Problem-solving emperors

Abstract

In the third century the Roman Empire finally came of age. Problems that had been developing for decades or had even been inherent within its structures from the beginning manifested themselves so strongly that they had at last to be confronted and resolved. The solutions may not have proved permanent ones, but at least the process of looking for them was cathartic. Although the Roman world is often portrayed as only emerging from the period of political and economic problems that marked so much of the century in the reign of Diocletian (284–305), it is worth noting how some of the solutions he was to advance had been prefigured in the reigns of a number of his predecessors.