Thanks to Selena giving you the who's who rundown, I am now free to give you the fandom primer! I.e. why this is my fandom, and what is fanon and what is canon.
First and foremost, everything derives from a single fact: my fandom source is Gibbon's Decline and Fall.
Gibbon, as you probably know, is 18th century. This means almost everything he says has been challenged or even refuted by modern scholars. Hell, much of what selenak says has been at least challenged by modern scholars. The sources are so brief, biased (in one direction or the other), and otherwise unreliable that for almost every fact you will find a historian confidently stating, another scholar will claim the opposite, and a third will point out that the so-called "fact" depends on a single unreliable narrative source, or is contradicted by non-narrative sources or archaeological evidence.
For example, did the junior emperors marry the senior emperors' daughters as soon as they were appointed junior emperors, or did the marriages take place several years earlier and the senior emperors appointed their sons-in-law whom they'd had plenty of opportunity to observe at close range? You can make a case either way! Was Diocletian's reign really that sharp of a break with his predecessors? Has the extent of the 3rd century crisis and the extent to which his reign represents a "recovery" been overstated? Whose idea was it to retire, and when? Was there actually a conference at Carnuntum? Did Diocletian actually not like Rome? Was Maximian Caesar before he was Augustus? Did Diocletian divide up the empire amongst the tetrarchs? If so, how and when and how many times? And so on and so forth. For most things, we just don't know! And even where modern scholars have achieved a consensus, it took a lot of work and deciding what evidence to give more weight to.
So if you want to write a primer, you have to pick some things to state as fact (like Selena did), otherwise the summary will be impenetrable, and if you want to write a fanfic, you should go with Gibbon's take actually have a whole lot of flexibility!
The beauty of Gibbon's take is that he will give detailed personality descriptions of the people involved; modern historians correctly state that this is absolutely historically irresponsible. His description of Diocletian, for example:
It would not be easy to persuade us of the cowardice of a soldier of fortune who acquired and preserved the esteem of the legions, as well as the favour of so many warlike princes. Yet even calumny is sagacious enough to discover and to attack the most vulnerable part. The valour of Diocletian was never found inadequate to his duty, or to the occasion; but he appears not to have possessed the daring and generous spirit of a hero, who courts danger and fame, disdains artifice, and boldly challenges the allegiance of his equals. His abilities were useful rather than splendid - a vigorous mind improved by the experience and study of mankind; dexterity and application in business; a judicious mixture of liberality and economy, of mildness and rigour; profound dissimulation under the disguise of military frankness; steadiness to pursue his ends; flexibility to vary his means; and, above all, the great art of submitting his own passions, as well as those of others, to the interest of his ambition, and of colouring his ambition with the most specious pretences of justice and public utility.
And Maximian:
Maximian was born a peasant, and, like Aurelian, in the territory of Sirmium. Ignorant of Letters, careless of laws, the rusticity of his appearance and manners still betrayed in the most elevated fortune the meanness of his extraction. War was the only art which he professed. In a long course of service he had distinguished himself on every frontier of the empire; and though his military talents were formed to obey rather than to command, though, perhaps, he never attained the skill of a consummate general, he was capable, by his valour, constancy, and experience, of executing the most arduous undertakings. Nor were the vices of Maximian less useful to his benefactor. Insensible to pity, and fearless of consequences, he was the ready instrument of every act of cruelty which the policy of that artful prince might at once suggest and disclaim. As soon as a bloody sacrifice had been offered to prudence or to revenge, Diocletian, by his seasonable intercession, saved the remaining few whom he had never designed to punish, gently censured the severity of his stern colleague, and enjoyed the comparison of a golden and an iron age, which was universally applied to their opposite maxims of government. Notwithstanding the difference of their characters, the two emperors maintained, on the throne, that friendship which they had contracted in a private station. The haughty, turbulent spirit of Maximian, so fatal afterwards to himself and to the public peace, was accustomed to respect the genius of Diocletian, and confessed the ascendant of reason over brutal violence. From a motive either of pride or superstition, the two emperors assumed the titles, the one of Jovius, the other of Herculius. Whilst the motion of the world (such was the language of their venal orators) was maintained by the all-seeing wisdom of Jupiter, the invincible arm of Hercules purged the earth from monsters and tyrants.
