legal

Edict on Maximum Prices Issued

Date

301

Part of

legal

In 301, Diocletian issued the Edict on Maximum Prices, setting empire-wide ceilings on over 1,000 goods and wages. From Stratonikeia to Cyrene, stone slabs listed the cost of fish, cloth, and freight. Chisels clicked; markets bristled. Law would muscle prices into order—or try to.

What Happened

Inflation breeds anger, and profiteers had become imperial villains in Diocletian’s rhetoric. In 301 his government responded with a breathtaking assertion: a schedule of maximum prices and wages for the whole empire. The Edict on Maximum Prices survives in fragments from Asia Minor, Greece, and Cyrenaica, its moralizing preface and dense lists preserved by stonecutters faithful to the letter if not to reality [7][12].

At Stratonikeia and Aezani, columns of figures marched down marble faces: grain and oil; linen and purple-dyed cloth; freight per mile by cart and by ship; the daily wage of a farmhand; the fee for a schoolteacher. A sample from one chapter—fish—fixes the mood and the numbers: “Sea fish, not bony, 1 lb, 24 denarii; … River fish, first quality, 1 lb, 12 denarii” [7]. The lists ran past 1,000 entries, a lattice the state hoped would cage greed [7][13][12].

The edict’s preface scolded and threatened. It denounced those who “inflamed by boundless avarice” preyed on necessity, and it promised punishment. In plazas from Nicomedia to Corinth to Cyrene, the new law was read aloud. The sound of hammer and chisel laying the text into stone mingled with the buzz of markets that were supposed to bend to the imperial will.

This was more than economics; it was a claim about power. A four‑emperor system that could fight in Britain and Persia also dared to set the price of a shoemaker’s leather in Antioch. The purple intended to police both frontiers and stalls, and in 301 it believed it could [12].

Why This Matters

The Edict on Maximum Prices tried to convert fiscal and moral order into numbers. It provided a common reference across the empire’s markets, linking the coinage reform to everyday transactions and signaling that the state would define fairness and enforce it [7][12][13].

As a theme example of price controls and money, it reveals the limits of command in the face of dispersed, local exchange. Where soldiers could be drilled, merchants could evade. The edict acquired a reputation for coercion and unrest, especially in Lactantius’ hostile account [1][12].

In the broader arc, the edict embodied the Tetrarchy’s confidence—and its blind spots. Its partial failure foreshadowed the strain between administrative ambition and social consent that would also mark the religious policies of 303–311 [12].