer

Jason Klazmer on how Diocletian rebuilt an army that had spent fifty years making and unmaking emperors, and on the price of the fix. Forty minutes.

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Caillan Davenport

The system itself: two Augusti, two Caesars, and a succession plan that skipped sons. Forty minutes on the one Roman constitutional experiment that worked exactly once.

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Caillan Davenport

Galerius against the Persians, ending in a treaty that held the eastern frontier for forty years. Thirty-four minutes on the campaign that proved the four-man system could fight.

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Caillan Davenport

Diocles becomes Diocletian, and his opening move is to appoint a colleague and hand him the west. Half an hour on an emperor who started by giving half of it away.

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Caillan Davenport

Diocletian abdicated and grew cabbages at Split, then refused to come back when the system collapsed. Half an hour on the only Roman emperor who retired and meant it.

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Caillan Davenport

Two emperors become four, each with his own court and his own quarter of the empire. Thirty minutes on the arithmetic of the tetrarchy and why it needed so many capitals.

Part of When in Rome

With Caillan Davenport

Twenty-five minutes on the largest baths Rome ever built, put up in the early fourth century and now holding a church, a museum and a railway station.

Part of Echoes of Empires

Anastasius two centuries later, praised for leaving a full treasury and doing it with the same instruments Diocletian built. Twenty-five minutes, and a good argument for how long the reforms ran.

Part of Kings and Generals · Military history in campaigns and battles; only the Roman episodes are indexed

Part of The Pax Romana Podcast

Twenty-one minutes on the design of the four-man empire and the assumption underneath it, that loyalty could be engineered by adoption.

Part of The Pax Romana Podcast

The edict of 301 fixed a price for a thousand goods, from lions to legal fees, with death for overcharging. Twenty-one minutes on an experiment in price control that the market simply walked around.

Part of The Pax Romana Podcast

A Dalmatian officer of obscure birth kills the praetorian prefect in front of the army and is acclaimed on the spot. Twenty minutes on the least likely candidate to end fifty years of chaos.

Part of The Pax Romana Podcast

The moment the succession plan met a son with an army: Constantine is acclaimed at York and the system starts unwinding. Nineteen minutes on how fast it went.

Part of Echoes of Empires

Provinces cut smaller, a court with ceremony borrowed from Persia, and an emperor who stopped pretending to be a first citizen. Eighteen minutes on the shape that lasted to Justinian.

Part of Echoes of Empires

The tax reform behind the price edict: a new census counting land and people together, so the state could finally budget. Seventeen minutes on the dull reform that actually held.