Lex Fridman Podcast

Podbit · Lex Fridman Podcast

#498 – Anthony Kaldellis: Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Rise & Fall of Empires

Explore episode Jun 30, 2026
History
Diocletian's Solution: Turning the Problem Into the Fix

#498 – Anthony Kaldellis: Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, R… · Jun 30, 2026 History

Diocletian's genius was realizing the problem of too many wannabe emperors could be solved by officially having four emperors — the Tetrarchy. He paired this with a universal census, systematic taxation including for the first time taxing Italy itself, and a vastly enlarged bureaucracy. He turned political instability into a constitutional framework and gave the empire a model it would use for the next three centuries.

6m 45s

Where this was said

Crisis of the Third Century

At 1:09:35 · chapter starts 1:07:17

The Crisis of the Third Century is Roman history at its most chaotic: roughly 26 emperors murdered in 50 years (nearly one every two years), hyperinflation, a devastating pandemic possibly killing 5,000 people a day in Rome alone from 249 to 262 AD, and the empire fracturing into three competing pieces. Yet even in this chaos, Kaldellis notes something remarkable: the rebel generals who broke away and set up the 'Empire of the Gauls' were not separatists. They still wanted to rule the whole empire. They simply knew no other political model. The only political imaginary was Roman. Emperor Aurelian then reconquered the fragments in just five years — a feat Kaldellis allows is extraordinary. Diocletian, inheriting a still-precarious situation, turned the problem into its own solution: too many wannabe emperors? Have four official ones — the Tetrarchy. He also implemented universal taxation including of Italy, which had been tax-exempt for centuries as the 'land of the conquerors,' and created the larger bureaucratic structures — a universal census, systematic administration — that defined the late Roman state. He left his successors a model they would use for three centuries.

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