Читать книгу The Journey: How an obscure Byzantine Saint became our Santa Claus - David Price Williams - Страница 45

the aridity and bleakness of the trade route up from Babylonia. Quite suddenly you reached Palmyra’s green oasis surrounded by the ultra-sophistication of an eastern Roman metropolis. I’ve heard people say it’s an incredible experience. The people are in no way Romans and nor are they even Greeks. They have eccentric traditions and worship a variety of strange gods. Their chief one is called “Bel” for instance.

Diocletian reopened negotiations with them and re-established political ties with the population there, but to make sure there was no back-sliding or any return to secessionist ambitions, he built a large military camp right on the edge of the city so that the Palmyrenes might feel safe on the one hand and on the other to ensured that there was an army presence embedded among the population so that they couldn’t break away again even if they wanted to. It was a clever ploy. The military movements in and around Palmyra also had the effect of intimidating the Persians from trying any under-hand anti-Roman negotiations with the population there.

So, that was where we were by the time I reached my early thirties; the empire had re-stabilized. Rome was in control, though in two halves. Actually, shortly after that Diocletian went one stage further in his reorganisation. He appointed two sub-emperors as understudies to his diarchy, two figures to whom he gave the title “Caesar.” In the west, the emperor Maximian was understudied by the Caesar Constantius

DAVID PRICE WILLIAMS