Diocletian

Dalmatian-born soldier who ended the Crisis of the Third Century and refounded the empire as a quadripartite, autocratic state — the Tetrarchy of two senior Augusti and two junior Caesars. His reforms doubled the army, multiplied the bureaucracy, and froze prices and professions to combat hyperinflation. He launched the last and worst persecution of Christians in 303. Uniquely among Roman emperors, he abdicated voluntarily in 305 to grow cabbages in his Croatian palace.