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Theophilus of Alexandria published a 100‐year Paschal list beginning in the first consulship of Theodosius, AD 380. That year corresponds to the first of the classical Alexandrian cycle, but it is not necessarily the case that the 19‐year cycle of Theophilus began in that year. The earliest unambiguous evidence for a 19‐year cycle calibrated to the first year of Diocletian is the 110‐year list that Cyril dedicated to the emperor Theodosius II. He states explicitly that the first year of the list, AD 403, was the fifth year of the 19‐year cycle. Cyril perhaps adopted the form of the cycle that had been promulgated by Annianus, an Alexandrian monk who lived in the time of Theophilus.

Working in the year 525, Dionysius Exiguus drafted a 95‐year list of Easter dates as a continuation of an Alexandrian list that ended with the 247th year of Diocletian. Dionysius began his own list with the year AD 532, because he did not want to perpetuate the memory of Diocletian. This study examines the history of Easter calculations in the ancient church and the question of why Dionysius decided that Diocletian 247 should be followed by AD 532. Dionysius himself was originally from what is now the modern country of Romania. He moved to Rome about AD 500. Dionysius was the author of the first collection of ecclesiastical canons, as well as the Easter‐table. He also translated frito Latin several works of the Greek fathers of the church.

A collection of the Paschal letters of Athanasius in a Syriac translation provides important evidence for the form of the Alexandrian 19‐year cycle in the time of Athanasius. Not all of the letters have survived, but the Syriac manuscripts do preserve a summary of the chronological data for the entire collection. The data in this “Festal Index” are such as one would find in an Easter table, and they sometimes include years numbered from Diocletian. The era of Diocletian arose in response to the administrative reforms of that emperor Its use in an Easter table does not imply a reform of the Alexandrian cycle during the reign of Diocletian. The sequence of epacts in the Index agrees neither with the cycle of Anatolius nor with the classical cycle. That sequence suggests that Athanasius modified the cycle of Anatolius in connection with the Council of Sardica in 343.

It is commonplace that historical enquiry evolves as successive generations ask different questions, in a complex interplay between, on the one hand, the intellectual traditions in which individual historians have grown up, the different traditions that they discover, and the world as a whole in which they move; on the other hand, an ever greater body of knowledge and a wider range of historical tools. This chapter explores, by way of the particular example of the edicts of the Emperor Diocletian on maximum prices and on the coinage, the story of the discovery and study of their texts. It examines the impact on historical enquiry both of chance discoveries and of deliberate autopsy.

This chapter presents the few wheat prices known from the Roman Empire, military and some other official and private earnings, and a small selection of items from Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices. It attempts to assess our ability to determine whether there was an integrated market for goods and labour in the Roman Empire, what the living standards of different groups were, and whether significant changes across time are visible in market integration or living standards. The conclusion is that the Romans acted and thought as if the empire was an integrated market, although there are indications of regional zones of prices and, more sharply, wages, that the prices in Diocletian's Edict appear to be unhistorical, inconsistent and unreliable, and that there was a dramatic rise in the purchasing power of gold in late antiquity.

The long peace and expansion of the Church in the middle years of the third century was suddenly ended by fierce persecution under Diocletian in 303–04. In the period of political confusion after Diocletian's death, two of the contenders for power, Constantine and Maxentius, both established freedom of worship. This is reflected in the canons produced by the council of Elvira in Spain in about 310. But the persecution precipitated two long‐lived schisms: the Donatists in Carthage and North Africa and the followers of Melitius, bishop of Lycopolis, in Egypt. Constantine's victory over Maxentius at the battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 confirmed his rise to power, though exactly when and how he came to identify himself with Christianity is unclear. He invoked divine help not only in the west but also against anti‐Christian rivals in the east. Constantine's transferral of his capital to Constantinople added ecclesiastical differences to political tensions between east and west, with a parallel Church authority in the Greek east as against the Latin west with Rome as its centre.

This chapter considers the early reforms of Diocletian in Egypt and places some of the changes that occurred during his principate into their broader historical context. The intention is to use particular evidence from Egypt to illustrate and inform some issues of importance to the central theme of this volume — the transition from the third to fourth centuries of our era. The chapter focuses on two lengthy and important papyri, dating to ad 298 and ad 300 respectively, which originate from the city of Panopolis in Middle Egypt. Between them, they contain some 735 lines of text, which preserve the outgoing correspondence of the stratē of the Panopolite nome, and the incoming correspondence to the stratē from the office of the procurator of the Lower Thebaid, in whose administrative district the Panopolite nome lay.

