Diocletian, Hereditary Succession and the Tetrarchic Dynasty
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Sydney eScholarship Diocletian, Hereditary Succession and the Tetrarchic Dynasty Byron Lloyd Waldron A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The Department of Classics and Ancient History, the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the University of Sydney, 2018. Table of Contents Summary ........................................................................................................................................ iii Research Statement ........................................................................................................................ iv Preface and Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................v Dramatis Personae ......................................................................................................................... vi Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................... viii Introduction ....................................................................................................................................1 a. The Ancient Sources ....................................................................................................................8 b. The Army and Political Power ...................................................................................................23 c. The Tetrarchs as Military Emperors ..........................................................................................33 1. The ‘Tetrarchy’: The Creation of a College of Four ............................................................40 1.1. Dating the Appointments ........................................................................................................40 1.2. The Reasons for the Tetrarchy: The Sources ..........................................................................43 1.3. The Reasons for the Tetrarchy: The Scholarship ....................................................................45 1.4. Political, Dynastic and Military Context ................................................................................50 1.5. Imperial Presence and Regional Military Rebellion ...............................................................66 1.6. The Tetrarchic Solution ..........................................................................................................75 2. Diocletian vs Heredity: Succession Events and the Attitudes of the Soldiery ....................89 2.1. The Sons..................................................................................................................................91 2.2. The Sources .............................................................................................................................96 2.3. The Scholarship ....................................................................................................................104 2.4. Problems with Lactantius’ Account ......................................................................................107 2.5. The Will of Diocletian ..........................................................................................................117 2.6. The Failure of Dynasty .........................................................................................................121 2.7. A Failed Succession ..............................................................................................................130 3. Heredity and Military Society ...............................................................................................134 4. The Accursed Princes: Constantine and Maxentius before 306 ........................................146 4.1. Constantine ...........................................................................................................................147 4.2. Maxentius ..............................................................................................................................161 4.3. Filial Concerns in the West ...................................................................................................164 4.4. Conclusions ...........................................................................................................................174 5. Invisible Feminae and Galerian Empresses: The Representation of Imperial Women ..178 5.1. Augustae and Diuae in the Later Third Century ...................................................................179 5.2. The Representation of Women 284-306 ...............................................................................181 5.3. A Case of Deliberate Exclusion? ..........................................................................................185 5.4. Tetrarchic Empresses 307-311 ..............................................................................................189 5.5. Conclusions ...........................................................................................................................199 i 6. Virtutibus Fratres: The Brotherhood of Diocletian and Maximian ...................................201 6.1. The Augustan Fraternity in the Panegyrics ...........................................................................205 6.2. The Augustan Fraternity in Other Media ..............................................................................212 6.3. A Fraternity between Commilitones .....................................................................................219 Conclusions .................................................................................................................................230 Appendix: Prosopography of the Imperial Women ...............................................................240 Bibliography ...............................................................................................................................245 Ancient Sources ...........................................................................................................................245 Modern Works .............................................................................................................................250 ii Summary At the turn of the fourth century, four soldiers ruled the Roman Empire: Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius and Galerius. This Tetrarchy, as modern scholars call it, was the brainchild of Diocletian, and under this emperor’s leadership, the regime brought stability to an empire shaken after a half-century of political and military convulsions. These Tetrarchs defeated the resurgent enemies of the empire, they ended an epidemic of military rebellion that had lasted decades, and they attempted numerous reforms in an effort to better the empire both economically and spiritually. This dissertation examines the Tetrarchy as an imperial dynasty, and it uses the concept of dynasty to highlight how the Tetrarchic regime was often at odds with imperial precedents. Like other Roman dynasts, the Tetrarchs employed adoption, marriage and shared nomenclature in the expression of their rule, but they also ignored certain dynastic norms. Diocletian and Maximian presented themselves as brothers despite being unrelated, and they used the names Jovius and Herculius to imply a close connection to Jupiter and Hercules. Diocletian and Galerius repeatedly excluded the sons of the Tetrarchs from the succession, and the sons themselves were variously hostages, symbols of imperial unity and targets of assassination. Moreover, for most of the Tetrarchic period, imperial women were neither empresses nor deified. This study investigates these issues through the lens of the Roman army, and it presents the Tetrarchic dynasty as a military experiment, created by and tailored to soldiers. At the beginning of Tetrarchic rule, Rome’s armies exerted an unprecedented influence over imperial politics, and the Tetrarchs themselves were products of these armies. This thesis shows that the Tetrarchs gave their sons and the imperial women important but subdued roles within their regime. It proposes that these approaches to dynasty and the decision to create the Tetrarchy came about because of military experience and responded to the pressing need to forestall army rebellion. Furthermore, the study argues that the regime represented the Augusti and their Caesars as pairs of brothers, and that it did so to appeal to the army. It is concluded that friendship, namely the camaraderie of Diocletian and Maximian, was central to dynastic cohesion and imperial unity during the Tetrarchic period. Whatever the intentions of the Tetrarchs, their dynastic junta could only be temporary, since the friendship of the Augusti could not be replicated. iii Research Statement This statement certifies that: i. the following dissertation comprises only original research undertaken towards the award of a PhD; ii. acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other materials used; iii. ethics approval was not required for this research; iv. the main body of the dissertation does not exceed 80,000 words, as required by the University of Sydney Higher Degree by Research Administration Centre. Byron Lloyd Waldron 24th February 2018 iv Preface and Acknowledgements As an undergraduate studying history, my interests had often tended towards the relationship between armies