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The Tetrarchy was the system instituted by Roman emperor Diocletian in 293 AD to govern the ancient Roman Empire by dividing it between two emperors, the augusti, and their junior colleagues and designated successors, the caesares.
Diocletian's administrative reforms had the twin aims of ensuring political stability and providing the bureaucratic infrastructure needed to raise the recruits and supplies needed by the army. At the top, Diocletian instituted the Tetrarchy. This divided the empire into two halves, East and West, each to be ruled by an Augustus (emperor).
Roman emperor Diocletian, who framed the constitution of the Tetrarchy. Under Diocletian's new constitution, power was shared between two emperors called Augusti.The establishment of two co-equal Augusti marked a rebirth of the old republican principle of collegiality, as all laws, decrees, and appointments that came from one of the Augusti, were to be recognized as coming from both conjointly.
Diocletian's reforms, including the establishment of the tetrarchy, aimed to address the vastness of the empire and internal instability. [1] The rise of Christianity, legalized by Constantine the Great in 313 CE, profoundly changed the religious landscape, becoming a central force in Roman life.
He began by sharing his rule with a colleague, then formally established the Tetrarchy of four co-emperors in 293. [24] However the trend of civil war would continue after the abdication of Diocletian in the Civil wars of the Tetrarchy (306–324) until the rise of Constantine the Great as sole Emperor. [25]
The power-sharing agreement proved durable, with Diocletian mostly ruling in the East, and Maximian in the West. The diarchy developed into a tetrarchy—the rule of four co-emperors—when Diocletian appointed two officers from Illyricum, Constantius Chlorus and Galerius, as Caesars in 293.
The new territorial division of tetrarchic system, promoted by Diocletian (c. AD 300). The emperor Diocletian introduced a radical reform known as the tetrarchy (AD 284–305), with a western and an eastern senior emperor styled Augustus, each seconded by a junior emperor (and designated successor) styled caesar.
The tetrarchy reform of Diocletian (c. 296) multiplied the office: there was a praetorian prefect as chief of staff (military and administrative)—rather than commander of the guard—for each of the two Augusti, but not for the two Caesars.