- THE END OF THE TETRARCHY
- Stage 1
- 305 Maximian and Diocletian retire (die 310 and 312 respectively)
- Private life after being emperor was unprecedented
- Diocletian’s retirement seems to have been willing - possible pressure from Galerius?
- Constantius and Galerius promoted to Augusti
- 2 new Caesares promoted: Maximin Daia and Severus
- Both close to Galerius: lends support to the Christian viewpoint that Galerius is the controlling agent
- Constantius and Maximian both have adult sons: Constantius and Maxentius
- Both overlooked: unusual for a biological son to be ignored in the succession
- cf. Adoptive principle only worked in 2nd century because emperors had no biological sons
- One of the only points in history where there was a genuine attempt to introduce a succession plan that overlooked biology in favour of merit
- Vision only lasts for one generation; passing on of power falls apart after one generation
- Roman world cannot cope with biological sons being omitted/biological sons cannot cope with being omitted
- 306 Constantius, now Augustus in the West, dies; his troops proclaim Constantine as Augustus
- Difficult to reconstruct the narrative of events; first Christian emperor, Christian sources dominate late antiquity, therefore the narrative is unanimously pro-Constantine
- Acclamation engineered by Constantius; recognised by Galerius
- Severus elevated to Augustus in the west
- Constantine acclaimed as Caesar
- This leads Maximian’s son Maxentius aggrieved… revolts
- Maximian comes out of retirement to join sons’ revolt against Severus
- Severus’ troops refuse to fight, Severus imprisoned
- 307 Constantine allies himself with Maximian and Maxentius
- Married daughter of Maximian
- 308 Diocletian comes out of retirement to form new tetrarchy
- Licinius appointed by Galerius as Augustus
- Maximinus and Augustus named Caesar - junior position
- Maximinus and Constantine demand elevation to Augustus
- End up in situation with 4 co-emperors, rather than 2 senior and 2 junior
- Diocletian’s system stabilises constant usurpation
- Attempts to put down a stable succession falls apart almost immediately
- Attempt to provide stability works for a generation but is a failure due to the inability to fix the main problem of the empire: the issue of succession
- Stage 2
- 310 Maximian comes out of retirement… AGAIN (against own son)
- Tells troops that Constantine is dead and retreats to Marseille… commits suicide
- Problem for Constantine; draws his legitimacy from Maximian
- Constantine has to look for a new basis/claim to legitimacy
- New narrative: appropriation of Claudius Gothicus
- Claim to imperial authority based on his father having been an emperor, and Claudius Gothicus
- ‘third ruler after two rulers of your line’ based on familial dynasty rather than the tetrarchic system
- No other tetrarchic rulers can make this claim
- 311 Galerius dies - seems to have been holding things in check
- When Galerius dies, things fall apart… possibility of civil war
- Constantine and Licinus become allies and then each pick off another member of the tetrarchic college
- Licinius goes agains Maximin Daia
- Constantien goes against Maxentius
- 312 Constantine defeats Maxentius
- Night before the battle, Constantine converts to Christianity and is thus victorious
- 313 Maximinus Daia defeated by Licintus
- Both battles report having been aided by religious aid
- Now 2 Augusti.. but no Caesars. Indication both emperors are looking to dynastic rule, and probably both have ambition for sole rule
- 316 Fausta, Constantine’s second wife, daughter of Maximian, gives birth to Constantinus; catalyst for accelerating conflict between Licinus and Constantine
- Christian sources recall this as having been motivated by Constantine’s desire to stop Licinus persecuting Christians in eastern provinces
- More likely this is Constantine’s ambitions for dynastic rule being given a positive spin by later Christian authors
- 317 Uneasy peace, 2 Augusti and 3 Caesars
- Pretence of alliance continues
- 324 Constantine defeats Licinus, surrenders and executed
- Rome returns to having a single ruler
- Political instability of the third century seems to have been ended temporarily by Diocletian’s tetrarchic reforms.
- Constantine manages to rule the whole empire on his own, which no other emperor was able to due during the third century
- Could be argued that he only managed to do this because the empire had been stabilised by the reforms of Diocletian
- How successful actually was Constantine’s rule? Based entirely on later Christian sources - bias
II. THE START OF A CHRISTIAN EMPIRE?
- Constantine takes an interest in church politics
- Constantine calls church councils, first in 325
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