The Christian Roman Empire and the Foundation of the Teutonic Kingdoms

Kurztext / Annotation
The Christian Roman Empire and the Foundation of the Teutonic Kingdoms, by illustrious historian J.B. Bury, chronicles the 3rd through 7th centuries A.D.

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CHAPTER II. THE REORGANIZATION OF THE EMPIRE

IT is natural to think of Diocletian as the projector and of Constantine as the completer of a new system of government for the Roman Empire, which persisted with mere changes of detail until it was laid in ruins by the barbarians. But in reality the imperial institutions from the time of Augustus onwards had passed through a course of continuous development. Diocletian did but accelerate processes which had been in operation from the Empire's earliest days, and Constantine left much for his successors to accomplish. Still these two great organizers did so far change the world which they ruled as to be rightly styled the founders of a new type of monarchy. We will first sketch rapidly the most striking aspects of this altered world, and then consider them one by one somewhat more closely. But our survey must be in the main of a general character, and many details, especially when open to doubt, must be passed over. In particular, the minutiae of chronology, which in this region of history are specially difficult to determine, must often be disregarded.

The ideal of a balance of power between the Princeps and the Senate, which Augustus dangled before the eyes of his contemporaries, was never approached in practice. From the first the imperial constitution bore within it the seed of autocracy, and the plant was not of slow growth. The historian Tacitus was not far wrong when he described Augustus as having drawn to himself all the functions which in the Republic had belonged to magistrates and to laws.

The founder of the Empire had studied well the art of concealing his political art, but the pressure of his hand was felt in every corner of the administration. Each Princeps was as far above law as he chose to rise, so long as he did not strain the endurance of the Senate and people to the point of breaking. When that point was passed there was the poor consolation of refusing him his apotheosis, or of branding with infamy his memory. As the possibility of imperial interference was ever present in every section of the vast machine of government, all concerned in its working were anxious to secure themselves by obtaining an order from above. This anxiety is conspicuous in the letters written by Pliny to his master Trajan. Even those emperors who were most citizen-like (civiles as the phrase went) were carried away by the tide. Tacitus exhibits the Senate as eagerly pressing Tiberius to permit the enlargement of his powers-Tiberius who regarded every precept of Augustus as a law for himself. The so-called lex regia Vespasiani shows how constantly the admitted authority of the emperor advanced by the accumulation of precedents. Pliny gave Trajan credit for having reconciled the Empire with 'liberty'; but 'liberty' had come to mean little more than orderly and benevolent administration, free from cruel caprice, with some external deference paid to the Senate. Developed custom made the rule of Marcus Aurelius greatly more despotic than that of Augustus. Even the emperors of the third century who, like Severus Alexander, made most of the Senate, could not turn back the current. It was long, however, before the subjects of the Empire realized that the ancient glory had departed. Down to the time of the Emperor Tacitus (275-276 AD) pretenders found their account in posing as senatorial champions, and rulers used the Senate's name as a convenient screen for their crimes.
Diocletian

But the natural outcome of the anarchy of the third century was the unveiled despotism of Diocletian. He was the last in a line of valiant soldiers sprung from Illyrian soil, who accomplished the rescue of Rome from the dissolution with which it had been threatened by forces without and by forces within. To him more than to Aurelian, on whom it was bestowed, belonged by right the title "restorer of the world."

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