It is worth taking an unbiased look at Diocletian (284-305) as emperor of two times, who ended the bloody crisis period of the soldier emperors with an astonishing reform of his rule and with whom Late Antiquity began. Alexander Demandt, an expert on this epoch, takes on the biography of a ruler who in the end voluntarily retired and became a gardener. He paints a precise picture of his time and the countless challenges Diocletian had to deal with for more than 20 years in terms of military and personnel matters, but also in terms of economic, legal and religious policy.
"Diocletian remains, no matter how closely and critically one looks at him, a great, sympathetic person who created monstrous things through conscious intellectual deeds. [The] re-creation of the empire, which was coming apart at the seams, [proves him to be] a statesman genius of the first rank". With these words, none other than Theodor Mommsen praises a Roman emperor who appeared to other historians as a source of barbarisation, degeneracy and tyranny, and even to the ancient church historian Euseb as the scourge of God.
Group
Books (first-hand)
Author
Demandt, Alexander
Title
Diokletian. Kaiser zweier Zeiten
Details
464 pp.
State
new
Verlag C. H. Beck oHG Wilhelmstr. 9 80801 München Deutschland
