Who were Diocletian and Constantine?
Diocletian and Constantine were the 38th & 40th Emperors of Rome, respectively. Diocletian did NOT attempt to stop the spread of any religion, he worked unceasingly to re-unify the empire. He did issue an edict persecuting those who would not offer sacrifice to the Roman gods, this included Christians. He did reform the Roman Empire quite well, but abdicated in 305 A.D. after an illness suffered in the winter before. He doubled the districts in Rome from Octavian’s 7 to 14, thus the term Diocese is used to refer to divisions in a province of any Roman institution, including the Catholic Church. He retired to his palace in modern day Croatia to grow cabbages! Constantine was the first Christian Emperor of Rome. It was said after he died that he had a dream in which he saw the Chiro (P with an X through it) and thus painted this sign on the shields of his soldiers before battle of the Milvian bridge. He made Christianity a licitas religio (legal religion) and thus set the stage for the r
