Diocletian stabilized the economy through price edicts and reorganized the military into mobile field armies. However, he is also remembered for the "Great Persecution," a final, violent attempt to suppress the rising tide of Christianity and restore traditional Roman values.
The Cyprian Plague decimated the workforce and the army. The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine
Severus shifted the empire’s power base away from the Senate and toward the military. While this provided short-term stability, it created a dangerous precedent. His successors, including the notorious , expanded citizenship to nearly all free inhabitants of the empire (the Constitutio Antoniniana ), primarily to increase tax revenue for a ballooning military budget. However, the dynasty ended in chaos with the assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 AD, triggering a half-century of near-total collapse. The Crisis of the Third Century (235–284 AD) Diocletian stabilized the economy through price edicts and
The empire physically broke apart into three pieces: the Gallic Empire in the west, the Palmyrene Empire in the east, and the Roman core. Diocletian and the Tetrarchy (284–305 AD) Severus shifted the empire’s power base away from
Constantine legalized Christianity, moving it from a persecuted cult to the favored religion of the state.