A.D. 303. DEBASEMENT OF ROME AND THE SENATE. 91 To rival the majesty of Rome was the ambition likewise of Diocletian, who employed his leisure, and the wealth of the East, and Nicoin the embellishment of Nicomedia, a city placed on the media. verge of Europe and Asia, almost at an equal distance between the Danube and the Euphrates. By the taste of the monarch, and at the expense of the people, Nicomedia acquired, in the space of a few years, a degree of magnificence which might appear to have required the labour of ages, and became inferior only to Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, in extent or populousness. The life of Diocletian and Maximian was a life of action, and a considerable portion of it was spent in camps, or in their long and frequent marches; but whenever the public business allowed them any relaxation, they seem to have retired with pleasure to their favourite residences of Nicomedia and Milan. Till Diocletian, in the twentieth year of his reign, celebrated his Roman triumph, it is extremely doubtful whether he ever visited the ancient capital of the empire. Even on that memorable occasion his stay did not exceed two months. Disgusted with the licentious familiarity of the people, he quitted Rome with precipitation thirteen days before it was expected that he should have appeared in the senate, invested with the ensigns of the consular dignity.92 Debasement of Rome and of the senate. The dislike expressed by Diocletian towards Rome and Roman freedom was not the effect of momentary caprice, but the result of the most artful policy. That crafty prince had framed a new system of Imperial government, which was afterwards completed by the family of Constantine; and as the image of the old constitution was religiously preserved in the senate, he resolved to deprive that order of its small remains of power and consideration. We may recollect, about eight years before the elevation of Diocletian, the transient greatness and the ambitious hopes of the Roman senate. As long as that enthusiasm prevailed, many of the nobles imprudently displayed their zeal in the cause of freedom; and after the successors of Probus had withdrawn their countenance from the republican party, the senators were unable to disguise their impotent resentment. As the sovereign of Italy, Maximian was intrusted with the care of extinguishing this troublesome, rather than dangerous spirit, and the task was perfectly suited to his cruel temper. The most illustrious members of the senate, whom Dio 91 Lactant. de M. P. c. 17. Libanius, Orat. vi. p. 203 [ed. Morell. Paris, 1627]. 92 Lactant. de M. P. c. 17. On a similar occasion, Ammianus mentions the dicacitas plebis as not very agreeable to an Imperial ear. (See 1. xvi. c. 10.)a On the contrary, Ammianus says (he is speaking of Constantius), plebis oblectabatur."-S. "dicacitate New bodies of guards, Jovians and Herculians. NEW BODIES OF GUARDS. CHAP. XIII. cletian always affected to esteem, were involved, by his colleague, in the accusation of imaginary plots; and the possession of an elegant villa, or a well-cultivated estate, was interpreted as a convincing evidence of guilt.93 The camp of the Prætorians, which had so long oppressed, began to protect, the majesty of Rome; and as those haughty troops were conscious of the decline of their power, they were naturally disposed to unite their strength with the authority of the senate. By the prudent measures of Diocletian, the numbers of the Prætorians were insensibly reduced, their privileges abolished,** and their place supplied by two faithful legions of Illyricum, who, under the new titles of Jovians and Herculians, were appointed to perform the service of the Imperial guards. 95 But the most fatal though secret wound which the senate received from the hands of Diocletian and Maximian was inflicted by the inevitable operation of their absence. As long as the emperors resided at Rome, that assembly might be oppressed, but it could scarcely be neglected. The successors of Augustus exercised the power of dictating whatever laws their wisdom or caprice might suggest; but those laws were ratified by the sanction of the senate. The model of ancient freedom was preserved in its deliberations and decrees; and wise princes, who respected the prejudices of the Roman people, were in some measure obliged to assume the language and behaviour suitable to the general and first magistrate of the republic. In the armies and in the provinces they displayed the dignity of monarchs; and when they fixed their residence at a distance from the capital, they for ever laid aside the dissimulation which Augustus had recommended