129.)
Why does this matter? It is important in relation to Constantine’s later favoring of Christianity. (See Chapters 3 and 10.) In fact, the “pagan” religions of the Ancient world, including the old Roman state religion, were normally tolerant of one another. They were “communal religions”, a term I coined in my books Is Christianity True? (1984), The God Book (2015) and God Without Religion (2018). This term meant that a person’s religious identity was automatically bound up with their national, social or communal identity. Belief, dogma, or creed did not come into it. Unlike Christianity, which is a “creed religion” (another term I coined), communal religions mostly had no definite beliefs, only ceremonial and rituals. It was taken for granted that every nation had its own religion and its own gods, so one would respect foreign religions. Rome was exceptional in being (by ancient standards) a huge cosmopolis that attracted people from all over the Empire and beyond. These people brought their religions with them, so there were numerous foreign cults with their own gods, priests, and temples active in Rome. On the communal principle, these were generally tolerated even though a number of them had long been separated from their communal roots and were simply what are sometimes described by modern writers as “oriental mystery cults.”
Foreign cults, such as those of Isis, Cybele (the Magna Mater, or Great Mother), and Mithras (an all-male cult, very popular in the Roman army) were all welcomed in Rome. Cf. Peter Garnsey’s remark, discussed in Chapter 10, that the Roman religion was “…disposed to expand or absorb or at least neutralize” them. If that were so, why were these religions allowed to flourish with their own temples and their own priests at the heart of the Roman Empire? It was not under the Roman pagan religion but under Christianity that they were closed down and, especially after 391, banned, with the destruction of many varied pagan temples, statues, and images and the murder of a number of pagan priests. (See Chapter 10.)
Julian on Augustus and Diocletian
In Julian’s satirical sketch, De Caesaribus (“The Caesars”), penned in December 361, the Emperor Julian (r. 361–363), Constantine’s nephew, draws a marked contrast between Augustus and Diocletian. Here, first, is his portrait of Augustus, whom he calls Octavian, presumably because “Augustus” would have been confusing because it was a standard title borne by emperors from the time of the original Augustus down to his own day and by Julian himself:
Octavian entered, changing color continually, like a chameleon, turning now pale, now red; one moment his expression was gloomy, sombre, and overcast, the next he unbent and showed all the charms of Aphrodite and the Graces. Moreover, in the glances of his eyes, he was fain to resemble mighty Helios, for he preferred that none who approached should be able to meet his gaze. “Good Heavens!” exclaimed Silenus, “what a changeable monster is this! What mischief will he do us?” “Cease trifling,” said Apollo, “after I have handed him over to Zeno here, I shall transform him for you straightaway to gold without alloy. Come, Zeno,” he cried, “take charge of my nursling.” Zeno obeyed, and thereupon, by reciting over Octavian a few of his doctrines, in the fashion of those who mutter the incantations of Zamolxis, he made him wise and temperate. (Julian, Caes. 307, tr. Wright (1913) attalus.org/translate/caesars.html.))
After mocking Augustus for his apparently shifting identities as a young man, Julian, a noted philosopher in his own right, concluded by praising him unstintingly as “wise and temperate” through his supposed conversion to Stoicism (Zeno of Citium being the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy.)
Julian’s portrait of Diocletian was rather different, coupling his pomp with the collegiate nature of the tetrarchy that he established:
Next Diocletian advancing in pomp, bringing with him the two Maximians and my grandfather Constantius. These latter held one another by the hand and did not walk alongside of Diocletian, but formed a sort of chorus round him. And when they wished to run before him as a bodyguard, he prevented them since he did not think himself entitled to more privileges than they. But when he realised that he was growing weary, he gave over to them all the burdens that he carried on his shoulders and admired their unanimity and permitted them to sit far in front of many of their predecessors. (Julian, Caes. 315, Ibid.)
Imperial Power
Was the increased pomp and ceremony of Diocletian’s court indicative of a genuine increase in imperial power, or was it just theater? Edward Gibbon, in his monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, first published in 1776, saw no real change in the power of the emperor in the transition from Principate to Dominate, just a change in style: “Like the modesty of Augustus, the state maintained by Diocletian was a theatrical representation…. It was the aim of the one to disguise, and the object of the other to display, the unbounded power which the emperors possessed over the Roman world.” (Gibbon, vol I, p. 373.)
J.B. Bury, in his History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian, first published in 1923, referred to the emperor’s “…gradual and steady usurpation of nearly all the functions of government which Augustus had attributed to the Senate. The republican disguise fell away completely before the end of the third century. Aurelian adopted external fashions which marked a king, not a citizen; and Diocletian and Constantine definitely transformed the state from a republic to an autocracy.” (Bury, 1923, Vol I, p. 5.)
Bury follows Gibbon in referring to “disguise,” but Bury also confusingly talks about a “gradual and steady usurpation.” Disguise of course implies, as Gibbon made clear, that what lay behind the mask was the same throughout, whereas “usurpation” implies an actual escalation in imperial power.
More modern works tend to ignore the question whether Diocletian’s accession marks an increase in imperial power. However, in Christopher Kelly’s Ruling the Later Roman Empire, published in 2004, we come across these passages:
The extent of these changes [between Principate and Dominate] should not be exaggerated. The passage from the Principate to late antiquity was slow and intricate…. The difference between the government of the early and later Empire lies principally in a shift in the way power was organized and exercised, rather than in any great change in the social backgrounds of those involved in the business of government. (Kelly 2004, loc. 1396–8.) The transformation from the Principate to late antiquity was marked by a change in the way the Mediterranean world was ruled. For central government, the formation and promotion of an enlarged and sophisticated bureaucracy held out the attractive possibility of a more detailed and penetrating level of control. More formal structures permitted the development of an elaborate hierarchy of command, the more reliable allocation of tasks, and a greater degree of specialization. (Kelly 2004, loc 2384.)
These remarks, and Kelly’s book as a whole, appear to rely a good deal on John Lydus’s treatise (written in Greek), De Magistratibus reipublicae Romanae (The Magistracies of the Roman State), written in about 550, more than 260 years after Diocletian’s accession in 284. It is primarily a source for the reign of Justinian (r. 527–565), under whom John Lydus, born in 490, served as praetorian prefect until 552. But this was the praetorian prefecture of the East, a century after the end of the Western Empire, which is traditionally dated to the year 476. The amount of light John Lydus’s writings can shed on Diocletian’s reign, or on the West at any time, is minimal.
Another modern writer with an Eastern focus is Peter Brown, who has observed that, “Despite the more drastic assertion of state power that characterized the fourth century, a system of government based upon collusion with the upper classes
