16 November, 1594 - Diocletian

Here's what the Admiral's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: y^e 16 of novmbȝ 1594 ... ne ... R at deoclesyan ... liiij^s 

In modern English: 16^th November, 1594 ... New ... Received at Diocletian ... 54 shillings.

Today, the Admiral's Men performed a new play! Diocletian is lost, like so many of their plays, but its title suggests that it told the rags-to-riches story of Diocletian, a Roman emperor who persecuted Christians.

The play

The title page of  John Foxe's Acts
and Monuments, better known
as the 'Book of Martyrs'

In his catalogue of British drama, Martin Wiggins suggests that the likeliest source for this play was John Foxe's Acts and Monuments (better known as the 'Book of Martyrs'), an enormous but extremely popular tome that retold at length the legends of the Christian martyrs. It includes a lengthy description of the life of Diocletian and his campaign of persecution during in the 3rd century.

In Foxe's version of history, based very loosely on reality, Diocletian was a common soldier who heard a prophecy that he would be Emperor. The prophecy came true when Emperor Numerian was murdered by one Aper. According to Foxe, Diocletian "swore to the soldiers that Numerianus was wrongfully killed, and forthwith, running upon Aper with his sword, slew him". The army then chose him to be the next emperor, and, in an unusual step, Diocletian invited his friend Maximian to be co-emperor.

Diocletian's ego soon got the better of him and he demanded to be worshipped as a god, "saying that he was brother to the sun and moon, and, adorning his shoes with gold and precious stones, commanded the people to kiss his feet". He then began to persecute the Christians: he "commanded all the churches of the Christians to be spoiled and cast to the earth, and the books of holy scripture to be burned". Foxe lavishes attention on these gruesome events, such as a

great persecution amongst the governors of the church, amongst whom many stood manfully, passing through many exceeding bitter torments; neither were overcome therewith, being tormented and examined, diverse of them diversely, some scourged all their bodies over with whips and scourges, some with racks [and] razings of the flesh intolerable.

Diocletian even martyred his own wife, "so much did the rage of persecution utterly forget all natural affects".

Head of Diocletian in the
Istanbul Archaeological Museum

But in another unusual step, Diocletian and Maximian eventually tired of their rule and abdicated. Not seeing any hope of rooting out Christianity, they "had now even their fill of blood, and loathed, as it were, the shedding thereof, [so] they ceased at the last, of their own accord, to put any more Christians to death". Diocletian retired to a country estate. But when he learned that his successor, Constantine, had ordered the protection of Christians, he "either for sorrow died, or as some say did poison himself".

If this was the story told at the Rose, the ending might have been anticlimactic, but one can still imagine that Edward Alleyn enjoyed himself in the role of the vicious and egotistical emperor.

Romans at the Rose

Following Caesar and Pompey last week, the Admiral's Men seem to be engaged in a project to add more Roman plays to their repertory (perhaps inspired by Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, and perhaps soon to be rivaled by his Julius Caesar). And many years from now, Diocletian will become a popular stage villain, appearing in A Shoemaker a Gentleman (William Rowley, c.1618), The Virgin Martyr (Thomas Dekker and Philip Massinger, 1620), and The Prophetess (John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, 1622).

Today's performance was something of a disappointment, though. The audience was large, but not as large as most premieres. Diocletian's name was clearly not yet infamous enough to draw much of a crowd.

What's next?

There will be no blog entry tomorrow because 17 November was a Sunday in 1594 and the players did no perform. Henslowe's Diary ... as a Blog! will thus return on the 18th. See you then!

FURTHER READING

Diocletian information

• John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, 2nd edition (1583), vol. 1, 77-86. 
• Martin Wiggins, British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue, vol. 3 (Oxford University Press, 2013), entry 973.
• Domenico Lovascio, "Diocletian", Lost Plays Database (2017). 

Henslowe links

• Transcript of this page of the Diary (from W.W. Greg's 1904 edition)
• Facsimile of this page of the Diary (from the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project)

Comments?

Did I make a mistake? Do you have a question? Have you anything to add? Please post a comment below!