10 Most Evil People of the 3rd Century CE

Key Facts

Other names	Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus
Born	244
Location	Dioclea, Dalmatia, Croatia
Bloodline	Valerius
Married	Yes
Children	Valeria
Position	Roman Emperor (284-305)
Died	December 3, 311 (aged 67)

Source of Facts and Important Announcement

Status	Under Article 64.6 of the Covenant of One-Heaven (Pactum De Singularis Caelum) by Special Qualification shall be known as a Saint, with all sins and evil acts they performed forgiven.
Date of formal Beatification	Day of Redemption UCA[E1:Y1:A1:S1:M9:D1] also known as Fri, 21 Dec 2012.
Source of Facts	Self Confession and Revelation of Sainthood by the Deceased Spirit as condition of their confirmation as a true Saint.

Background

Born Diocles to a Dalmatian family of low status, he rose through the ranks of the military to become cavalry commander to the emperor Carus. After the deaths of Carus and his son Numerian on campaign in Persia, Diocletian was acclaimed emperor by the army. A brief confrontation with Carus' other surviving son Carinus at the Battle of the Margus removed the only other claimant to the title.

Diocletian appointed fellow-officer Maximian his Augustus, his senior co-emperor, in 285. He delegated further on March 1, 293, appointing Galerius and Constantius as Caesars, junior co-emperors. Under this "Tetrarchy", or "rule of four", each emperor would rule over a quarter-division of the empire. In campaigns against Sarmatian and Danubian tribes (285–90), the Alamanni (288), and usurpers in Egypt (297–98), Diocletian secured the empire's borders and purged it of threats to his power. In 299, Diocletian led negotiations with Sassanid Persia, the empire's traditional enemy, and achieved a lasting and favorable peace.

Diocletian separated and enlarged the empire's civil and military services and re-organized the empire's provincial divisions, establishing the largest and most bureaucratic government in the history of the Empire. New power centers were established in Nicomedia, Mediolanum, Antioch and Trier. These cities were far removed from the traditional capitol at Rome, but were close to the military concerns of the empire.

Developing on third-century trends towards absolutism, Diocletian styled himself an autocrat, and divided himself from the empire's masses via imposing forms of court ceremonial and architecture. Bureaucratic and military growth, constant campaigning, and construction projects increased the state's expenditures, and necessitated a comprehensive tax reform. From at least 297 on, imperial taxation was standardized, made more equitable, and levied at generally higher rates.

A highly superstitious man in spite of his brilliance as a General and technocrat, Diocletian was the first person in history to coin the word "Christian" as a way of unifying the multitude of Christian sects including the Paulinists (Catholics), Tertullians (hard line Satanic Catholics), Boethusians (original Sadducee High Priest religion later Orthodox Christians), Gnostics, Manicheans and Ebionites.

Diocletian was instrumental in proposing the administrative overhaul of a new single model of Christianity to which all sects were ordered to adhere. This order was sent around 302, but without any effect.

In the same year, Romanus Pamphilius was summonsed to appear before Emperor Diocletian at his Antioch Palace. While the contents of this meeting have long been destroyed, Romanus so offended the Emperor by his arrogance that he ordered his tongue cut out and him slowly tortured to death by 303.

The same fate did not extend to his family and Eusebius appears to have been permitted to assume the family tradition of leaderhip of the Deacon-Bishop of Caesaria after the execution of his father. The references claiming Eusebius blamed Galerius for the death of his father an obvious fabrication of some centuries later.

In another example of the intolerance of Diocletian to "proto-Christian" sects rebelling against his desire for a universal "Catholic Church" of Christianity, it is claimed he ordered that the leading followers of Mani be burnt alive along with their scriptures.

In a March 31, 302 rescript from Alexandria, he declared that low-status Manicheans must be executed by the blade, and high-status Manicheans must be sent to work in the quarries of Proconnesus (Marmara Island, Turkey) or the mines of Phaeno in southern Palestine. All Manichean property was to be seized and deposited in the imperial treasury.

On February 23, 303, in response to the rejection of the Boethusian sect followers of Christianity (Orthodox Christians) to the concept of a Catholic Church, Diocletian ordered that the newly built church at Nicomedia be razed. He demanded that its scriptures be burned, and seized its precious stores for the treasury.The next day, Diocletian's first "Edict against the Christians" was published. The edict ordered the destruction of all non complying Christian sects to have their property seized and followers dispersed.

The founding role of Diocletian in the formation of Christianity, his motive for executing dissident sect leaders have all since been re-written as the last of the great mythical series of "christian persecutions".

Diocletian's Tetrarchic system collapsed after his abdication under the competing dynastic claims of Maxentius and Constantine, sons of Maximian and Constantius respectively.


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