For historical purposes, all you can say is, "I mean, maybe?" Some of it might be true, but the level of confidence is just way overstated. For fanfic purposes, however, all I can say is, "Ship them with great shippiness!" :D
Another side-effect of me encountering them via Gibbon is that first I got a description of the lead-up to Diocletian, which meant a whole lot of rival candidates for the purple trying to kill each other. The thing Selena described where Maximian and his son Maxentius allegedly wrestled over the purple cloak? A hundred years earlier, you had two brothers, Caracalla and Geta, being co-emperors and living like this:
On their arrival at Rome, they immediately divided the vast extent of the Imperial palace. No communication was allowed between their apartments: the doors and passages were diligently fortified, and guards posted and relieved with the same strictness as in a besieged place. The emperors met only in public, in the presence of their afflicted mother; and each surrounded by a numerous train of armed followers.
Then Caracalla has his younger brother Geta killed so he can rule alone!
So of *course* when Diocletian appointed Maximian co-emperor, I was yelling, "No, don't do it! Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I'm several hundred pages in, and this never ends well!"
And I read Diocletian's entire reign waiting for Maximian to betray Diocletian...and he...didn't? Despite having the kind of headstrong and domineering personality where you'd totally expect him to? (See what happened post-retirement.)
And then he (somehow) got Maximian to retire! And then, somehow, even though being a retired emperor should make you entirely powerless, and Maximian had everything to lose and nothing to gain by agreeing, he did it again! Despite the fact that it didn't last--even that just proved to me that Diocletian had some kind of in-person influence over Maximian, because Maximian clearly had the kind of personality that did not want to give up power for one minute. Which made it all the more impressive.
Because I was reading, going, "Yeah, okay, I see that on a political level Diocletian did not have the whole going into retirement and smoothing over the succession thing down, but on a personal level he clearly he had some kind of hold over Maximian! Tell me more!"
Because my entire ship here is based on the complementary skills and personalities that allow them to do things together that they couldn't do alone (I loved their good-cop bad-cop act as described by Gibbon), plus the absolute loyalty. It's very much the dynamic of the Duc de Belle-Isle and his brother. In fact, you could call Maximian Diocletian's "other self". ;) A contemporary panegyric pretty much did:
[Your brotherhood] even conquers your difference in age, and with care for each other renders equals the older and younger...For although you are different in age, most sacred emperors, we understand you have a twin accord...Neither of you favours his own nature more; each wishes to be what his brother is.
This is also, cahn, one of the ships where I have always imagined loyalty gestures like kneeling, swearing, etc. Like even leaving aside the part where Diocletian became emperor and thus everyone was performing gestures of submission, it's impossible for me to believe there weren't some special gestures between those two.
ALSO. From the same panegyric, which focuses on Diocletian and Maximian meeting in Milan after years apart ruling different parts of the empire, describes the end of the meeting where they had to go their separate ways again:
What were your feelings at that time, what were your expressions! How incapable were your eyes of disguising the evidence of emotion! Of course, you looked back frequently, and this is not an empty fiction made up about you--you exchanged such assurances since you intended soon to return to see each other.
Modern scholar Rees describes this as "the presentation of the Dyarchs' meeting in Milan almost as a lovers' tryst."
Note for historiographic purposes, there's no reason (that I know of) to believe this was an eyewitness report, and it was definitely propaganda meant to be over the top. But for fandom purposes, it's catnip!
Also, I should point out that, yes, they spent most of their reigns separated by half of Europe and only meeting up a couple of times and they retired separately (Italy for Maximian, modern-day Split, Croatia for Diocletian). So my personal headcanon has always been to ship them non-romantically, but like Karl XII and Görtz, or Belle-Isle and his brother: doing things together that they couldn't do separately, trusting each other, and bringing a lot of intensity to their working relationship, but not having a typical romantic or sexual relationship.
HOWEVER. I am deeply grateful to my mystery author for this line:
When you said we’d retire together, I thought you meant TOGETHER.
Because it is giving me more traditional shippy feelings like whoa! GUH. <3
Also, speaking of retirement, Diocletian's palace still stands! This is where he grew his cabbages in his post-retirement life (again quoting Gibbon):
His answer to Maximian is deservedly celebrated. He was solicited by that restless old man to reassume the reins of government and the Imperial purple. He rejected the temptation with a smile of pity, calmly observing that, if he could show Maximian the cabbages which he had planted with his own hands at Salona, he should no longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit of power.
