Diocletian and Constantine

The Roman Empire during the third-century was in very bad shape. Without the serious reformation that took place, the empire would have fallen in a matter of time. The two main people responsible for reforming and improving it are Diocletian and Constantine. They understood the problems of the empire and worked to resolve them. They were saviors of the empire.

After a century of disorganization, economic collapse and foreign invasion in the Roman Empire, something finally was done. Diocletian came into power. He served from 284-305 B.C. One of the first reforms he made was dividing the empire into four parts, making it easier to rule because it was a smaller area. He called this plan the "tetrarchy". It doubled the number of officials and territories by dividing the large territories into smaller ones, each having its own ruler. Also, he made sure each area had strong army, legal, financial and secretarial officials.

A second reform of Diocletian was removing corrupt individual from the government. He replaced the wealthy senators and equestrians with trained administrators. He didn't feel the wealthy senators looked out for the interests of the common people. Diocletian also worked to reform the tax system He introduced a method of taxation where how much you would pay was based on the size of land you owned. Although he wasn't entirely successful in this area, some improvement was seen

Diocletian acknowledged there were safety measures that needed to be taken within the empire. Structurally there was a concern because it wasn't too sturdy. Also he felt that the imperial office needed more security. In order to have more security he enlarged the army. Originally it was made up of 300,000 men, but through his efforts he enlarged it to 450,000 men. He made sure that they all received proper training.

After Diocletian's resignation in 306 B.C. Constantine took over. He maintained the structure that Diocletian had introduced for the most part. An important thing he did while in power was unite the Roman Empire. He did so by introducing Christianity which became the official religion of Rome. He renamed the capital of the Empire from Rome to Constantinople.

Constantine introduced a new form of money. It was called gold solidus. For about one thousand years it helped create stability in the Mediterranean. Another thing he did was grant the church tax immunities. He made it so the clergy