This chapter provides a close reading of the speech of 289, delivered at Trier to the emperor Maximian at a time of Dyarchic government. While the orator is careful to applaud Dyarchic harmony, there is a strong preference for Maximian over his imperial colleague Diocletian. Various literary and rhetorical figures are used to articulate this distinctive Gallic loyalty.

This chapter provides a close reading of the speech of 291, delivered at Trier to the emperor Maximian at a time of Dyarchic government. In contrast to the earlier speech, there is a consistent focus here on Dyarchic harmony and Gallic loyalty to both Diocletian and Maximian. This is to the pointed exclusion of Carausius, ‘emperor’ of Britain. Various literary and rhetorical figures are used to articulate this new political perspective.

This chapter provides a close reading of the speech of 307, probably delivered at Trier to the emperors Maximian and Constantine on the occasion of Constantine's marriage to Maximian's daughter Fausta. Although references to the Dyarchic and Tetrarchic governments of Diocletian are not completely avoided, the orator commits to a political future dependant on his two addressees alone, to the exclusion of emperors elsewhere in the Empire. The political loyalty that is articulated is decidedly localised at this tumultuous period in constitutional history.

Early in his speech to the Roman emperor Maximian, probably delivered in Trier in the spring of AD 289, a Gallic orator catalogued the duties of imperial office. Maximian had been appointed co-emperor by Diocletian four years earlier, and in keeping with the conventions of the genre of panegyrical oratory, is said to have fulfilled his responsibilities with distinction. One interesting feature of this anonymous orator's version of the established form is his selection of iustitia (‘justice’) for special mention. By 289 Maximian's most notable achievements as Diocletian's co-emperor were less to do with the law than the military, such as his overwhelming suppression of the Bagaudae in Gaul at the beginning of his reign. The mention of iustitia is worth dwelling on, therefore, although not necessarily believing, since the genre of panegyric had its own idiosyncratic economy of truth. Delivered before the emperor and local Gallic dignitaries, the orator's terms reveal what we can assume would have been considered an ideal if not a reality of contemporary law — the measure of a good judge, according to this aristocratic elite, is the extent to which he copies imperial justice. That is, a good judge narrows the gap between state and judiciary; judges are not only not independent, but their very dependence on the imperial centre is presented as a virtue.

The construction of the fortress is in the context of three major developments in the reign of Diocletian. This construction of a fortress is a reaction to the series of political and military crises that, throughout the third century, threatened to destroy the Roman empire and turn it “from Military Monarchy into Military Anarchy.” The existing limits of Diocletian's fortress form a five-sided figure enclosing a roughly rectangular area of some three hectares and the outline would form a rectangular wall. The alignment of the fortress was derived from the existing riverside walls of the harbor, and it is in the direction of the Amnis Traianus. The canal formed a median line of the fortress, while the eastern and western sides formed two enclosed walls on both sides of the canal. This combination of methods and materials produced a structure of great strength, allowing it to survive and intact for seventeen centuries.

This book traces the origins of the so-called Great Persecution, the Roman Empire's last and longest campaign compelling Christians to uphold traditional religious norms. Executed by the emperor Diocletian in the year 303 and lasting until 313, the Great Persecution seemingly conforms to a stereotype of Romans as persecutors and Christians as victims before the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 312. Yet this familiar image is not consistent with the presence of Christian courtiers in Diocletian's entourage. This book challenges the view held by most historians that the Great Persecution was inevitable, noting that Christians and Hellenes had lived, learned, and worked side by side for forty years before they became sharply divided by the turn of the century. It argues that Iamblichus of Chalcis played a key role in this shift, explaining how his dispute with Porphyry of Tyre laid the foundations that supported the Great Persecution.

This chapter describes the Diocletian, the Great Persecution, Christian martyrdom, and then the religious policies of Constantine, with particular attention to his dealings with the early Donatists. It also examines the motives and justifications behind pagan emperors' persecution of Christians, and argues that some of the same attitudes toward violence and coercion persisted under the Christian empire. Moreover, it describes the formation of Christian concepts of martyrdom that cast a shadow over the religious conflicts of later generations. The end of persecution had been accompanied by an even more dramatic development: for the first time in history, an emperor had openly embraced Christianity. Constantine's mention—and dismissal—of martyrdom not only implies his awareness that lethal force was necessary, but also suggests that he anticipated how the Donatists might have responded to coercive violence. Violence used for the sake of unity shatters that unity.

This chapter discusses the persecution of Christians. Topics covered include Nero's instigation of the first ‘official’ persecution of Christianity and Christians; a correspondence between Pliny the Younger and the emperor Trajan, which illustrates the ad hoc methods used to persecute Christians; lapsing and apostatising Christians; and the so-called ‘great persecution’ of Christians in ad under the emperor Diocletian.