The Tetrarchy has hitherto been primarily understood and investigated as a system of government – and a very special one, created through the political action of one strong personality, Diocletian, and essentially unable to survive him. Research into its history and nature has generally focused on a limited set of questions, and mostly whether its genesis had been thoroughly planned by Diocletian and systematically realized (thus, e.g., Kolb), or whether it was the result of responses to specific circumstances (e.g. König, Leadbetter). The conventional positioning of Diocletian’s reign and of the Tetrarchic period at the beginning of Late Antiquity has also led to consider often the role played by this phase in the “change” of the Roman Empire – older historiography places for example here the transition from Principate to Dominate, seeing in the Tetrarchy the starting moment of a transformation leading the Roman Emperor to assume always more transcendent and “sacral” characters (e.g. Kolb).
At the same time, while the Tetrarchic imperial representation in various media (e.g. numismatics, archaeology, epigraphy) has been already investigated in scholarly publications of very high value, these analyses remain very often within conventional boundaries of media, genre and academic tradition, considering thus, for instance, the coins separately from the portraits, or imperial palaces separately from public architecture. As a consequence, the concentration on media and genres often prevents focus on the public of recipients, and on the specific messages addressed, through different media, e.g. to the army rather than to the Senate or to the inhabitants of specific regions. In consideration of this situation, it is the aim of this volume to look at the Tetrarchy as an ideological system. ‘Ideology’ is understood for this purpose as a loose but nevertheless coherent system of ideas and ideals, principles, symbols, messages, and aims that were consistently communicated by different processes and media. Irrespective of the history of its creation and implementation, we aim to show that the Tetrarchy, once established, developed such an ‘ideology’ and a political language which was coherent across the different genres and media, consistent in the ways it addressed different kinds of public, and different from both the preceding and successive forms of political communication. We therefore intend to examine the communicative processes of the Tetrarchic ideology from such an intermedia and transmedia perspective, with a special focus on its historic development and evolution: did the Tetrarchic ideology in all its facets remain unchanged throughout the existence of the Tetrarchy or were different aspects of it adopted and adapted by the constituent rulers in different ways? Which aspects were transformed and/or communicated differently, which ones remained, which ones were dropped or deemphasized by individual tetrarchs? How and when did the Tetrarchic ideology “break down” and new forms of political language and symbolism develop within the Roman Empire?

Chapters might address (but are by no means restricted to) the following points:

- How did different groups within the Roman Empire react to the Tetrarchic political language?
- How were single aspects and symbols of the Tetrarchic ‘ideology’ chosen, developed, re-functionalized and/or dropped, in the context of the political struggles of the late 3rd and early 4th century CE?
- How were single aspects and symbols of the Tetrarchic ‘ideology’ propagated through different media and/or so to reach different population groups?
- How did Tetrarchic rulers represent themselves and their power in front of specific population and power groups, such as e.g. the army?
- How can we reconstruct aspects of imperial representation and self-representation which were not materialized in durable materials – such as, for example, performances?

The volume will include chapters by Daniel Baric (Tours), Giovanni Alberto Cecconi (Florence), Fabio Guidetti (Berlin), Monica Hellström (Durham), Elizabeth Marlowe (New York) and Rebecca Usherwood (St. Andrews). Those interested in contributing are kindly requested to submit a short abstract (500 words maximum) in English, outlining the subject and scope of the proposed chapter, as well as a current CV to both of the editors by October 31st 2017. Potential authors will be notified by year’s end and accepted chapters of no more than 8,000 words will be expected by July 31st 2019 for publication in 2020. Inquiries can be directed at any time to either of the editors.