who required parks and recreation space, Diocletian therefore organized some areas of Marjan nearer to the palace as a park.

Hundreds of years later, under the Emperor Diocletian and his successors, new legions raised for the field armies, as opposed to those stationed along the frontiers, were recruited to only about 1, 000 men and were, therefore, the size of military auxiliary cohorts.

It became common under Diocletian, who is therefore a logical choice as the first ruler of the " early " dominate.

Under the governance of the jurists Gregorius, Aurelius Arcadius Charisius, and Hermogenianus, the imperial government began issuing official books of precedent, collecting and listing all the rescripts that had been issued from the reign of Hadrian ( r. 117 – 38 ) to the reign of Diocletian.

The Codex Gregorianus includes rescripts up to 292, which the Codex Hermogenianus updated with a comprehensive collection of rescripts issued by Diocletian in 293 and 294.

In 296, Diocletian issued an edict reforming census procedures.

Diocletian restored the three-metal coinage and issued better quality pieces.

According to tradition, San Marino was founded in 301 AD when a Christian stonemason named Marinus the Dalmatian, later venerated as Saint Marinus, emigrated in 257 AD from the Dalmatian island of Rab, then a Roman colony, when the emperor Diocletian issued a decree calling for the reconstruction of the city walls of Rimini which had been destroyed by Liburnian pirates.

Providentia appeared on Roman coins issued under Vespasian, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Septimius Severus, Commodus and Diocletian.

He issued the first proper silver coins that had appeared in the Roman Empire for generations, knowing that good quality bullion coinage would enhance his legitimacy and make him look more successful than Diocletian and Maximian.

The type of coins issued changed under the coinage reform of Diocletian, the heavily debased antoninianus ( double denarius ) was replaced with a variety of new denominations, and a new range of imagery was introduced that attempted to convey different ideas.

Diocletian issued an Edict on Maximum Prices in 301, which attempted to establish the legal maximum prices that could be charged for goods and services.

* 311 – The Edict of Toleration by Galerius was issued in 311 by the Roman Tetrarchy of Galerius, Constantine and Licinius, officially ending the Diocletian persecution of Christianity.

The Edict on Maximum Prices ( also known as the Edict on Prices or the Edict of Diocletian ; in Latin Edictum De Pretiis Rerum Venalium ) was issued in 301 by Roman Emperor Diocletian.

Earlier in his reign, as well as in 301 around the same time as the Edict on Prices, Diocletian issued Currency Decrees, which attempted to reform the system of taxation and to stabilize the coinage.

From Diocletian to Theodosius I, namely during approximately 100 years, more than 2, 000 laws were issued.

In 303, the Emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding the legal rights of Christians and demanding that they comply with traditional Roman religious practices.

In 295, either Diocletian or his Caesar ( subordinate emperor ), Galerius, issued an edict from Damascus proscribing incestuous marriages and affirming the supremacy of Roman law over local law.

In the judgment of historian Roger Rees, there was no logical necessity for this second edict ; that Diocletian issued one indicates that he was either unaware the first edict was being carried out, or that he felt it was not working as quickly as he needed it to.

* Emperor Diocletian issues his Edict on Maximum Prices, which, rather than halting rampant inflation and stabilizing the economy, adds to inflationary pressures by flooding the economy with new coinage and by setting price limits too low.

* Edict on Maximum Prices ( 301 ), by Roman Emperor Diocletian.

* 301 – Diocletian issues the Edict on Maximum Prices.

All coins in the Decrees and the Edict were valued according to the denarius, which Diocletian hoped to replace with a new system based on the silver argenteus and its fractions.

The follis of Diocletian, despite efforts to enforce prices with the Edict on Maximum Prices ( 301 ), was revalued and reduced.

In other words, sometime after the publication of the edicts by Eastern Roman Emperor Diocletian in 303 and before the proclamation of the toleration Edict of Milan by co-ruling Roman Emperors Constantine I and Licinius in 313.

The table counted the years starting from the presumed birth of Christ, rather than the accession of the emperor Diocletian on 20 November 284, or as stated by Dionysius: " sed magis elegimus ab incarnatione Domini nostri Jesu Christi annorum tempora praenotare ..." It is assumed Dionysius Exiguus intended either 1 AD or 1 BC to be the year of Christ's birth ( a " year zero " does not exist in this calendar ).

Ar., lxiv, and De Syn., xviii ), St Athanasius does not recall from memory being a first hand witness to the onset of the great persecution by the Tetrarchy of Diocletian and Maximian in February 303, for in referring to the events of this period he makes no direct appeal to his own personal recollections, but falls back on tradition.

Art dating from the Diocletian period ( 286 – 305 AD ) in Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily depicts women in garments resembling bikinis in mosaics on the floor.

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

Diocletian delegated further on 1 March 293, appointing Galerius and Constantius as Caesars, junior co-emperors.

Weakened by illness, Diocletian left the imperial office on 1 May 305, and became the only Roman emperor to voluntarily abdicate the position.

There is a contemporary issue of coins suggestive of an imperial adventus ( arrival ) for the city, but some modern historians state that Diocletian avoided the city, and that he did so on principle, as the city and its Senate were no longer politically relevant to the affairs of the Empire and needed to be taught as much.

If Diocletian ever did enter Rome shortly after his accession, he did not stay long ; he is attested back in the Balkans by 2 November 285, on campaign against the Sarmatians.

The titles were probably meant to convey certain characteristics of their associated leaders ; Diocletian, in Jovian style, would take on the dominating roles of planning and commanding ; Maximian, in Herculian mode, would act as Jupiter's heroic subordinate.

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.

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

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.

Diocletian moved into Egypt to suppress him, first putting down rebels in the Thebaid in the autumn of 297, then moving on to besiege Alexandria.

Rhetorically Eusebius records the Oracle as saying " The just on Earth ..." These impious, Diocletian was informed by members of the court, could only refer to the Christians of the Empire.

When Diocletian reappeared in public on 1 March 305, he was emaciated and barely recognizable.

Diocletian and Maximian were both present on 11 November 308, to see Galerius appoint Licinius to be Augustus in place of Severus, who had died at the hands of Maxentius.

Within his court Diocletian maintained a permanent body of legal advisers, men with significant influence on his re-ordering of juridical affairs.

On one occasion, Diocletian had to exhort a proconsul of Africa not to fear the consequences of treading on the toes of the local magnates of senatorial rank.

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.

In addition to his administrative and legal impact on history, the Emperor Diocletian is considered to be the founder of the city of Split in modern-day Croatia.

* Dioclesian, Henry Purcell's 1690 tragicomic semi-opera, loosely based on the life of the historical Diocletian

15 minute audio lecture on Diocletian.

The Principate ( 27 BC-284 AD ) period was succeeded by what is known as the Dominate ( 284 AD-527 AD ), during which Emperor Diocletian tried to put the Empire on a more formal footing.

A work on the martyrs of Palestine in the time of Diocletian was composed after 311 ; numerous fragments are scattered in legendaries which have yet to be collected.