Diocletian (244–311) was Roman Emperor from 284 to 305. Acclaimed emperor by the army, his ascension to power ended the Crisis of the Third Century. Diocletian appointed Maximian his Augustus, his senior co-emperor, in 285. In 293, he appointed Galerius and Constantius as Caesars, junior co-emperors. Under this "Tetrarchy", each emperor would rule over a quarter-division of the empire. In campaigns against Sarmatian and Danubian tribes (285–90), the Alamanni (288), and usurpers in Egypt (297–98), Diocletian secured the empire's borders and purged it of threats to his power. In 299, Diocletian led negotiations with Persia, the empire's traditional enemy, and achieved a lasting and favorable peace. He also separated and enlarged the empire's civil and military services and reorganised the provincial divisions, establishing the largest and most bureaucratic government in Roman history. Not all Diocletian's plans were successful; the Edict on Maximum Prices was counterproductive and quickly ignored. The Diocletianic Persecution failed to destroy the empire's growing Christian community. His Tetrarchic system collapsed after his abdication. Despite his failures, Diocletian's reforms fundamentally changed the structure of Roman government, enabling an empire that had seemed near the brink of collapse in Diocletian's youth to remain essentially intact for another century.
Read the rest of this article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletian> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1066: Harold Godwinson of England defeated Harald Hardråde of Norway in Yorkshire at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, marking the end of Viking invasion of England. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stamford_Bridge> 1396: Ottoman wars in Europe: Ottoman forces under Bayezid I defeated a Christian alliance led by Sigismund of Hungary in the Battle of Nicopolis near present-day Nikopol, Bulgaria. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nicopolis> 1513: Conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa , upon a peak in present-day Darién, Panama, became the first European known to have seen the Pacific Ocean from the New World, naming it Mar del Sur, or South Sea, a few days later. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_N%C3%BA%C3%B1ez_de_Balboa> 1944: World War II: British troops began their withdrawal from the Battle of Arnhem in the Netherlands, ending the Allies' Operation Market Garden in defeat. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arnhem> 1983: In one of the largest prison escapes in British history, 38 Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoners hijacked a prison meals lorry and smashed their way out of HM Prison Maze in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_Prison_escape> 1996: The last Magdalene Asylum, an institution to rehabilitate so-called "fallen" women, in Ireland was closed. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Asylum> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: haggle (v): To argue for a better deal, especially over prices with a seller <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/haggle> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist's way of scribbling "Kilroy was here" on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass. --William Faulkner <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Faulkner> _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Daily Article mailing list. To unsubscribe, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l Questions or comments? Contact [email protected]
