Four for all

Number 123 on the hero list is the marble headed fellow above one Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus a.k.a. Diocletian born this day 244 in Salona, in present day Crotia. And he is the type of guy that gives us old geezers hope. He was born into a low caste family, and the first 40 years or so of his life are pretty obscure (as are mine), but he was destined for greater things. He was a military commander of some sort at the age of forty when the machinations, and a timely death or two of people not of us have ever heard of led to him being proclaimed emperor by his army in 284. Of course there was the small problem of one (at least) other fellow who seemed to think HE was the real emperor. Will the real emperor please stand up. This fellow, name of Carnius, was duly whipped in battle in late 284 or early 285, and Diocletian (as he came to be called) was THE man in the Roman Empire. He learned lessons well did our boy Diolcletian, and realizing that the Empire was too big to be ruled effectively by one man, he created a co-emperor by the name of Maximian. In 293 he went one better by having himself and Maximian "adopt/appointed" too other men as Caesars (i.e. heirs/junior partners), and the empire was then ruled by a Tetrarchy, Greek for "rule of four." One of his "downsides" is that he was not a fan of Christians, and issued a few edicts against them. He became known as Dukjan the adversary of God. If you like Christians (which I am not a huge fan of the religion), then I guess our boy is more of a heel than hero, but given my present (un)belief I still check the hero box next to his name. Still he brought some order to a time of chaos in the Empire, and on May 1st, 305, at the same location which he was proclaimed Emperor, he gave a speech abdicating the throne. Becoming the first person in history to voluntarily give up the title and job of Emperor. Now, I do not know much about the Emperor business, but I suspect it has it perks, dancing girls, good seats at the track, good food, good wine, and all other sorts of good shit, and giving that up without someones sword pointed at your throat takes a lot of balls. By 308 things were not going so well in the Empire, and a delegation came calling to beg him to ask him to get back in harness he replied "If you could show the cabbage that I planted with my own hands to your emperor, he definitely would not dare suggest that I replace the peace and happiness of this place with the storms of a never-satisfied greed." Apparently he was quite happy raising crops, and had no interest in returning to the Emperor business. He did live long enough (sadly for him) to see his rule of four system fall apart at the seams. But for bringing order out of chaos, and kicking a few rowdy Christians in the ass, Diocletian (December 22th, 244-December 3rd, 311, at the age of 66), you are my hero of the day.