The Donatists stressed the holiness of the church and refused to accept the authority to administer the sacraments of those who had surrendered the scriptures when they were forbidden under the Emperor Diocletian.

Diocletian, impressed with the boy's determination to resist, promised him wealth and power, but Pancras refused, and finally the emperor ordered him to be decapitated on the Via Aurelia, on May 12, 303 AD ; this traditional year of his martyrdom cannot be squared with the saint's defiance of Diocletian in Rome, which the emperor had not visited since 286, nor with the mention of Cornelius ( 251-253 ) as bishop of Rome at the time of the martyrdom, as the most recent monograph on Pancras's texts and cult has pointed out.

He announced his new faith, and refused to renounce it, even when ordered to do so by emperor Diocletian.

Diocletian may or may not have been present at the battle, but he quickly divested himself of all responsibility.

Diocletian may or may not have been present at the battle, but would present himself soon afterwards at Antioch, where the official version of events was made clear: Galerius was to take all the blame for the affair.

In another account, the battle is represented as having resulted in a complete victory for Diocletian, for Carinus ' army deserted him.

* 285 – Carinus dies in battle against Diocletian.

* 286 – Emperor Diocletian elevates his general Maximian to co-emperor with the rank of Augustus and gives him control over the Western regions of the Roman Empire.

In his Easter table the year 532 AD was equated with the regnal year 248 of Emperor Diocletian.

Such numbers may have amounted to a substantial proportion, if not all, of the Peucini Bastarnae: Victor claims that the Carpi resettled in Pannonia by Diocletian at the same time, together with those previously transferred by Aurelian, amounted to the entire Carpi tribe.

After the Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476, with the beginning of the Migration Period, Julius Nepos shortly ruled his diminished domain from the Diocletian palace after his 476 flight from Italy.

Diocletian replaced the prefect of Rome with his consular colleague Bassus.

Diocletian's stay in the East saw diplomatic success in the conflict with Persia: in 287, Bahram II granted him precious gifts, declared open friendship with the Empire, and invited Diocletian to visit him.

Bahram II's gifts were widely recognized as symbolic of a victory in the ongoing conflict with Persia ; Diocletian was hailed as the " founder of eternal peace ".

At the conclusion of discussions with the Persians, Diocletian re-organized the Mesopotamian frontier and fortified the city of Circesium ( Buseire, Syria ) on the Euphrates.

This suggestion is unpopular, as it is clear that Diocletian meant for Maximian to act with a certain amount of independence.

In the East, Diocletian engaged in diplomacy with desert tribes in the regions between Rome and Persia.

Diocletian spent the spring of 293 traveling with Galerius from Sirmium ( Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia ) to Byzantium ( Istanbul, Turkey ).

By the end of his reign, Diocletian had secured the entire length of the Danube, provided it with forts, bridgeheads, highways, and walled towns, and sent fifteen or more legions to patrol the region ; an inscription at Sexaginta Prista on the Lower Danube extolled restored tranquilitas at the region.

In early 294, Narseh sent Diocletian the customary package of gifts between the empires, and Diocletian responded with an exchange of ambassadors.

Following some public disputes with Manicheans, Diocletian ordered that the leading followers of Mani be burnt alive along with their scriptures.

Galerius convinced Diocletian that the culprits were Christians, conspirators who had plotted with the eunuchs of the palace.

Diocletian soon grew impatient with the city, as the Romans acted towards him with what Edward Gibbon, following Lactantius, calls " licentious familiarity ".

According to Lactantius, he came armed with plans to reconstitute the Tetrarchy, force Diocletian to step down, and fill the Imperial office with men compliant to his will.

Through coercion and threats, he eventually convinced Diocletian to comply with his plan.

Their homes were distant from political life, but Diocletian and Maximian were close enough to remain in regular contact with each other.

The Sarmatians requested that Diocletian either help them recover their lost lands or grant them pasturage rights within the empire.

The fifth-century pagan Zosimus, by contrast, praised Diocletian for keeping troops on the borders, rather than keeping them in the cities, as Constantine was held to have done.

Both these views had some truth to them, despite the biases of their authors: Diocletian and the Tetrarchs did greatly expand the army, and the growth was mostly in frontier regions, although it is difficult to establish the precise details of these shifts given the weakness of the sources.

* Edward Gibbon ( 18th century historian ) dismissed his testimony on the number of martyrs and impugned his honesty by referring to a passage in the abbreviated version of the Martyrs of Palestine attached to the Ecclesiastical History, book 8, chapter 2, in which Eusebius introduces his description of the martyrs of the Great Persecution under Diocletian with: " Wherefore we have decided to relate nothing concerning them except the things in which we can vindicate the Divine judgment.

