HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. PART III. THE CHRISTIAN EMPERORS. CHAPTER I.* DIOCLETIAN AND MAXIMIAN. A. u. 1038—1058. A. D. 285-305. STATE OF THE EMPIRE. CARAUSIUS. CHARACTER OF DIOCLETIAN. — IM- PERIAL POWER DIVIDED. THE Roman empire had now lasted for three centuries. During that period, the forms of the republic under which the policy of Augustus had concealed the despotism of the imperial rule, had been silently laid aside, and the people were become accustomed to the display of arbitrary power, upheld by the arms of the soldiery. Occasionally, a faint gleam of the ancient Roman spirit broke forth, as in the time of the emperor Tacitus; but the general aspect presented by the inhabitants of the Eternal City, as it now began to be called, was that of a sensual, enervated nobility, and a beggarly, turbulent populace. The provinces, enjoy * Authorities: The Epitomators, the Panegyrists, and Lactantius. ing the rights of which Rome had once been so jealous, exhibited more of virtue and of vigor; and nearly all the emperors, for the two last centuries, had been provincials by origin. While the civil condition of the empire was thus undergoing inevitable change, its ancient systems of religion were fast receding before that of the gospel, and an experienced eye might easily discern that the final triumph of the latter was certain. We are now to witness that triumph, to behold, at the same time, the Roman emperors assuming the pomp and parade of the monarchs of the East, the irruptions of the barbarians becoming every day more formidable, and the empire of the West finally sinking beneath their attacks. er. Diocletian, into whose hands the empire had now fallen, was another of those able Illyrian peasants whom their own talents and merits had raised to the height of imperial powHe is said to have been the freedman, or the son of a freedman, of a Roman senator named Anulinus. The place of his birth was a small town in Dalmatia.* He entered the army, and gradually rose to the post of commander of the body-guards, which he held when the votes of his companions in arms invested him with the purple. Good sense and prudence were the distinguishing features in the character of the new emperor. His courage was calm and collected, rather than impetuous; and he never employed force where policy could avail. In this, as in some other points, he resembled Augustus; and the personal courage of both has accordingly been called into question by malignant or superficial observers. The empire which Augustus had founded Diocletian remodelled, and his name stands at the head of a new order of things. Diocletian used his victory over Carinus with a moderation which had never hitherto been equalled. None of the adherents of his adversary suffered in life, fortune, or honor. Though unversed in letters, and ignorant of the philosophy of the schools, he appreciated the mild philosophy of M. Aurelius, and declared his intention of making him his model in the art of government. In imitation of that emperor, or, more probably, from the suggestion of his own sound judgment, he resolved to give himself a partner in the empire. The extensive frontiers of the Roman dominion were now *Its name is supposed to have been Doclia, from a tribe of Illyrians, and his own name was probably Docles, which he Hellenized to Diocles, and then Latinized to Diocletianus. See Gibbon, ch. xiii. The Gentile name of his patron was apparently Valerius. as so constantly and so vigorously assailed by the Persians and Germans, that no single person could attend to their defence; and experience had shown that generals intrusted with the command of large armies, might become the rivals of their sovereigns. The person whom Diocletian fixed on his colleague was his ancient mate in arms, Maximianus, who, born a peasant in the district of Sirmium, had, like himself, risen solely by merit. A second Marius, Maximian was rude, brutal, and ferocious, a brave soldier, an able officer, but neither a general nor a statesman of any account. For the superior wisdom and knowledge of Diocletian, he had the utmost respect, and he always stood in awe of his genius. It is remarkable that Diocletian was able to exercise as much influence over the rude Maximian, as Aurelius had possessed over the luxurious Verus a proof, perhaps, of his greater force of mind. Diocletian first conferred on his friend the dignity of a Cæsar, and then raised him to the more elevated rank of an Augustus, (Apr. 1, 286.) On this occasion, the emperors assumed, the one the surname of Jovius, the other that of Herculius, in allusion to their different characters, and the parts they were to bear in the state. Diocletian retained for himself the administration of the provinces of the East, and fixed on Nicomedia as his place of residence; to Maximian he assigned those of the West, and Milan became his imperial abode. * In the following year, (287,) Maximian found employment for his arms in suppressing an insurrection of the peasantry of Gaul, who, under the name of Bagauds, a term of dubious origin, were spreading devastation through the country. It is remarkable that, at all periods of her history, France has presented the spectacle of a rural population reduced to the extreme of misery by the oppression of an aristocracy, or of the government. Predial servitude to a tyrannic nobility was