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55 pages 1 hour read

Edward Gibbon

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Nonfiction | Book | Adult

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Chapters 13-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 13 Summary

The new emperor Diocletian was the son of enslaved people, with a mother from the province of Dalmatia. He appointed an army officer from modern-day Serbia, Maximian, as his co-emperor. In terms of the empire’s political system, Diocletian went even further. He decided there should be four emperors: two senior emperors with the title of Augustus and two junior emperors, the Caesars.

The two chosen Caesars were the generals Galerius and Constantius. The four emperors split the empire between themselves. Galerius had the provinces on the Danube in Eastern Europe, Constantius was responsible for Britain, Gaul, and Spain, Maximian held Italy and Africa, and Diocletian kept Greece, Egypt, and the Middle East.

Still, the empire struggled with revolts and outside attacks. Maximian had to crush a rebellion by the exploited peasants of Gaul. Diocletian fought attacks from groups in North Africa. Britain broke away from the empire under the rule of Carausius. By the time Constantius reconquered Britain, Carausius had been assassinated and replaced by his own advisor, Allectus.

In order to address these problems, Diocletian fortified the borders of the empire and adapted Probus’s policy of allowing “barbarian” tribes to settle depopulated areas. Another act passed by Diocletian was outlawing books of alchemy, which Gibbon says “deserves to be applauded as an act of prudence and humanity” (365). A war with Persia also began when Persia tried to depose the reigning pro-Roman king Tiridates in favor of their own candidates for the throne, but it ended with a Roman victory. With their victories, Gibbon concludes, “The arduous work of rescuing the distressed empire from tyrants and barbarians had now been completely achieved by a succession of Illyrian peasants” (376).

During his time as emperor, Diocletian deliberately snubbed Rome, which Gibbon believes was a deliberate part of a “most artful policy” (379). Diocletian wanted to diminish the importance of both the Senate and the praetorian guard even further. Simply by never being present in Rome, Diocletian never had to bother consulting with the Senate or seek their approval for his laws. The Senate of Rome continued to exist as a respected institution until the end of the empire, but it “was respectfully suffered to sink into oblivion” (380). This also had the effect of weakening the last vestiges of republicanism while Diocletian adopted more openly authoritarian titles like “lord.” Unlike past emperors, he also began to wear a crown and adopted Persian court rituals (381-82). Another major reform that Diocletian launched was expanding the government bureaucracy, which “rendered its operations less rapid but more secure” (383). This also led to greater and more oppressive taxation.

After 21 years as emperor, Diocletian abdicated and retired to a villa in Salona, a city in Dalmatia. According to one story Gibbon cites, Maximian once begged him to return to power, only for Diocletian to reply that “if he could show Maximian the cabbages which he had planted with his own hands at Salona, he should no longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit of power” (388). Although Diocletian had brought peace to the empire, Gibbon argues his era had seen a sharp decline in art and literature. At the same time, a new type of philosopher influenced by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato emerged, who were more concerned with the “verbal disputes of metaphysics” and the “invisible world” than with science (392).

Chapter 14 Summary

After Diocletian abdicated and forced his co-emperor Maximian to do the same, the political system of four emperors that he established started to fall apart. In Gibbon’s words, the system “required such a fortunate mixture of different tempers and abilities as could scarcely be found, or even expected, a second time” (394).

At first, the succession went smoothly. The former Caesars, Constantius and Galerius, became the new Augusti. Gibbon describes Constantius as a ruler who “preserved the modesty of a Roman prince” (395) while Galerius was arrogant and ambitious. Galerius chose as the new Caesars his nephew Maximin and one of his friends, Severus. It was part of his plan to eventually make himself the sole emperor of Rome. However, those plans were spoiled by Constantine, the son of Constantius and Helena, who was herself the daughter of an innkeeper. After his father died, Constantine was declared the new Caesar in Britain. Galerius reluctantly agreed to acknowledge Constantine as a Caesar, making Severus the new Augustus, replacing Constantius.

Meanwhile, the people of Rome, who were already resentful of being abandoned by their own emperors, revolted against Galerius’s harsh taxation of Italy. This came after the privileges of Italy, especially their exemption from direct taxation, had been abolished. The Roman Senate and the praetorian guard chose Maxentius, the son of Maximian, as their new emperor. After the revolt broke out, Maximian came out of retirement and supported his son, becoming his co-emperor. Severus fled to the Italian city of Ravenna where he was tricked into believing the city was about to surrender. Once Severus was captured and brought back to Rome, he died by suicide.

Constantine and Maximian decided to form an alliance against Galerius. Their agreement was sealed by Constantine marrying Maximian’s daughter, Faustina. Galerius was at a disadvantage. Gibbon’s sources claim that Galerius’s troops were reluctant to attack the sacred city of Rome and that Rome was too large to conquer. However, Gibbon notes that Rome had been attacked in many civil wars before and that the city’s size would have made it more vulnerable (406). Instead, Gibbon argues that Galerius’s downfall was caused by his unpopularity in Rome and the fact that Maximian distributed money and honors to the army. Galerius was defeated and forced to leave Italy. Still, he made his friend Licinius his fellow Augustus. Four years after his defeat in Italy, Galerius died from a painful illness.

