DOCLEA - Diocletian's Origins, Cultural Legacy and Economic Advancement

The rise to power of Diocletian on November 17, 284 AD, marked the beginning of the recovery and revival of the Roman Empire. He ascended to the throne as a mature man and found a deeply shaken state after 50 years of military anarchy, filled with internal struggles for power but also with immediate threats from barbarian peoples and their increasingly frequent incursions into Roman territories.

During his twenty-year reign, Diocletian brought order to the military ranks, successfully waged war against external enemies, arranged the finances and the tax system, and reformed the monetary and administrative system, which stabilized the already damaged economic order of State. Undoubtedly, he was remembered for the innovative system of government – the tetrarchy, which he tried to introduce as a new form of Roman supreme power. Diocletian’s reforming work in the state apparatus was completed by Constantine I, who added Christianity as the ideological support of the state, which laid the foundations for future Early Medieval states.

He voluntarily retired in 305 AD, fulfilling the wishes of a veteran, that is, an officer of Illyrian origin, and devoted the last years of his life to the land, gardening and rural pleasures.

The measures that Diocletian implemented in the political and institutional order of the Empire, which left a deep mark on the late Roman Empire, are still discussed in historical science. The social changes that began then and lasted until the end of the Early Byzantine period can also be seen in the archaeological material. The analysis of existing archaeological data is of particular importance for the study of this period, especially in the provincial culture of the Balkans.

Actualizing the problem of material culture of the Late Antique period when the symbiosis of the local substrate, Roman tradition and different barbarian peoples, resulting in provincial variations and innovations, is the primary task of the conference.