The Legacy of Rome: How the Roman Empire Shaped the Modern World by Simon Elliott

Author:Simon Elliott
Format: epub

Thus Trajan became Caesar and later emperor, although there were relatives of Nerva living. But Nerva did not esteem family relationship above the safety of the state, nor was he less inclined to adopt Trajan because the latter was a Spaniard instead of an Italian or Italot, in as much as no foreigner had previously held the Roman sovereignty; for he believed in looking at a man’s ability rather than at his nationality.45

This set a precedent for wise emperors to follow, with, for example, Septimius Severus initially making his AD 193 ‘Year of the Five Emperors’ rival Clodius Albinus (the British governor) his first Caesar, before later promoting his sons Caracalla and Geta to the role.46

However, it was Diocletian who formalised this process. On his accession in AD 284, the new emperor was keenly aware that the empire he had inherited was in danger of imploding as a result of the many tribulations it had faced as the ‘Crisis of the Third Century’ came to an end. A clever politician, able administrator and dexterous manipulator, he quickly set about the series of reforms known as the Diocletianic Reformation, which included the far-reaching reordering of the provincial structure of the Principate into twelve new dioceses, each broken down into a number of new and smaller provinces, and the addition of a new layer of imperial administration to reboot the empire’s failing Principate taxation system.

The earliest and arguably most far-reaching reform was to officially recognise that the task of managing his enormous empire, only recently so dysfunctional, was too much even for such an able incumbent. As Kean and Frey explain:

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