reading_gibbon: Chapter XIII: Diocletian Another very long chapter, but an excellent read, full of incident and character. Diocletian comes over as one of the best emperors so far - a slave from Illyria who rose to the top, managed it well, and retired in time to enjoy his later years plating cabbages by the Adriatic. In the meantime he puts down Carausius' rebellion in Britain, wins a war with Persia and sorts out the empire by dividing it into four. Of course, that simply meant new structures that could go wrong; but it was a good solution to the problem of unmanageability. (tags: gibbon)