the condition in which the Romans found the Gallic peasantry; under their own dominion, the same system was continued, and the evil was aggravated by the weight of taxation, and the insolence of a haughty soldiery. The Franks and other German conquerors succeeded to this power, and transmitted it to the feudal lords of the middle ages, with whose descendants it continued to the close of the * It is derived by some from the Celtic Bagad, a tumultuous assembly. eighteenth century; and, in consequence of the extreme division of landed property which has since taken place, and the high direct taxes imposed on the proprietors, the government appears likely to become, ere long, the owner of the far greater part of the produce of the soil, and the cultiva-tors to sink gradually to the condition of the serfs, their ancestors. The jacquerie, or insurrection of the French peasantry, in the fourteenth century, as narrated in the graphic and animated pages of Froissart, will enable us to form a conception of the rising of the Bagauds, in the fourth century. In both cases, the insurgents were unable to make head against the fully-armed troops opposed to them; in both, the vengeance: taken on them was cruel and remorseless. The leaders of the Bagauds, named Elianus and Aman-dus, had assumed the imperial ensigns; their coins may still be seen; but their ambition was short-lived. A more fortunate usurper appeared in Britain. The Franks and other German tribes of the north coast having now begun to addict themselves to piracy, a Roman fleet was stationed at Boulogne, (Bononia,) in order to protect the coasts of Gaul and Britain from their ravages. The command of this fleet. was given to Carausius, a native of that country, (i. e. a Menapian,) a man of very low origin, but skilled in navigation, and of approved courage. It was soon discovered that the pirates used to pass down the channel unobserved or unmolested, but that they were apt to be intercepted on their return, and that a considerable part of the booty gained from them never found its way into the imperial treasury. Maximian, convinced of the guilt of the admiral, gave orders for his death; but the fleet was devoted to Carausius, and he passed with it over to Britain, and, having induced the legion and the auxiliaries stationed there to declare for him, he boldly assumed the purple; and the emperors, after some fruitless attempts to reduce him, were obliged (289) to ac-knowledge his rank and title. It soon appeared that even two emperors would not suffice for the defence of the provinces, and Diocletian resolved to associate two other generals in the imperial power. Under the title of Cæsars, they were to rank beneath the emperors,. but their power was to be absolute in the parts of the empire assigned them. The persons selected were Galerius Maximianus, a native of Dacia named Armentarius, from his CONTIN. 25 K K a original employment of a herdsman, and Constantius,* grand-nephew in the female line of the emperor Claudius. The former was, as might be expected, rude and martial; the latter, though a soldier from his youth, was polished in manners, and mild and amiable in temper. Perhaps it was in imitation of the policy of Augustus, that Diocletian required the Cæsars to divorce their wives and marry the daughters of himself and his colleague. He bestowed the hand of his own daughter Valeria on Galerius, and Theodora, the stepdaughter of Maximian, became the wife of Constantius. For himself Diocletian reserved Thrace, Egypt, and the Asiatic provinces, while his Cæsar Galerius governed those on the Danube; Maximian held Italy and Africa; his Cæsar Constantius had charge of Spain, Gaul, and Britain. The power of Carausius, the ruler of this last-named island, was now at its height; by repressing the incursions of the Caledonians and the invasions of the Germans, he preserved internal tranquillity; his fleets rode triumphant on the ocean, and he still retained Boulogne and its district on the continent. But the loss of a rich province was galling to the pride and the dignity of the empire, and Constantius undertook the task of reducing the British ruler, (292.) By running a mole across the harbor of Boulogne, he obliged that town and a great part of the usurper's fleet to surrender. While he was preparing a fleet for the invasion of the island, he received intelligence of the death of Carausius, who was assassinated (294) by Allectus, his principal minister. The murderer assumed the vacant power and dignity, and more than two years elapsed before Constantius had assembled a fleet and army sufficient to attempt the recovery of the island. At length, (296,) he prepared to invade it in three separate places. The first division, under the prætorian prefect Asclepiodotus, put to sea on a stormy day, and by the favor of a fog having escaped the fleet of Allectus, which lay off the Isle of Wight, effected a landing in the West. As soon as his troops had debarked, the prefect set fire to his shipping. Allectus, who had taken his station with a large army at London, to await the arrival of Constantius, hastened to the West; but his troops were few and dispirited, and after a *He is usually named Chlorus, from his pallid hue, as it would appear, though the Panegyrist (v. 19) speaks of his rubor. Tillemont says that it is only in the later Greek writers that his name Chlorus appears. |