Sadly, when I was in Croatia, I hadn't yet discovered my love for Diocletian, so I did not go to Split. Actually, it was that trip (which was largely to Italy) that caused me to think, "You know, my Roman Empire history is non-existent, I should fix that," and as soon as I came back, or maybe even on the last couple days, I started reading Gibbon. Then I immediately wanted to go back! But of course I haven't.
Diocletian/Maximian fandom primer
First and foremost, everything derives from a single fact: my fandom source is Gibbon's Decline and Fall.
Gibbon, as you probably know, is 18th century. This means almost everything he says has been challenged or even refuted by modern scholars. Hell, much of what
For example, did the junior emperors marry the senior emperors' daughters as soon as they were appointed junior emperors, or did the marriages take place several years earlier and the senior emperors appointed their sons-in-law whom they'd had plenty of opportunity to observe at close range? You can make a case either way! Was Diocletian's reign really that sharp of a break with his predecessors? Has the extent of the 3rd century crisis and the extent to which his reign represents a "recovery" been overstated? Whose idea was it to retire, and when? Was there actually a conference at Carnuntum? Did Diocletian actually not like Rome? Was Maximian Caesar before he was Augustus? Did Diocletian divide up the empire amongst the tetrarchs? If so, how and when and how many times? And so on and so forth. For most things, we just don't know! And even where modern scholars have achieved a consensus, it took a lot of work and deciding what evidence to give more weight to.
So if you want to write a primer, you have to pick some things to state as fact (like Selena did), otherwise the summary will be impenetrable, and if you want to write a fanfic, you
should go with Gibbon's takeactually have a whole lot of flexibility!The beauty of Gibbon's take is that he will give detailed personality descriptions of the people involved; modern historians correctly state that this is absolutely historically irresponsible. His description of Diocletian, for example:
It would not be easy to persuade us of the cowardice of a soldier of fortune who acquired and preserved the esteem of the legions, as well as the favour of so many warlike princes. Yet even calumny is sagacious enough to discover and to attack the most vulnerable part. The valour of Diocletian was never found inadequate to his duty, or to the occasion; but he appears not to have possessed the daring and generous spirit of a hero, who courts danger and fame, disdains artifice, and boldly challenges the allegiance of his equals. His abilities were useful rather than splendid - a vigorous mind improved by the experience and study of mankind; dexterity and application in business; a judicious mixture of liberality and economy, of mildness and rigour; profound dissimulation under the disguise of military frankness; steadiness to pursue his ends; flexibility to vary his means; and, above all, the great art of submitting his own passions, as well as those of others, to the interest of his ambition, and of colouring his ambition with the most specious pretences of justice and public utility.
And Maximian:
Maximian was born a peasant, and, like Aurelian, in the territory of Sirmium. Ignorant of Letters, careless of laws, the rusticity of his appearance and manners still betrayed in the most elevated fortune the meanness of his extraction. War was the only art which he professed. In a long course of service he had distinguished himself on every frontier of the empire; and though his military talents were formed to obey rather than to command, though, perhaps, he never attained the skill of a consummate general, he was capable, by his valour, constancy, and experience, of executing the most arduous undertakings. Nor were the vices of Maximian less useful to his benefactor. Insensible to pity, and fearless of consequences, he was the ready instrument of every act of cruelty which the policy of that artful prince might at once suggest and disclaim. As soon as a bloody sacrifice had been offered to prudence or to revenge, Diocletian, by his seasonable intercession, saved the remaining few whom he had never designed to punish, gently censured the severity of his stern colleague, and enjoyed the comparison of a golden and an iron age, which was universally applied to their opposite maxims of government. Notwithstanding the difference of their characters, the two emperors maintained, on the throne, that friendship which they had contracted in a private station. The haughty, turbulent spirit of Maximian, so fatal afterwards to himself and to the public peace, was accustomed to respect the genius of Diocletian, and confessed the ascendant of reason over brutal violence. From a motive either of pride or superstition, the two emperors assumed the titles, the one of Jovius, the other of Herculius. Whilst the motion of the world (such was the language of their venal orators) was maintained by the all-seeing wisdom of Jupiter, the invincible arm of Hercules purged the earth from monsters and tyrants.
