Born as Diocles around 244 CE near Salona in rugged Dalmatia, the future emperor grew up far from Rome’s marble forums and closer to the clamour of frontier camps. His origins were modest—later writers call his father a scribe or freedman—and that obscurity proved a forge. As a teenage recruit he learned soldiering on the Danube, where pay arrived late, boots wore through, and victories depended on logistics more than glory. Diocles advanced by reliability: he kept ledgers as carefully as he kep