History of the Roman Empire disputes about the supreme authority, this finally formalised a peaceful succession of the emperor: in each half a "Caesar" would rise up to replace the "Augustus" and select a new "Caesar". On May 1, 305, Diocletian and Maximian abdicated in favour of their "Caesars". Galerius named the two new "Caesars": his nephew Maximinus for himself, and Flavius Valerius Severus for Constantius. The arrangement worked well under Diocletian and Maximian and shortly thereafter. The internal tensions within the Roman government were less acute than they had been. In "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", Edward Gibbon notes that this
History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire The History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire is a study of the ancient Roman Empire that traces the progression of Roman political development from the abolition of the Roman Principate around the year 200 until the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE. When Diocletian became Roman Emperor in 284 CE, he inherited a constitution that was no longer functioning, and so he enacted the most significant constitutional reforms in over three-hundred years. His reforms, much like those three-hundred years before, were intended to correct the