Diocletian and the Romans

No one really had any reason to believe that the ascension of diocletian would turn out later to be some epoch defining moment. Most probably thought he reign for a few years and then be killed off like all the rest. But history has a funny way of working itself out. Sometimes scrawny 19 year olds of no consequence turn out to be augustus, and sometimes relatively undistinguished soldier administrators turned out to be diocletia. Who knows how these things work.