Diocletian in Retirement

169, Lot: 302. Estimate $100. Sold for $425. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Diocletian. As Senior Augustus, AD 305-311/2. Æ Follis (28mm, 10.13 g). Londinium (London) mint. Struck AD 305-307. Laureate bust right, wearing imperial mantle, holding olive-branch and mappa / Providentia standing right, extending hand to Quies standing left, holding branch and sceptre. RIC VI 77a. Good VF, brown patina.

From the J. S. Wagner Collection.

Diocletian’s grand plan for reorganizing the empire involved the first formal division of power, to permit closer monitoring of the various provinces and borders. Diocletian and his partner Maximianus would rule as Augusti east and west, with Constantius I and Galerius as subordinate Caesars. The most remarkable innovation came out in 303, when Diocletian decreed that he and Maximianus would retire, and be replaced by the two elevated Caesars. In 305 the first voluntary abdication in Roman imperial history took place, and Diocletian and Maximianus were granted the new titles of Seniores Augusti, Felicissimi et Beatissimi. Diocletian gladly retired to his estate in Spalatum, but Maximianus chafed at his retirement, and when his son Maxentius, one of the new Caesars, proclaimed himself emperor in 306, he joined him as co-ruler. Diocletian came out of retirement to force a conference at Carnuntum in 308, which condemned Maximianus and eventually led to his suicide in 310. Diocletian had preserved the Tetrarchy for a while longer, but within a few years of his death, probably in 312, the system collapsed in civil war.