Diocletian Sez!

In 301 AD (1700 or so years ago), the Roman Emperor Diocletian issued an edict in an attempt to control inflation in the price of just about everything sold in the Empire. I ran across a quote from the edict* and found it appropriate to our times too. Maybe our inflation isn't that high, and maybe the powers that be have learned, with repeated lessons over and over again through time, that they can't rob the common people of everything, but, I dunno, it still seems appropriate.

By User:MatthiasKabel - Photographed by myself in Pergamonmuseum Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Part of the Edict's list of maximum prices from the Pergamon Museum in Berlin

Here's what the edict said in part:

Who is not so dim-witted or so devoid of human feeling that he cannot have known or noticed that all items offered for sale or traded in towns have increased so much in price that unbridled greed is no longer restrained, even by a superfluity in the market or a good harvest? The men who are behind this business are constantly on the alert, scanning the stars, the wind, and the weather, vexed beyond endurance when the fortunate earth is moistened by rain from heaven as earnest of future fruitfulness, since they only pity themselves. These men, who have nothing better to do than carve up the benefits sent by the gods, for their own advantage, drumming up the open-handed favour of heaven and in bad years trading in seed corn and cornering the market. These men, who are swimming in wealth that would satisfy a whole people, think only of their gain and their percent. It is to forbid these men the practice of their greed that we are called by our care for humanity.

Proclamation by Emperors Diocletian and Maximinian and Caesars Constantius and Galerius, Price Edict of Diocletian AD 301' - pg 319 in the book* mentioned below.

Diocletian is interesting because he was NOT a member of the Imperial upper class, the senate, and so on. He was born and raised in Dalmatia, in a low status family (he was called Diocles then). Maybe he had some actual memories of what normal people experience(d) during their lives? Or maybe he was just empathetic. Many of his changes to the Empire, to how it was ruled, did not last much longer than his lifetime, although his rule did end the crisis of the 3rd Century AD and established the process of the split of the Empire into Western and Eastern parts, with two emperors, two 'caesars' (sub emperors or junior colleagues), two capitals (Rome and Byzantium), and eventually two histories.

Are we in such a time now? I don't know. I don't think we are there yet. Maybe TPTB will be smart enough to make sure all the lower classes and commoners have bread and circuses, even if they are in say, Ukraine, or Mexico, or wev the USA PTB want to own but not care for. I kinda doubt it, but who knows?

*The quote from Diocletian's edict comes from a book I just finished reading entitled Roman Vectis: Archaeology and Identity in the Isle of Wight. It's a good archaeology book, and the author, David Tomalin, puts Vectis in the context of the 400 years or so of Roman history of Britain in a good, detailed way, including discussing the economy. The book was published in 2022, so it's very up to date.

So enough of that history and archaeology! Here's the open thread - remember, everything is interesting if you dive deep enough, so tell us about where you're diving!