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
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire disease or environmental degradation may be the "apparent" causes of societal collapse, the ultimate cause is "diminishing returns on investments in social complexity". In "The Complete Roman Army" (2003) Adrian Goldsworthy, a British military historian, sees the causes of the collapse of the Roman Empire not in any 'decadence' in the make-up of the Roman legions, but in a combination of endless civil wars between factions of the Roman Army fighting for control of the Empire. This inevitably weakened the army and the society upon which it depended, making it less able to defend itself against the growing numbers of