Diocletian and the Late Roman Empire — The Tetrarchy, the Price Edict 301 CE, and the Bureaucratic Transformation

Recite Three Promises. Review: at 300 CE — at the start of Diocletian's reign — what was happening at Tikal Maya and in Gupta-precursor India? (Reinforce SIMULTANEITY.)

• Recite Three Promises
• Cold Call: name one event in 300 CE outside Rome
• Display MG-3 + MG-19 + MG-12 simultaneously

M-6-S-CUL-03-B Photograph

Modern aerial photograph of Diocletian's Palace at Split (Spalato), Croatia — the rectangular palace-city of 30,000 m² built 295-305 CE on the Dalmatian coast; modern city of Split grew around and within the palace walls over 1700 years; the palace is a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979. Visual cue caption: 'Diocletian voluntarily abdicated 305 CE — the only Roman emperor to retire to a palace alive. The palace still stands. Modern Croatian families live within its walls today. Living descendants.' Aerial shot from drone at 100m altitude; cityscape of modern Split visible around palace.

Diocletian (r. 284-305 CE) inherited a Roman Empire that had nearly disintegrated in the third-century crisis (235-284 CE — 26 emperors in 49 years, severe currency inflation, civil wars, Sasanian-Persian and Germanic-frontier pressure). Diocletian's reform — the Tetrarchy — split imperial authority between two senior emperors (Augusti) ruling East and West, each with a designated junior emperor (Caesar) as successor. Diocletian also expanded the imperial bureaucracy, doubled the army, restructured the currency, and issued the Edict on Maximum Prices 301 CE (Edictum de Pretiis Rerum Venalium) — the earliest extant comprehensive imperial price-control edict in world history. Diocletian also launched the Great Persecution of Christians 303 CE (we will name this honestly in Lesson 4 under MG-15 trauma-informed protocol). Show MG-12 Diocletian's Price Edict primary-source handout. Begin to model the MG-7 6-Question Source Card on this source.

• Notice: economic historians look at COINS as primary sources; the metallic composition of a denarius across time is a quantitative historical source.

  model Severe price inflation — the silver content of the denarius had dropped from ~95% in 1st century CE to ~5% by Diocletian's reign per Walter Scheidel's numismatic analysis. Diocletian's solution was to cap maximum prices and wages by imperial edict. (The edict failed in practice — markets responded with shortages — but the attempt shows the scale of the crisis Diocletian inherited.)

  prompt What problem was Diocletian's Price Edict trying to solve?
• Notice: sourcing tells us WHO was writing, WHEN, WHERE, and WHY — every primary source has all four.

  model Diocletian's imperial chancery created the Edict, 301 CE, in the eastern part of the empire (the edict was inscribed in Greek + Latin and posted in eastern Roman cities especially), to control prices and wages during severe inflation. Diocletian had political and economic motives — he needed the edict to succeed to restore confidence in the imperial currency.

  prompt Apply Wineburg Move 1 (Sourcing): who created Diocletian's Edict, when, where, why?

• Cold Call (Lemov): What is the Tetrarchy? Name the 4 roles.
• Cold Call: Apply Wineburg Move 1 (Sourcing) to Diocletian's Edict.
• No Opt Out: Why did the Edict on Maximum Prices fail in practice?

MG-12 Diocletian's Price Edict primary-source handout introduced; MG-7 6-Question Source Card applied jointly with class on Wineburg Moves 1-2 (Sourcing + Contextualization); Moves 3-6 attempted in independent practice.

