What did Diocletian divide his empire into?

Answer 1

Diocletian never divided the empire into anything. He divided the ruling of the empire into four administrative units with the power and authority being equally shared. The empire itself remained intact.

Diocletian never divided the empire into anything. He divided the ruling of the empire into four administrative units with the power and authority being equally shared. The empire itself remained intact.

Diocletian never divided the empire into anything. He divided the ruling of the empire into four administrative units with the power and authority being equally shared. The empire itself remained intact.

Diocletian never divided the empire into anything. He divided the ruling of the empire into four administrative units with the power and authority being equally shared. The empire itself remained intact.

Diocletian never divided the empire into anything. He divided the ruling of the empire into four administrative units with the power and authority being equally shared. The empire itself remained intact.

Diocletian never divided the empire into anything. He divided the ruling of the empire into four administrative units with the power and authority being equally shared. The empire itself remained intact.

Diocletian never divided the empire into anything. He divided the ruling of the empire into four administrative units with the power and authority being equally shared. The empire itself remained intact.

Diocletian never divided the empire into anything. He divided the ruling of the empire into four administrative units with the power and authority being equally shared. The empire itself remained intact.

Diocletian never divided the empire into anything. He divided the ruling of the empire into four administrative units with the power and authority being equally shared. The empire itself remained intact.

Answer 2

Diocletian created the tetrarchy (rule by four). He decided to co-rule with Maximian, the two co-emperors taking charge of the east and the west respectively. Maximian then appointed Constantius as junior emperor (Caesar) and assigned him Gaul and Britain and responsibility for the border along the river Rhine. Diocletian appointed Galerius as Caesar and assigned Illyricum (roughly east Austria, western Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece) and responsibility for the border along the river Danube to him. Diocletian then concentrated on the Middle East and Egypt and Maximian on Italy, Hispania and Africa.

Four capitals were created. Nicomedia was the capital for the east and Milan for the west. Augusta Treverorum (modern Trier, in Germany) became the capital for Gaul and Britannia and Sirmium (near modern Belgrade) became the capital of Illyricum.

The tetrarchy was not a division into different empires. It was the creation of four jurisdictions within the same empire and a system of co-rulership devised because it was recognised that a sole ruler could not manage to defend the vast borders of the empire alone.

Answer 3

Emperor Diocletian created the tetrarchy (rule by four). He appointed fellow general Maximian as co-emperor who took charge of the western part of the empire, while he took charge of the eastern part. These two men became senior emperors (Augusti) with the creation of two junior emperors (Caesars). The latter two took charge of defending the troubled frontiers along the rivers Rhine and Danube respectively, which were under constant attack from outside.

This created four administrative divisions. Diocletian took charge of the territories in Asia. Maximilian took charge of Italy and Africa. One junior emperor took charge of Britain, Gaul and Spain and the other took charge of the Balkan Peninsula in southeastern Europe. This reform improved the efficiency of the defence of the vast frontier of the empire. It was not a division of the empire which, as Diocletian stressed, was indivisible. It was an administrative arrangement.

Co-emperorship was not new. Previously emperors had made their sons co-emperors with one in charge of the east and the other in charge of the east. The purpose was the same, improving the defence of the frontiers. After the tetrarchy, there was an alternation of periods of co-emperorship and periods with a sole emperor.

Answer 4

The Roman Empire was never split. Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire hare terms which have been coined by historians. The Romans did not use these terms.

There were alternations between periods with co-emperorship (with one emperor in the west and one in the east) and periods with a sole emperor who ruled the whole empire, which shows that the empire was not divided.

The east and the west are judged by historians to have become separate when Theodosius the Great died in 395. This was not due to an imperial decision to do so. It was a loss of unity. It happened because the two sons of Theodosius, whom he designated as co-emperors (Arcadius in the east and Honorius in the west) were young, inexperienced and incompetent. This resulted in politicians in the east and the west conspiring against each other. Moreover, the west soon became to crumble under the weight of the invasions by the Germanic peoples. During this period of disintegration, the emperor of the east also interfered with politics in the west.

The eastern part of the Roman Empire was not affected by the invasions which cause the western part to fall and continued to exist for nearly 1,000 years.Historians have coined the term Byzantine Empire to indicate the eastern part of the Roman Empire after the fall of the western part of the Roman Empire. The Romans did not use this term, they called it Roman Empire or Romania (this referred to this empire and not the country which was later called Romania).

The term Byzantine is derived from Byzantium, the Greek city which was redeveloped, turned into the imperial capital of the eastern part of the Roman Empire and renamed Constantinople by the emperor Constantine the Great in 330. It is used to indicate the fact that not long after the fall of the western part, this empire became centred on Greece and Greek in character after it lost most of its non-Greek territories. Greek replaced Latin as the official language of this empire in 620, some 150 years after the fall of the west.

Answer 5

Diocletian never divided the empire into anything. He divided the ruling of the empire into four administrative units with the power and authority being equally shared. The empire itself remained intact.