Where do you think ?

[Diocletianus]

Where do you think the mind of the citzens came to a change during the crisis ?

From a principate empire with the ''prime citzen'' to the god-like emperor, we can assure there is a huge difference between the 2. Where did it start to be a eastern like monarchy ?

[First Citizen Gallienus]

Around the time of Caracalla perhaps? They say he was quite the bastard. There was another emperor soon after that who was a rather eastern-like pompous a-hole that indulged in many lustful pleasures and vices. (edit:ah yes, here is... "Elagabalus," and I forgot to mention that from what I've read and heard about on Diocletian, it is said that he pretty much marked that transition)

[Diocletianus]

Maybe...but he did not were a title like Dominus noster or iovani

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

Wehre did it start to be a eastern like monarchy ?

Eastern monarchies (I assume you mean the Persians and their derivatives here) didn't have god kings. The Greeks did.

You cannot have a god king in a monotheistic religion.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

You cannot have a god king in a monotheistic religion.

Unless your one god is, you know, the king.

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

Too bad that requires a new religion, since all the established posts as the one god are taken.

pompous a-hole that indulged in many lustful pleasures and vices

You do know that such behavior was not exclusive to the "east", and that not even all "eastern" rulers were such?

[Diocletianus]

When I talk of god-king, I talk about the decorum around the emperor i.e kiss the ring, bow before him, title such dominus noster,etc

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

Wasn't kissing the ring common before that too?

What with all the divine bloodlines and ?

[First Citizen Gallienus]

You do know that such behavior was not exclusive to the "east", and that not even all "eastern" rulers were such?

I'm merely referring to what Gibbon basically said. With his bias approach to writing and such.

[Joar]

It's a rather tricky question, because although the emperors from Augustus and onwards acted in the so called "republican theatre", the notion that the political leadership assumed divine authority wasn't exactly a new phenomenon to the Roman society ( for example during a triumph, if my memory serves me correctly ). One must also not forget that claiming divine descent, like the Julians, meant that the line between a divine and secular authority would probably have been a fine one at times.

[Diocletianus]

Thanks for the answer Joar !

[Deutschland]

Obviously Diocletian.

[Diocle]

Diocletianus?!?? Seriusly?!?
Diocletianus was the only Imperator who voluntary dismissed his Officium and never came back to the political life, this is not acting like an oriental tyrannus, this is acting like a simple civil servant. Diocletianus belived firmly in the ancient cultural and religious principles of the roman civilization, he was not an intellectual , he was a soldier who, maybe with some rigidity and political ingenuity, attempted to restore the Imperium Romanorum in its ancient forms. He retired in his palace at Spalato, built like a castra, in which he lived the last part of his life and died like a common citizen. No, really not an oriental semidivine monarch. Constantinus and his dinasty, (ut eum dii deaeque perdant), that was a real oriental, not roman, form of theocratic tyranny, that was the real end of the roman political tradition.
Sorry for my bad english, I'm italian, I can read and understand but writing is an other thing. I follow this forum and play Imperium Joulianorum from the beginnings, never posted before but now I must say that you guys (Divus Julianus Heraclius semper Aug.and you all), these mods and this community are magnificent!!!!

[chaplain118]

I think the change that occured is something that isn't so simply delineated. It wasn't just ONE emperor who managed to change everything. The third century "crisis" is possibly the most hazy part of Roman history and covers an important transitional period that is, sadly, only represented through coins and broken inscriptions. Though we do have records of endless cycles of civil wars that saw victorious armies carrying off plunder and wealth that were essentially part of the economy of the empire at large, causing a massive destablization process that led to power grabs by various different usurpers.

If anything, the concept of a "god-king" head of the state is something that stretches all the way back to Augustus. The idea that the emperor became one's Dominus simply arose from the military confusion that plagued the empire during the 3rd century where 22 emperors came and went like commodity. The quick change forced Diocletian to reform the government so as to re-establish some form of central command. But his reforms were more like the final nail in the coffin than ground-breaking changes. Even during the Antonine dynasty, the empire was showing signs of fracture that would lead to men attempting to attain and hold control via the military, which almost always ended up in a tyrant situation. Diocletian happened to have inherited this problem from his predecessor.

[Diocle]

I agree with you but what I want to underline is that Diocletianus offered a serious attempt to find a mediation point between Senatorial Aristocracy and Exercitus in their permanent struggle for supremacy in the election of the Imperators: Exercitus mantained the role of the only kingmaker but Senatus received the guarantee of a temporarary self-limited imperial power; this obviously wasn't the definitive solution of the problem of leadership in the roman world but was a good compromise.
The successors of Diocletionus didn't understand that returning to dynastic (ORIENTAL) hereditary leadership, now with (ORIENTAL) imposed monotheism, permanently destroyed the political equilibrium, and ultimately prepared the Imperium to his end.

[Julianus Flavius]

I'd say it wasn't a continuous transition from "prime citizen" to "god emperor" but rather depended on each emperor's personality and behaviour, with a gradual slip towards the "god emperor" model revealing itself in the 3rd-4th centuries and ending, to be replaced with a "prime servant of the one god" model as the Judeo-Christian religious outlook took over Roman culture. For instance, Julian the Apostate acted like a "prime citizen" whereas, say, Maxentius acted like a tyrant. It all depends on styles of governance.