He could closely follow and react to developments on the Danube and Persian borders and Maximian, a general with a large support in the army,ĭiocletian chose as his residence Nicomedia (today's Izmit), a town near the Bosphorus, from which Diocletian appointed as co-emperor ( Augustus) In the previous fifty years many emperors had been overturned after just a few years orĮven months of reign. The new emperor was aware of the weakness of his position: In November 284 the young co-emperor Numerian fell ill in Syria and died in rather obscureĬircumstances: Diocles, the head of the imperial bodyguard, accused the prefect of the Praetorian guard of having poisoned the emperor and killed him.ĭiocles was acclaimed emperor by the army and he took the more Latin name of Diocletianus (Diocletian).Ĭarinus, the other co-emperor and brother of Numerian, was defeated in the following year by Diocletian, who thus became the sole ruler. (left to right: Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Pope Innocent III and Pope Sixtus IV)

Diocletian war of all against all