These reforms were finally realized late in the century under the reign of Diocletian, one of them being to divide the empire into an eastern and western half, and have a separate ruler for each.

Diocletian also moved parts of today's Slovenia out of Pannonia and incorporated them in Noricum.

Some aristocrats attempted to become senators in order to escape the difficult conditions that were imposed on them by late Roman Emperors such as Diocletian ( r. 284-305 AD ).

Porphyry is also known as an opponent of Christianity and defender of Paganism ; his defense of traditional religion, Philosophy from Oracles, written before the persecutions of Christians under Diocletian and Galerius, set out the basis for them:

During the-year-long persecution of Christians by Emperor Diocletian, he hid his fellow Christians and prevented them from being caught.

One of the four inscriptions around the main entrance to the Baths of Diocletian reads, translated from Latin, “ Our Lords Diocletian and Maximian, the elder and invincible Augsti, fathers of the Emperors and Caesars, our lords Constantius and Maximian and Severus and Maximin, noblest Caesars, dedicated to their beloved Romans these auspicious Baths of Diocletian, which the divine Maximin on his return from Africa ordered to be built and consecrated in the name of his brother Diocletian, having purchased the premises required for so huge and remarkable work and furnishing them with the most sumptuous refinement .” The baths take up 120, 000 square metres of the district, which is about the same size as the Baths of Caracalla.

This church was chosen for several reasons: ( 1 ) Like other baths in Rome, the building was already naturally southerly oriented, so as to receive unobstructed exposure to the sun ; ( 2 ) the height of the walls allowed for a long line to measure the sun's progress through the year more precisely ; ( 3 ) the ancient walls had long since stopped settling into the ground, ensuring that carefully calibrated observational instruments set in them would not move out of place ; and ( 4 ) because it was set in the former baths of Diocletian, it would symbolically represent a victory of the Christian calendar over the earlier pagan calendar.

During the persecution under Diocletian, Cosmas and Damian were arrested by order of the Prefect of Cilicia, one Lysias who is otherwise unknown, who ordered them under torture to recant.

During the persecutions several Christians suffered martyrdom at Milan ; among them Saints Gervasius and Protasius ( first persecution of Diocletian ), Sts.

They supported for a long time the weight of all the wars and distinguished themselves so remarkably that the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian on their accession honored them with the titles of Jovian and Herculean and preferred them before all the other legions.

A further massive transfer of Bastarnae was carried out by emperor Diocletian ( ruled 284-305 ) after he and his colleague Galerius defeated a coalition of Bastarnae and Carpi in 299.

Dalmatia was the birthplace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who, upon retirement from Emperor in AD 305, built a large palace near Salona, out of which the city of Split later developed.

Diocletian (; c. 22 December 244 – 3 December 311 ), was a Roman Emperor from 284 to 305.

After the deaths of Carus and his son Numerian on campaign in Persia, Diocletian was proclaimed Emperor.

The title was also claimed by Carus ' other surviving son, Carinus, but Diocletian defeated him in the Battle of the Margus.

Diocletian was probably born near Salona in Dalmatia ( Solin in modern Croatia ), some time around 244.

He was a man skilled in areas of government where Diocletian, presumably, had no experience.

Diocletian was not the only challenger to Carinus ' rule: the usurper M. Aurelius Julianus, Carinus ' corrector Venetiae, took control of northern Italy and Pannonia after Diocletian's accession.

It was all good publicity for Diocletian, and it aided in his portrayal of Carinus as a cruel and oppressive tyrant.

As leader of the united East, Diocletian was clearly the greater threat.

It was too much for a single person to control, and Diocletian needed a lieutenant.

Diocletian was in a less comfortable position than most of his predecessors, as he had a daughter, Valeria, but no sons.

The relationship between Diocletian and Maximian was quickly couched in religious terms.

Maximian's appointment is unusual in that it was impossible for Diocletian to have been present to witness the event.

It has even been suggested that Maximian usurped the title, and was only later recognized by Diocletian in hopes of avoiding civil war.

On his return to the East, Diocletian managed what was probably another rapid campaign against the resurgent Sarmatians.

Afterwards, during 299 and 302, as Diocletian was then residing in the East, it was Galerius ' turn to campaign victoriously on the Danube.

In a public ceremony at Antioch, the official version of events was clear: Galerius was responsible for the defeat ; Diocletian was not.

It is unclear if Diocletian was present to assist the campaign ; he might have returned to Egypt or Syria.