Late Roman Spain and Its Cities

Four: Diocletian and the Spanish Fourth Century

Four Diocletian and the Spanish Fourth Century 65 † he reforms of Diocletian created the administrative boundaries that shaped Spain’s late Roman history and outlived the imperial government there. These Spanish reforms were not unique, but rather one small part of an empire-wide reorganization that Diocletian undertook in an attempt to deal with the instability endemic to third-century government . For fifty years after the extinction of the Severan dynasty in 235, emperors and imperial aspirants came and went with what seems to us astonishing swiftness. Recent accounts have tended to downplay the traditional picture of an all-encompassing third-century crisis, af- flicting politics, institutions, economics, and society all at once.1 We can hardly doubt that the inflationary spiral of the period was severe and contributed to the weakness of individual emperors and the fragility of their relations with their soldiers and their subjects. Equally, however, the third-century crisis was primarily political. The effect of the rapid turnover of emperors was disastrous for the empire’s governing elite, but also correspondingly limited. Long periods of relative stability intervened between explosions of violence, and the effects of chaos at the very top of the imperial hierarchy were felt unevenly across the empire. The basic source of trouble was the cycle of foreign invasion and consequent usurpation and civil war that proved impossible to break for half a century. Its results were concentrated very heavily on the frontiers and in the frontier provinces.2 The strength of the new Sassanian dynasty, installed at the Persian capital of Ctesiphon in 226 by the shah Ardashir, was perhaps the most important factor contributing to imperial instability in the third century: Alexander Severus was murdered in 235 precisely because of his failed invasion of Persia. The inability of successive emperors to win battles against the Persians, or to simultaneously defend the eastern frontier, the Danube, and the Rhine, encouraged mutinies among fractious Roman armies and usurpations from within them. Nevertheless, the western provinces were affected less badly, and for much less time, than were the provinces of the East. The civil wars from 235 to 253 did not impinge directly on the western provinces until the year 259 and the rebellion of Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus against Gallienus. A Third-Century Crisis in Spain? Postumus held some sort of military command on the lower Rhine, though in exactly what capacity is open to dispute.3 He seems to have been provoked into rebellion by barbarian invasions. Some time around 260, groups of Rhine barbarians invaded the western provinces , and one invading army reached as far as Tarragona in Spain. Though these events were devastating, they were momentary affairs.4 Postumus’s success had more lasting results, a success he ensured with a dramatic victory over the Iuthungi shortly after taking the purple.5 He very rapidly brought the whole of Gaul and parts of Raetia under his control, and by 261 had added Britain to his empire. Spain, too, recognized the new Gallic emperor, probably between 262 and 266. We possess three inscriptions, two from Tarraconensis and one from Baetica, which testify to his having been acknowledged there, though Lusitania was still loyal to Gallienus in 261 under its governor Clodius Laetus Macrinus.6 Spanish officials had no real choice but to acquiesce in Postumus’s usurpation. Between them, the Iberian provinces possessed only a single legion, the VII Gemina, stationed in northwestern Tarraconensis, its manpower dispersed across the north and its headquarters at León by now resembling a thriving town more than a leLate Roman Spain and Its Cities 66 gionary fortress.7 There was no realistic possibility of opposing the seasoned armies of the Rhine frontier, and the usurpation of Postumus foreshadows the consistent pattern of the fourth and fifth centuries, when successful usurpation in Gaul brought the Spanish provinces into line as a matter of course.8 Despite the success of Postumus—who had, after all, been an able defender of the Rhine—the Spanish provinces seem to have been restored to the Italian emperors after Postumus’s assassination in 269. Rather than dedications to the later Gallic emperors, we find a remarkable concentration of Spanish inscriptions honoring the Italian emperor Claudius II.9 No longer attached to Gaul, Spain did not suffer during Aurelian’s suppression of the Gallic empire in 274 and indeed not one battle of the century’s many civil...