DIOCLETIAN, dro-Ideshan (Gaius Aure lius Valerius Diocletianus, surnamed Jovius), Roman emperor: b. Dioclea, Dalmatia, 245 A.D.; d. Salona, Dalmatia, 313. He was of humble origin but attained distinction in the army and held important military commands under the emperors Probus and Aurelian. He accom panied Carus to the Persian War and after the death of Numerianus he was chosen em peror by the army at Chalcedon, 17 Sept. 284, and slew with his own hands Arrius Aper, the prefect of the praetorians. He thus fulfilled the prediction of a Gallic priestess that he would mount a throne as soon as he had slain a wild boar (aper). He was generally loved for the goodness of his disposition. But troubles from within disturbed the Roman Em pire and compelled Diocletian to share the bur den of government with colleagues. He ap pointed Maximianus Augustus in 286, who defeated the Bagaudae insurgents in Gaul and the Germans on the Rhine. Meanwhile Dio cletian was successful against the Persians in the East and afterward penetrated to the sources of the Danube, in Germany. In view of further disturbances and dangers in the empire, he proclaimed Constantius Chlorus and Galerius Caesars in 293. Thus the empire was divided into four parts, with each of the four rulers at a separate capital — Nicomedia, Mediolanum (Milan), Augusta Trevirorum (Trier), Sirmium. At the age of 60, exhausted with labor, Diocletian resigned the imperial dig nity at Nicomedia, 1 May 305, and retired to Salona, where he found happiness in the culti vation of his garden, and where he died eight years afterward. In the latter part of his reign he was induced to sanction a persecution of the Christians, whom he had long protected. In defense of this it may be urged that he hoped to strengthen the empire by a revival of the old religion, and that the church as an inde pendent state over whose inner life at least he possessed no influence, appeared to be a stand ing menace to the imperial authority. In his reign the senate lost practically all its power, republican institutions vanished and were re placed by an absolute monarchy closely akin to despotism. He wore the royal diadem, as sumed the title of lord and introduced a system of etiquette and ceremony, borrowed from the East, in order to surround the monarch and monarchy with a mysterious sanctity. On the other hand he gave great attention to improving the administration of the empire,/reformed the coinage, remitted various burdensome taxes, encouraged trade and repressed corruption. He adorned and beautified the city with numerous buildings, notably the baths, portions of which are extant. A famous edict of his and one that has an especial interest in modern days is the pretiis rerum venalium,> which, promul gated in 301 A.D., fixed a maximum price for
provisions and other articles of commerce, and a maximum rate of wages. The articles men tioned in the edict which, aside from its illus tration of price-fixing legislation, is chiefly in teresting as giving their relative values at the time, include cereals, wine, oil, meat, fresh and salt fish, vegetables, honey, fruits, skins, leather, furs, foot-gear, timber, carpets, articles of dress and even perms mendaptcm (Westphalian hams), and the wages range from that of the ordinary laborer to the fee of the professional advocate. The unit of money was the denarius, not the silver, but a copper coin introduced by Diocletian, and the value of which may be gauged from the fact that in the edict it is set down as the equivalent of one oyster, or ap proximately two-fifths of a cent of our cur rency. The edict was a well-intended but abor tive attempt to meet the distress caused by several bad harvests and commercial specula tion. It was mainly in the interests of the soldiery. The punishment for exceeding the fixed prices was death or deportation. The actual effect was disastrous, in that it brought about a disturbance of the food supply in non productive countries, many traders were ruined, and the edict gradually fell into abeyance. Incomplete copies of it have been discovered at various times in various places, the first (in Greek and Latin) in 1709, at Stratonicea in Caria, by W. Sherard, then British consul at Smyrna, containing the preamble and the tables down to number 403. This partial copy was completed by W. Bankers in 1817. It was elaborately edited by Waddington, with new fragments and commentary (1864), and by Mornmsen in the third volume of
Inscriptionum Latinarum,> where all the frag ments are described and their localities indi cated. Portions of the Greek copy and the Latin preamble were found in Plata in 1888 89 during the exploration of the American School of Classical Archaeology. In 1890 sev eral hundred lines of the Greek version of the decree were discovered at Megalopolis, includ ing a list of pigments with their prices. For the edict (de pretiis, etc.,' in addition to those cited above, consult Lepaulle,