For historical purposes, all you can say is, "I mean, maybe?" Some of it might be true, but the level of confidence is just way overstated. For fanfic purposes, however, all I can say is, "Ship them with great shippiness!" :D
Another side-effect of me encountering them via Gibbon is that first I got a description of the lead-up to Diocletian, which meant a whole lot of rival candidates for the purple trying to kill each other. The thing Selena described where Maximian and his son Maxentius allegedly wrestled over the purple cloak? A hundred years earlier, you had two brothers, Caracalla and Geta, being co-emperors and living like this:
On their arrival at Rome, they immediately divided the vast extent of the Imperial palace. No communication was allowed between their apartments: the doors and passages were diligently fortified, and guards posted and relieved with the same strictness as in a besieged place. The emperors met only in public, in the presence of their afflicted mother; and each surrounded by a numerous train of armed followers.
Then Caracalla has his younger brother Geta killed so he can rule alone!
So of *course* when Diocletian appointed Maximian co-emperor, I was yelling, "No, don't do it! Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I'm several hundred pages in, and this never ends well!"
And I read Diocletian's entire reign waiting for Maximian to betray Diocletian...and he...didn't? Despite having the kind of headstrong and domineering personality where you'd totally expect him to? (See what happened post-retirement.)
And then he (somehow) got Maximian to retire! And then, somehow, even though being a retired emperor should make you entirely powerless, and Maximian had everything to lose and nothing to gain by agreeing, he did it again! Despite the fact that it didn't last--even that just proved to me that Diocletian had some kind of in-person influence over Maximian, because Maximian clearly had the kind of personality that did not want to give up power for one minute. Which made it all the more impressive.
Because I was reading, going, "Yeah, okay, I see that on a political level Diocletian did not have the whole going into retirement and smoothing over the succession thing down, but on a personal level he clearly he had some kind of hold over Maximian! Tell me more!"
Because my entire ship here is based on the complementary skills and personalities that allow them to do things together that they couldn't do alone (I loved their good-cop bad-cop act as described by Gibbon), plus the absolute loyalty. It's very much the dynamic of the Duc de Belle-Isle and his brother. In fact, you could call Maximian Diocletian's "other self". ;) A contemporary panegyric pretty much did:
[Your brotherhood] even conquers your difference in age, and with care for each other renders equals the older and younger...For although you are different in age, most sacred emperors, we understand you have a twin accord...Neither of you favours his own nature more; each wishes to be what his brother is.
This is also,
ALSO. From the same panegyric, which focuses on Diocletian and Maximian meeting in Milan after years apart ruling different parts of the empire, describes the end of the meeting where they had to go their separate ways again:
What were your feelings at that time, what were your expressions! How incapable were your eyes of disguising the evidence of emotion! Of course, you looked back frequently, and this is not an empty fiction made up about you--you exchanged such assurances since you intended soon to return to see each other.
Modern scholar Rees describes this as "the presentation of the Dyarchs' meeting in Milan almost as a lovers' tryst."
Note for historiographic purposes, there's no reason (that I know of) to believe this was an eyewitness report, and it was definitely propaganda meant to be over the top. But for fandom purposes, it's catnip!
Also, I should point out that, yes, they spent most of their reigns separated by half of Europe and only meeting up a couple of times and they retired separately (Italy for Maximian, modern-day Split, Croatia for Diocletian). So my personal headcanon has always been to ship them non-romantically, but like Karl XII and Görtz, or Belle-Isle and his brother: doing things together that they couldn't do separately, trusting each other, and bringing a lot of intensity to their working relationship, but not having a typical romantic or sexual relationship.
HOWEVER. I am deeply grateful to my mystery author for this line:
When you said we’d retire together, I thought you meant TOGETHER.
Because it is giving me more traditional shippy feelings like whoa! GUH. <3
Also, speaking of retirement, Diocletian's palace still stands! This is where he grew his cabbages in his post-retirement life (again quoting Gibbon):
His answer to Maximian is deservedly celebrated. He was solicited by that restless old man to reassume the reins of government and the Imperial purple. He rejected the temptation with a smile of pity, calmly observing that, if he could show Maximian the cabbages which he had planted with his own hands at Salona, he should no longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit of power.
Sadly, when I was in Croatia, I hadn't yet discovered my love for Diocletian, so I did not go to Split. Actually, it was that trip (which was largely to Italy) that caused me to think, "You know, my Roman Empire history is non-existent, I should fix that," and as soon as I came back, or maybe even on the last couple days, I started reading Gibbon. Then I immediately wanted to go back! But of course I haven't.