Public Rituals and Performance: The Ceremonial Staging of Imperial Authority under Diocletian

In parallel with the well-known innovations in the imperial insignia and audience ceremonies (attested by historical sources from the late fourth century onwards), the tetrarchic period saw the development of a new, highly ritualised style of communication between the emperors and the wider public, which will later become an essential characteristic of late antique and Byzantine official self-representation. The new ideology of the joint imperial rule was conveyed and visualised through the organisation of complex public ceremonies, staging in ritual terms the relation of the emperors with one another, as well as with the other social and political forces which constituted the Roman state: the Senate, the army, the bureaucratic elite, the local aristocracies, and the citizens. The traditional ceremonies of the earlier periods, especially the advent and the triumph, underwent profound changes in their rituals and were thus filled with new meanings, perfectly coherent with those expressed by the new insignia and audience etiquette. Textual and visual sources from the fourth century and later allow us an appreciation of these performative changes, although limited to those exceptional events (usually taking place in the city of Rome or in other capital cities) which made their way into the Romans’ cultural memory by being remembered in literary works, as well as in official or private monuments. Through these descriptions, we can grasp some essential characters of the official tetrarchic ideology as they were staged for, and viewed by, the citizens of the most important urban centres of the empire. In contrast with previous imperial ceremonies, the main ritual innovations of the tetrarchic period are aimed not only at emphasising the physical presence of the emperor in front of the people, but also at isolating him from his retinue, conveying to the observer a much more hierarchical image of the imperial power. The episodes examined will include: the official meeting between Diocletian and Maximian, which took place in Milan in AD 288; the staging of Diocletian’s and Galerius’ joint military leadership during the Persian campaign of AD 296-297; and the solemn ceremony held in Rome in AD 303, celebrating at once the twentieth anniversary of Diocletian and Maximian’s joint rule and their triumph over the Persians. Particular attention will be devoted to the latter episode, which is particularly well documented by visual sources (including numismatic evidence), and which will be remembered as the last triumphal ceremony in the history of Rome.