Diocletian and the Roman Recovery by Stephen Williams

Diocletian and the Roman Recovery Reviews

• 
  Terence

  I read Steven Williams' Diocletian and the Roman Recovery in conjunction with Alaric Watson's biography of Aurelian (my review
  here). Like that book, Diocletian doesn't aim to revise the "standard version" of the emperor's reign so much as pull together the scholarship (as of 1985) about the period and lay it out with minimal fuss for the general reader.
  
  I don't have much to say about the book as such except to recommend it to readers interested in the period but unfamiliar with the history and make two observations.
  
  The first is that Diocletian bears a strong resemblance to Augustus, Rome's first emperor. Like him, Diocletian "restored" the Roman world by revolutionizing it. The government and society that emerged after AD 285 may have claimed to be traditionally "Roman" but it bore little resemblance to Augustus's constitution.
  
  The second observation is that I appreciated Williams' treatment of the imperial cult and Diocletian's attempt to revive it. The "common wisdom" view tends to dismiss its seriousness and centrality to people's lives but Williams argues persuasively that people did take it seriously and that it did play a role in peoples' lives beyond a cynical acquiescence to imperial will. The cult ultimately failed because the society it mirrored was passing away, and - you'll remember - Christianity rapidly took on many of its trappings once it became the state's religion (albeit the focus of worship was subtlely shifted).
• 
  Checkman

  The first English language biography on Diocletion and a well written one at that. Stephen Williams is not a professional Roman historian instead he is a professor of philosophy and therin lays the books strength. Williams writes for the enthusiastic Roman history buff and the general reader.
  
  Instead of quoting ancient historians ad nauseum and going off on tangents he gets to the meat of the matter. How Diocletion and his fellow emperors were able to pull the empire back from total collapse. He gives detailed explanations as to what was occurring in the Empire during the 3rd Century and why. He isn't afraid to offer his own theories where our knowledge of events are sketchy and he always keeps the book moving along at a brisk pace. I especially enjoyed the final chapter where he covers the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century. It's well written with a detailed description of what occurred and why. He also contrast the collapse of the West with the survival of the Eastern Empire. Wonderful book for the layman, student, and perhaps even the expert.
  
  The only caveat is that this book was published in 1985 and scholars never stop researching.
• 
  Sam Falco

  More than a biography of Diocletian, this book provides an in-depth examination of how Diocletian rescued the Roman Empire from disintegration.
  
  Williams's prologue provides an adequate overview of evolving understanding of the role of emperor in the century leading up to Diocletian's reign. Part I surveys the problems Diocletian faced as part of "The Third-Century Collapse" and the Illyrian officer corps from which Diocletian came. All of this information is valuable and interestingly presented, but there is very little biographical information here that you won't find elsewhere.
  
  Where the book shines is in Part 2, where Williams covers Diocletian's decision to divide command of the Empire and then subdivide it again. How the Tetrarchs reunited and consolidated the Empire and more or less restored its borders is a fascinating read. Williams's discussion of how Diocletian's reforms affected social, economic, and artistic trends in the Empire is a little drier, but his examination of the religious world under Diocletian's reign has the clearest presentation of the pagan mind set that I've ever read.
  
  If his excellent narrative about Diocletian's reign aren't enough, Williams closes with a summary of "Constantine's Completion" of Diocletian's work and considers some of the long term ramifications of it. Diocletian and the Roman Recovery is an excellent read for those with casual interest in Roman history as well as historians looking for an insightful analysis of Diocletian's reign.
  
• 
  Matt Ely

  Most Roman emperors come of as tyrannical, or at least out of touch. Their wars often reek more of personal interest than of genuine need. The book paints a thorough portrait of one emperor who bucked that trend.
  
  Diocles was born in the Balkans and raised as a Roman soldier. His identity was defined by a love for Rome without himself being Roman. And in taking power he sought to break the cycle of violence that had caused generals like him to overthrow the government time and time again. He sought to preserve the empire's integrity and philosophy at all costs, leading to his institution of a kind of proto-federalism and a clear line of succession based on military rank, not geneology. His limited persecution of Christians is regrettable, but understandable in the context of an empire that felt itself to be surrounded by enemies on all sides and filled with opportunists and traitors within (essentially an accurate statement). The portrait is of a man who struggled to save his homeland against the trends of the time, only to see his life's work fall apart in his old age. He is a tragic character, immediately understandable and sympathetic, even in the modern age.
• 
  Zachary

  A remarkably good, readable, and well-written account of the reign of Diocletian, and the far-reaching restructuring of the Roman Empire that he carried out that marked the end of the troubled time of Crisis of the Third Century. It was sad, as I expected, to read of the man's great exertions and triumphs, and then to read of his living long enough to see his system of joint, tetrarchic rule come crumbling down in years of civil war, and him to be relegated to irrelevance. All the sadder is to know that it all culminated in the reign of Constantine, which did so much to set the stage for the tragedy of the fall of the Western Empire, the destruction of the classical world, and the ushering in of the endless wars and conflicts of religious bigotry that so marked the Middle Ages. In the end, though, I find myself wishing that we had more extant that tells of who exactly Diocletian was, how his mind worked, where he came from, but, as with so many figures, great and small, much has been lost to the mists of time. (In itself a humbling lesson.)
• 
  Richard Baker

  Excellent biography of the emperor who did more than anyone to end the great crisis of the third century.