this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
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Rough Roman Memes
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Explanation: Diocletian was a Roman Emperor of the late 3rd century and early 4th century AD who royally fucked the government he took over, and then promptly retired to a nice villa in the Balkans. When one of his co-emperors wrote to him begging him to come back and unfuck the mess he seeded, Diocletian responded "If you [the messenger] could show the cabbage that I planted with my own hands to your emperor, he definitely wouldn't dare suggest that I replace the peace and happiness of this place with the storms of a never-satisfied greed."
Are you aware of any other dictators that managed a normal, peaceful retirement? It's pretty damn rare, because they present a hell of a pretender to whoever comes next.
Oh, I'm being fucking stupid. Sulla, of course, who took indefinite dictatorial power to reform the Roman Republican government to get rid of those pesky democratic plebbish influences, and then legitimately retired to a nice Mediterranean island with his actor boytoy, and died of worms in his gut (good riddance). Though, like the other three, that's in the context of... not democratic, per se, but let's say being replaced by constitutional government.
Define normal and peaceful?
Pinochet stepped down after losing a referendum by a margin too large to cover, and with the military unwilling to cover his ass. He spent some time as a free man, a decade or so I think, before his long history of atrocities started to catch up to him.
Chun Doo-hwan managed to step down, though he was pressured by the US, and did serve a criminally (ha) short prison sentence.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk formally stepped down from positions of power and legitimately stepped back from political life to focus on drinking and smoking himself to death, though he remained immensely influential through unofficial channels. YMMV on whether that's really retirement.
All of those are dictators who stepped down in the context of a democratic government though, rather than of another autocracy. I'm sure there are examples out there, but I can't think of any at the moment.
TIL Ataturk did that. And generally who Chun Doo-hwan was. Not getting killed or permanently imprisoned was what I meant, and it makes sense that you can manage it if the country is now a democracy and people don't hate you too much.
It occurs to me that Romulus Augustulus died a natural death as far as is known. You might exclude it on the grounds that the reigns of power were handed pretty directly to Odoacer, but I think it would be an example because he could have been used in a restoration attempt - if anyone had wanted that.
Sounds like he did ok
That's a long discussion, but whether Diocletian's reforms actually stabilized the Empire is extremely dubious, especially considering that it did very little to actually revitalize the economy, and dissolved into a multi-side civil war again before he was even dead, due in no small part to the fact that he made a system with four co-emperors. The Empire was saved from the brink of collapse by Emperors prior to Diocletian, not by Diocletian himself.
Many of his choices would result in long-lasting problems - such as the creation of a hereditary caste system, and life-sentences for conscripted soldiers - while others - like demanding to be worshipped as a living god and persecuting Christians en masse - would have much more immediate effects. That's not even getting into organizational questions about the Legions and the new diocese divisions that replaced the former province boundaries, or the exorbitant expense that would be created in the Imperial court by his Hellenic style of rule.
It it correct that the changes to military structure were basically just coup-proofing?
That was definitely one of the bigger motivations. Splitting units into unsustainably small sizes (typically about a fifth of what the largely self-sufficient legions were) and centralizing production of military equipment both, theoretically, reduced the potential of generals to independently marshal support and start a civil war. Unfortunately for this theory, this resulted simply in the high-ranking members of the Imperial family who were commanding ad hoc armies to do literally exactly the same thing despite the smaller formal unit sizes.
Other structural military reforms, like the multi-tiered system of troop quality, the focus on border defence, and lifelong conscription + automatic conscription of soldiers' sons had other motivations. Cost was a big one. Godlike majesty doesn't pay for itself, after all.
To be more fair to Diocletian, as much as I hate being fair to Diocletian, the Empire at the time was hardly in excellent straits, and while I think most of Diocletian's choices are dogshit, the idea that something needed to change to maintain the Empire's stability was far from absurd.
... but economics are not a type of cheese, caste systems are not a solution to anything, getting worshipped as a god is peak megalomania (regardless of how 'traditional' the eastern half of the Empire found it), making the Empire's military systems brittle to save your own skin gives neither imperial protection nor imperial job security, and holy shit FOUR Emperors? How did that ever sound like a good idea?
At least he didn't fuck the coinage like every other shit Emperor, and some of the good ones too.
Very interesting. The overview on wiki holds him in a pretty good light. I'm not debating you by any stretch - you've forgotten more about Roman history than I could hope to learn - I just find it funny how Wiki got it so wrong - not that they are a towering example of academic integrity
The thing about history is that there very often is no consensus, and the mainstream views on figures can very often change with evidence, or even simply the changing of values in wider society. Wiki correctly notes many of the criticisms in the section on reform, but Wiki is just an encyclopedia - excellent for a quick overview, but generally lacking the nuance and depth of more specific writing. This isn't faulting Wiki, mind you - I adore Wiki, just acknowledging its limitations!
I'm an anti-Diocletian and anti-Constantine partisan, which, while more supported in modern historical academia (though I would not accuse either view of being the consensus view, just an accepted one), was deeply unpopular for a good stretch of the 20th century. So, understandably, many of the sources and authors cited still have positive outlooks on Diocletian (and Constantine).
You're very right.
I also acknowledge that wiki's function is exactly as you describe - quick reference/starting point. It's not the be all end all of a debate or subject.
Interesting about how the views have changed on him though