M-6-S-CUL-03-A Chart

MG-12 8.5x11 inch educator handout: top half shows photograph of the surviving inscribed stone fragment from Aphrodisias (now in British Museum), with Latin / Greek bilingual inscription visible; bottom half shows 12 selected price-and-wage entries from Elsa Rose Graser 1940 translation revised by Siegfried Lauffer 1971: e.g., 'maximum price for 1 modius (~8.62 L) of wheat: 100 denarii; maximum daily wage for unskilled rural laborer: 25 denarii including food; maximum daily wage for skilled mason: 50 denarii; maximum daily wage for school-teacher of reading: 50 denarii per student per month'. Bottom edge: 'Source: Diocletian Edictum de Pretiis Rerum Venalium 301 CE. Translation: Graser 1940 / Lauffer 1971.' MG-7 Source Card prompts printed on reverse.

MG-12 Chart

8.5x11 inch educator handout: top half shows photograph of the surviving inscribed stone fragment from Aphrodisias (now in the British Museum and other collections); bottom half shows 12 selected price-and-wage entries from Elsa Rose Graser 1940 translation revised by Siegfried Lauffer 1971: e.g., 'maximum price for 1 modius (~8.62 L) of wheat: 100 denarii; maximum daily wage for unskilled rural laborer: 25 denarii including food; maximum daily wage for skilled mason: 50 denarii; maximum daily wage for school-teacher of reading: 50 denarii per student per month; maximum daily wage for elementary tutor: 200 denarii per student per month'; etc. Bottom edge: 'Source: Diocletian Edictum de Pretiis Rerum Venalium 301 CE. Translation: Graser 1940 / Lauffer 1971.' MG-7 Source Card prompts printed on reverse for source-card written response.

MG-7 Interactive Physical / non-image

8.5x11 inch laminated double-sided card. FRONT: 'MG-7 Ancient-and-Classical Source Card' header; 6 numbered questions: (1) SOURCING — Who created this source? When? Where? Why? (Wineburg Move 1); (2) CONTEXTUALIZATION — What was happening at the time and place this source was created? What had just happened? What was about to happen? (Wineburg Move 2); (3) CORROBORATION — Does another source from the same time and place agree or disagree? Is the creator a partisan? (Wineburg Move 3); (4) CLOSE READING — What does the source literally say in its words? What does it leave unsaid? (Wineburg Move 4); (5) LIVING DESCENDANTS — Who today is a living descendant of the people who created or were addressed by this source? How do they treat this source as a living heritage? (NMAI Essential Understanding 5 extended); (6) WHOSE TRANSLATION? WHOSE SILENCES? — Who translated this source into English and when? What perspective is MISSING from this source (e.g., the slave perspective on Diocletian's edicts, the dasi/dasa perspective on Ashoka's edicts)? (WHA / SHEG move). BACK: scaffolded sentence frames for each question; a short-form version (4 Wineburg-only questions) for students still building source-analysis stamina.

• In pairs, apply MG-7 Source Card Wineburg Move 2 (Contextualization) to Diocletian's Edict — what was happening at the time (third-century crisis just ended, frontier wars ongoing)?

  scaffold MG-7 Source Card scaffolded short-form available; consult MG-3 for context
• In pairs, apply MG-7 Source Card Move 5 (Living Descendants) to Diocletian's Edict — who today is a living descendant of Late Roman Mediterranean communities?

  scaffold Hint: modern Italians + Italian diaspora + Croatians (Diocletian's Palace is in Split, Croatia) + Mediterranean Christian + Mediterranean Jewish + Mediterranean Muslim communities; refer to MG-8

• Apply MG-7 Move 6 (Whose Translation? Whose Silences?) to Diocletian's Edict — name ONE perspective MISSING from the edict.
• Why did Diocletian split the empire administratively?

• Show Call (Lemov) — display one strong student source-card response from independent practice; preview Lesson 4 (Diocletian's Great Persecution + Constantine + Edict of Milan — TRAUMA-INFORMED LESSON with MG-15 protocol active)

• Read one selected passage of Lactantius De Mortibus Persecutorum (provided as 2-paragraph excerpt in age-appropriate translation). Apply MG-7 Move 1 (Sourcing) — who wrote this, when, where, why? Hint: Lactantius was a partisan Christian writer.