CHAPTER XLI. NEW HOPE FOR THE EMPIRE: THE AGE OF DIOCLETIAN AND CONSTANTINE
“Diocletian inaugurated … the period of the Partnership Emperors. Himself borne to power by something not very unlike a mutiny of the troops on the Persian frontier, he nevertheless represented and gave voice to the passionate longing of the world that the age of mutinies might cease. With this intention he remodelled the internal constitution of the state and moulded it into a bureaucracy so strong, so stable, so wisely organised, that it subsisted virtually the same for more than a thousand years, and by its endurance prolonged for many ages the duration of the Byzantine Empire.”—Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders.
DIOCLETIAN APPOINTS MAXIMIAN CO-REGENT
[286-293 A.D.]
From what we know of Diocletian, he had aspired to the throne long before his accession, and maintained the power he had won by military force. Soon after the death of Carinus, he appointed his colleague Maximian as cæsar or assistant in the government (286), either because the latter had been initiated into his ambitious plans, or perhaps because Diocletian, on account of the almost uninterrupted war carried on in the remote parts of the kingdom, saw the necessity of a divided rule and of a second seat of government in the neighbourhood of the threatened provinces. Maximian, whom the emperor shortly afterwards invested with the title of augustus and charged with the government of the West of the empire, generally lived in Augusta Trevirorum (Trèves) or in the town of Arelate (Arles) in the south of France; whilst Diocletian raised Nicomedia in Bithynia to be the capital of the East, and, as often as circumstances allowed, took up his residence there.
Maximian was, like Diocletian, a good general and a brave soldier, but differed from him essentially in his want of education and refinement. As he felt the superiority of Diocletian and was led by him, the results of a divided government were not very perceptible in the first years. At first Diocletian was principally engaged in war with the Persians, who had again invaded the kingdom; Maximian found sufficient occupation for his martial activity in Gaul and Britain. In the first-named country, Maximian had at the very beginning to suppress a terrible insurrection of the peasants, occasioned by the internal condition of the province. In Gaul, even in Cæsar’s time, the same oppressive conditions existed amongst the inhabitants, which afterwards were to be found in all the states of Europe during the Middle Ages, and these conditions became still more burdensome under the Roman Empire.
The entire nation was split up into three classes: a landed nobility which had usurped the government; a clergy who formed a caste and compelled the poor to contribute to their maintenance and comfort; and the townspeople and peasants who, as the two other classes managed to avoid public burdens, had to meet all the expenses of the administration unaided and were also exposed to the harshest despotism and exaction. Want and misery finally drove the peasants to despair, and under the name of Bagaudæ, or banditti, they began an insurrection which may be placed on a level with the most terrible peasant wars which find a place in history. They assembled and gathered round them all manner of slaves and rabble, and roamed about in great hordes, ravaging and plundering. Soon all the roads were unsafe, commerce ceased, and even the large towns were destroyed or pillaged by the enraged hordes. Maximian had to wage a regular war with the Bagaudæ, and cut down whole troops of them. In this manner he restored peace, but only for a short time; for the cause of the misery of the unfortunate peasants was not removed, and the insurrection and devastations of the Bagaudæ lasted until the fall of the Roman dominion in Gaul.
Maximian had to hasten the suppression of internal disturbances for he needed his army to fight the barbarians. At that time the Franks and Saxons, who lived on the North Sea, and had learned shipbuilding from the Romans, began their piratical expeditions into Gaul and Britain, whilst their predatory excursions continued on land. In order to meet this new evil, Maximian prepared a fleet for the guarding of the channel, and gave it into the hands of a capable seaman, the Netherlander Carausius. The latter made use of the command entrusted to him to make friends for himself in Britain by means of the booty seized from the barbarians, to excite the troops there to rebellion and set up himself as emperor. Maximian marched against him, failed in his enterprise, and had to concede to the usurper the title he had assumed, as well as the government of Britain (289). Carausius remained in undisturbed possession of the island, until one of his generals, Allectus, murdered him and seized the government (293).