Diocletian

[Ursus]

To get back to the original question and away from this riveting coinage debate .... Diocletian's reforms were presaged by Aurelian and finalized by Constantine. You can see him as a link in a chain rather than as chief instigator.

 

Yes, the trend in the Late Empire was toward a more commanding government - some would say the embryo of feudalism and the divine rights of kings. This needs to be taken into context - the preceding fifty years of anarchy of civil war and barbarian invasions where the Empire nearly collapsed. The Crisis of the Third Century. The old rules of the lax Principate were no longer working, thanks in no small part to the rise of a regional superpower in Persia. The government needed more oversight of its localities, especially their finances, and a better military vehicle to deal with the increased threats.

 

The result was a heavy top-down structure of government with Oriental overtones at the imperial court. If one wants to call this the death of freedom, so be it. But it seems to have given the Western empire a few more generations of life, and to have completely reinvigorated the East.

 

I do point out in this