The Empire of the Tetrarchs: Imperial Pronouncements and
Government, AD 284--324. Simon J. J. Corcoran, 1996 Clarendon
Press, Oxford: . Pp. 406. $85/£48. 0-19-814984-0. Reviewed by R.
W. B. Salway, Projet Volterra, History Department, University
College London, WC1E 6BT, U.K., firstname.lastname@example.org.
Those who fail to pay attention to the subtitle of Simon
C[orcoran]'s book might be initially perplexed by its content.
For this is no straightforwardly analytical narrative of the
empire of Diocletian, his colleagues and immediate successors.
What it is, in fact, is an unashamedly technical monograph on
the nature of the rule--imperium(empire) in the sense of
governing authority--as developed under that system of
collegiate government, instituted by Diocletian, which modern
scholars term the Tetrarchy. In fact C. extends his coverage
beyond the narrow confines of the period of the classic
Tetrarchy, in which there were exactly four emperors, to
encompass the whole of Diocletian's reign from his accession