In the meantime, Maxentius forced his father Maximian out of power. Maximian went to the court of Constantine, where his daughter Faustina was married to Constantine. There, Maximian spread the rumor that Constantine had died and tried to seize power for himself. However, his attempt ended in defeat and Constantine pressured him into death by suicide.

While Constantine’s rule over Gaul and Britain was benevolent, Maxentius’s regime in Italy and Africa was oppressive. Gibbon describes Maxentius as “a tyrant as contemptible as he was odious” (413). Soon, Maxentius used his father Maximian’s death as an excuse to try to defeat Constantine and make himself sole emperor. Constantine defeated Maxentius at the battle of Turin in northern Italy and was able to march into Italy with his forces. Constantine caught up to Maxentius’s army near Rome and crushed his forces. Afterward, Maxentius and his sons were killed, although Constantine showed mercy to many of Maxentius’s supporters. When Constantine showed respect to the Senate, they named him the foremost of the four emperors. While in Rome, Constantine also abolished the praetorian guard for good.

Although Constantine was recognized by his fellow Augustus Licinius, he was then challenged by Maxentius’s nephew, Maximin, who then controlled Egypt and Syria. However, when he tried to march into Europe, Maximin was beaten by Licinius and died shortly afterward. Licinius had Maximin’s young children killed along with Severus’s son Severinus and Galerius’s son Candidianus. Gibbon recounts how Licinius was no less merciful to Diocletian’s daughter, Valeria. She was originally married to Galerius, but after his death, she was pressured into marrying Maximin, who wanted her inheritance. When she refused, Maximin had her and her mother Prescia exiled. They went to the territories of Licinius. After the execution of Candidianus, whom Valeria treated like an adopted son, she and Prescia fled Licinius’s court and went into hiding. When they were discovered, they were beheaded, and their bodies were thrown into the sea.

As Gibbon notes, it only took a year after Constantine and Licinius became the only emperors left that civil war broke out again (429). When Constantine’s brother-in-law Bassianus plotted against Constantine and fled to Licinius’s territory, the fighting began. After several battles, Licinius and Constantine agreed to a peace treaty, giving the western half of the empire to Constantine and his sons and the eastern half to Licinius and his son of the same name.

At this time, Constantine began a program of legal reform. These included a law against infanticide, the practice of parents abandoning infants out in the middle of nowhere, and a law against rape, which also included the brutal execution of a man and woman who eloped without the consent of the woman’s parents. However, Gibbon writes that the “most odious parts of this edict were softened or repealed in the subsequent reigns” (434).

His popularity boosted by further victories against the Goths, Constantine decided to get rid of Licinius. In this newest round of civil wars, Constantine won. Since Licinius’s wife was Constantine’s sister, Constantia, she convinced Constantine to spare Licinius, who was placed under house arrest in the Greek city of Thessalonica. However, Licinius was later executed on a trumped-up charge of conspiracy: “By this victory of Constantine, the Roman world was again united under the authority of one emperor, thirty-seven years after Diocletian had divided his power and provinces with his associate Maximian” (441).

Chapters 13-14 Analysis

In these chapters, Gibbon covers the end of the Crisis of the Third Century and the rise of Constantine, the emperor who will not only bring an end to the Roman Empire’s sporadic persecution of Christians, but will become one himself. These chapters also see the culmination of Gibbon’s views about Rome’s deterioration in terms of “West” versus “East.” The Romans themselves relinquished their preeminent position in their own empire to the people Gibbon deems “service provincials” (382), a process accelerated by Diocletian deliberately snubbing Rome.

Gibbon interprets these facts about Diocletian’s reforms through his stereotyped assumptions, especially in this passage: “Like the modesty affected by Augustus, the State maintained by Diocletian was a theatrical representation; but it must be confessed that, of the two comedies, the former was of a much more liberal and manly character than the latter” (383). Gibbon even compares the monarchy-like system established by Diocletian to the Persian monarchy, describing his adaptation of “Persian manners” (382) to the Roman system of government. In Gibbon’s mind, masculinity and effeminacy, liberty and autocracy, national characteristics, and the question of the decline of Rome are all interlinked.

Gibbon also addresses the topic of The Influence of Religion and Superstition. Although he mostly avoided the topic of Christianity and its persecution in this first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, it is arguably in the background of his narrative. Gibbon’s discussion of a new breed of Platonists sets the stage for his discussion of Christianity in the next volume, especially the elevation of Christianity to the state religion of Constantine. Gibbon strongly implies that the rise of Christianity and the new philosophy would cause the focus of the intellectuals to shift from human social and ethical matters to abstract debates over the invisible world. Gibbon will further suggest in later volumes that this represented a step back from the golden age of Greek and Roman philosophy, as well as from Roman religious pluralism and intellectual freedom. 

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