The Story of Imperial Rome

The Rise of the Roman imperial order, amidst the ruin of its republican counterpart defined the context in which Christianity came to the forefront in late antiquity. The course of the Roman Empire’s success as a civilization has been a source of constant discussion since Polybius’ speculations as detailed in previously. In review, after the Third Punic war, Rome systematically conquered the remaining Alexandrian successor states to the east. The influx of money gained from these conquest in addition to greedy manipulations of the legal system in favor of rich, allowed for the events that lead to the rise of Marius & Sulla, the First and Second Triumvirates and finally the reign of Caesar Augustus (r. 27 BCE – 14CE).

What became known as the Julio-Claudian Dynasty ruled with a solid grip on power until the death of Nero in 68. Successor dynasties came and went. First the Flavians, then the Antonines with “The Five Good Emperors” ending with Commodus, and then the ruthless Severans. After the death of Alexander Severus (r. 222-235), the stability of the Empire collapsed. The following decades are referred to as The Crisis of the Third Century (235-384). As a reminder where this is in Roman history here is the layout from The Scope of History essay.

During this period the legitimacy of previous generations broke down. More often than not, emperors were no sooner established, as usurped by their rivals. The empire broke into three separate entities for more than a decade, while barbarians and Persians invaded from the north and east. It is truly a marvel that a unified Roman empire existed by the time Constantine came around. Most of the credit for this is given to two men. Aurelian (r.270-275) who managed to reabsorb the break away Roman states, and Diocletian (r.284-305, d.~311) who avoided the string of military assassinations that had plagued his predecessors, and reestablished order and legitimacy in the Roman System. It should be noted that both of these emperors are often seen as two of the most accomplished people to have ever claimed the title of Emperor, and they deserve to be looked at in more detail. Both men were proclaimed to be Resitutor Orbis, or “Restorer[s] of the World”.

One of the most persistent problems that the empire faced was that it was simply too big to easily defend all fronts at once, while at the same time maintaining economic stability and political legitimacy. This balancing act was one of the reasons that after the reign of Augustus, only a few emperors were able to see the boarders of the empire expand in any meaningful way.

In the ancient world, and in autocratic systems a ruler always had to worry about maintaining the stability of the state. This stability of a political dynasty is typically referred to as legitimacy, or the summation of sentiment in key pillars of society, be they the masses, the army, the elites, or religious institutions. The Narrative of being the best person for the job to the extent that one would not be challenged, or at least that challengers would be removed from the picture was and is largely dependent on the means of power that are respected by a culture, or that are otherwise available at hand. In the case of Rome even in its more republican days power and legitimacy in political office often came down to military victory.

It is not a little ironic that by the time of the Pax Romana that conquest was key to legitimacy, but with the exception of Claudius and Trajan territorial gains where rarely ever made, and that the investment in the army to support these military campaigns were often the means by which regimes where overthrown. Additionally, since the state was as large as it was, one man had to command in both the Germanic north and the Persian East and have enough respect amongst his subordinates to trust that his generals, now commanding a large number of legions would not declare themselves as Emperor. But delegations of legions to potential rivals were absolutely needed to maintain borders between mutually and perpetually antagonistic neighbors. The ins and outs of this are more complicated and nuanced than this and the means of the breakdown in legitimacy may be a topic for a different essay. This multi-polar tension formed the backbone of the problems that faced the Romans in the third century and with the splinter factions of the empire the problems intensified. A new paradigm was needed to think about addressing the problem of military organization and legitimacy.

First to better address the multi-front problem the Emperors needed a means to quickly send reinforcements to crisis points while power was consolidated to address the splinter states. In command of the center of the empire came Aurelian, who restructured mobile cavalry units to be able to provide the needed support as quickly possible in the ancient world. From the middle empire he was then able to establish enough stability that he could confidently conquer the Palmyrene and Gallic break away states. It was also Aurelian who built walls around Rome for the first time in more than half a millennia. Unfortunately, the solution to the structure of the army was not enough to save Aurelian from assassination, but it is generally during his reign that we can see the pendulum swinging back in Romes favor.

Something like stability started to slowly return and finally arrived in the person of Diocletian. Though at the time of his being proclaimed emperor it was not clear that his reign would mark the end of the chaos of the previous century. After the death of Numerian during a campaign in Persia the officers on campaign proclaimed Diocletian the new emperor. Returning to the Empire’s heartland he defeated Numerian’s brother, Carinus to take sole control of the empire in 285. Diocletian, as the Augustus, riding high off of military victory made a bold step by elevating Maximian to the rank of Caesar, or junior emperor, the following year. This move was made to address the some of the problems that the first Augustus had wrestled with, the administration, and multi-front defense of the empire was a job that was simply too big for one man to readily handle. Having two emperors to divide the work load of the state was not entirely unprecedented though the results had to this point been amongst dynastic families, though it seems that the two men did trust each other enough to manage this arrangement. Maximian also complemented Diocletian’s skills in a way that suited them both the former a respected and competent general and the latter a master at logistics and politics.

The first major challenge for Maximian was to bring Northern Gaul and Britain back into order. The region had not experienced much imperial presence during the third century and was subject to raids from bandits as well as barbarian tribes. Maximian’s campaign in the region was going reasonably well until one of his subordinates, Carausius, was discovered profiteering off of raids. Though some level of this might be expected to occur a line had been crossed. Not being a man of subtlety the Caesar called him to Court to account for his actions, which prompted the commander to flee to Britain and have his troops declare him as Augustus in 286. With the regions in the west unstable Maximian was unable to dislodge Carausius without a fleet, and as with many other invasions of the island, the channel crossing frustrated the initial attempts, which required a new fleet to be built. Meanwhile, rebellions in Spain and Egypt, in addition to a new regime in Persia, precipitated a new layer to the imperial collage. In 293 Diocletian raised Maximian to the title of Augustus and then they raised two new Caesars, Galerius and Constantius. This four way splitting of the imperial title is known as the Tetrarchy. Egypt being essential as the “breadbasket” of the empire Diocletian headed there to put down the rebellion. Galerius was assigned to handle the Persian front. Maximian worked to secure Spain, and Constantius was assigned the task of dislodging Carausius. Each man over the course of the next few years were mostly successful in their goals and the empire enjoyed a period of revitalization while Diocletian remained at the helm, but it remained to be seen how power could be effectively handed down in a system with four emperors, and how future ambitious men might seek to undo the established balancing act.

Roadmaps and the Logistics

I will leave things there for the moment and note that about this time that Constantius’ son Constantine was likely a young boy and was raised in the court of Diocletian and may have been on the Egyptian campaign. A discussion on the history of Church and State, as we currently understand it, must discuss the man who facilitated the initial project. That said, the interaction between religious authority and the imperial office were not unprecedented during the fourth century. So for the next several essays the plan is to flesh out the interaction between the Ancient World’s religious practices and how they related to State power. This will be fairly brief. Then for the second I plan to flesh out some of Diocletian’s reforms, how they mattered to Late Antiquity and Medieval Europe. Next an essay on the evolution and dissolution of the Tetrarchy up to the Edict of Milan, then backtrack to cover some important developments in Pre-Imperial Christianity, to set up the narrative for The Council of Nicaea.

The circumstances that have created this gap in writing have not resolved to allow for much more time to devote to this project. This question is relevant to our current moment, though so I intend to continue pushing forward. If you wish to read more the following resources will cover the history from a few different angles.

Resources:
Constantine The Emperor -by David Potter
The History of Rome Podcast -by Mike Duncan
Dominion -by Tom Holland
The Story of Christianity Vol 1 -by Justo Gonzalez