17.3 Europe: a.d. 201 to 300  (Page 2/2)

The whole Roman realm had a short period of peace under one of the Balkan emperors, Probus, until his troops murdered him in 282. Then Diocles, or Diocletian, a man of genius and statesmanship became emperor and reorganized the empire. A native Illyrian and Dalmation soldier, he abandoned Rome and made his headquarters at Nicomedia, a few miles south of Byzantium in Asia Minor. He delegated control of the western half of the empire to his general, Maximian, as co-ruler in the city of Ravenna, Italy, and then made extensive political reforms including the division of the empire into four major prefectures and then forming further subdivisions as dioceses and finally provinces. (Ref. 28 ) At that time the empire was said to have 435,000 men under arms, chiefly infantry. Finally Diocletian, falling prey to the common curse of ancient men of power, claimed that he was the earthly embodiment of Jupiter, while Maximian consented to be Hercules. This identification of god and king meant the final failure of republican institutions of antiquity and a reversion to the forms and theories of Achaemenid and Egyptian courts. From this orientalized monarch came the structure and form of Byzantine and the European kingdoms until the time of the French Revolution. All that was needed now was to ally the oriental monarch in his oriental capital with an oriental faith. Byzantinism began with Diocletian. (Ref. 48 , 127 )

Central europe

As the Germanic tribes migrated westward, behind them the Slavs began to cross the Elbe and filter into modern Bohemia, Moravia and parts of eastern Germany. The Marcomanni, who were already in this area, raided westward and southward, even into Italy itself. The Frankish tribes invaded across the Rhine and along with the Alemanni also attacked directly into Italy. In battles from A.D. 270 to 275 the Emperor Aurelian finally stopped these invasions and held the Germanic tribes essentially at the Rhine once again. In the Pannonian diocese, which included most of Austria, Hungary and the western edge of Yugoslavia, the Asding branch of the Vandals had replaced the Iazygians as the dominant element in the southern portion, while the Gepids (related to the Goths) occupied the north. (Ref. 136 , 127 )

Western europe

Spain became a large scale producer of wine, olive oil and other products, including a delicious fish-paste. Some insurrections in this country, as in other parts of the empire, were eventually put down by Aurelian. Revolt leaders Postumus and Tetricus in Gaul were also eventually defeated. In Belgium the Franks swept the Gaulic Celts into the south, giving rise to the original language barrier with the northern Germanic tongue dominant at that time. In England, late in the century the pirates were so numerous around the coasts that Carausius, who happened to be a Belgian sailor, was assigned by the Roman authorities to clear the North Sea and the channel of these brigands. He did so, using mercenaries of Germanic and Frankish origin. But he made enemies in Rome and was murdered in A.D. 293 by his finance officer, Allectus, who then kept England independent of Roman control for three years, until Constantius Chlorus re-conquered the area using a new navy and fresh troops. (Ref. 8 , 43 , 136 , 24 )

Scandinavia

In this area the most significant change from recent centuries was the replacement of all Lapps and Finns in Denmark by Germanic tribes by A.D. 250. Included in the latter group were the definitive Danes. Roman coins of the 3rd century have been found on Iceland, presumably taken there by the Roman Emperor Constans who sailed in pursuit of Celtic pirates who had raided Wales and then led their pursuer to an arctic island.

(Ref. 175 , 66 )

Eastern europe

Traveling from north to south in this region, we would find Finns in the sparsely settled far north, but south of them going from west to east along the Baltic, we would find first the Balts, then a large area of Slavs and finally, just north of the Black Sea, various Iranian tribes, including the Roxolani and Alans. By A.D. 300 the Ostrogoths had expanded eastward across the Ukraine to dominate the Roxolani, but otherwise there was not much change throughout this century with the possible exception that there may have been some Turkish-speaking Hunnish people already drifting into this area. (Ref. 136 , 127 )

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