to his successors. In the exercise of the legislative as well as the executive power, the sovereign advised with his ministers, instead of consulting the great council of the nation. The name of the senate was mentioned with honour till the last period of the empire; the vanity of its members was still flattered with honorary distinctions ; 96 but the assembly which had so long been the source, and so long the instrument of power, was respectfully suffered to sink into oblivion. The senate of Rome, losing all con 93 Lactantius accuses Maximian of destroying fictis criminationibus lumina senatûs (de M. P. c. 8). Aurelius Victor speaks very doubtfully of the faith of Diocletian towards his friends. 94 Truncatæ vires urbis, imminuto prætoriarum cohortium atque in armis vulgi numero. Aurelius Victor [de Cæsar. c. 39]. Lactantius attributes to Galerius the prosecution of the same plan (c. 26). 95 They were old corps stat oned in Illyricum; and, according to the ancient establishment, they each consisted of six thousand men. They had acquired much reputation by the use of the plumbatæ, or darts loaded with lead. Each soldier carried five of these, which he darted from a considerable distance with great strength and dexterity. See Vegetius, i. 17. 96 See the Theodosian Code, 1. vi. tit. ii. with Godefroy's commentary. magistracies dignity nection with the Imperial court and the actual constitution, was left a venerable but useless monument of antiquity on the Capitoline hill. When the Roman princes had lost sight of the senate and of their ancient capital, they easily forgot the origin and nature of Civil their legal power. The civil offices of consul, of proconsul, laid aside. of censor, and of tribune, by the union of which it had been formed, betrayed to the people its republican extraction. Those modest titles were laid aside; 97 and if they still distinguished their high station by the appellation of Emperor, or IMPERATOR, that word was understood in a new and more dignified sense, and no longer denoted the general of the Roman armies, but the sovereign of the Imperial Roman world. The name of Emperor, which was at first and titles. of a military nature, was associated with another of a more servile kind. The epithet of DOMINUS, or Lord, in its primitive signification, was expressive not of the authority of a prince over his subjects, or of a commander over his soldiers, but of the despotic power of a master over his domestic slaves. 98 Viewing it in that odious light, it had been rejected with abhorrence by the first Cæsars. Their resistance insensibly became more feeble, and the name less odious; till at length the style of our Lord and Emperor was not only bestowed by flattery, but was regularly admitted into the laws and public monuments. Such lofty epithets were sufficient to elate and satisfy the most excessive vanity; and if the successors of Diocletian still declined the title of King, it seems to have been the effect not so much of their moderation as of their delicacy. Wherever the Latin tongue was in use (and it was the language of government throughout the empire), the Imperial title, as it was peculiar to themselves, conveyed a more respectable idea than the name of king, which they must have shared with an hundred barbarian chieftains; or which, at the best, they could derive only from Romulus, or from Tarquin. But the sentiments of the East were very different from those of the West. From the earliest period of history, the sovereigns of Asia had been celebrated in the Greek language by the title of BASILEUS, or King; and since it was considered as the first distinction among men, it was soon employed by the servile provincials of the East in their humble addresses to the Roman throne.99 Even the attributes, or at least the titles, of the 97 See the 12th dissertation in Spanheim's excellent work de Usu Numismatum. From medals, inscriptions, and historians, he examines every title separately, and traces it from Augustus to the moment of its disappearing. 98 Pliny (in Panegyr. c. 3, 55, &c.) speaks of Dominus with execration, as synonymous to Tyrant, and opposite to Prince. And the same Pliny regularly gives that title (in the tenth book of the epistles) to his friend rather than master, the virtuous Trajan. This strange contradiction puzzles the commentators who think, and the translators who can write. 99 Synesius de Regno, edit. Petav. p. 15. I am indebted for this quotation to the Abbé de la Bléterie. 94 DIOCLETIAN ASSUMES THE DIADEM. CHAP. XIII. DIVINITY, were usurped by Diocletian and Maximian, who transmitted them to a succession of Christian emperors.' 100 Such extravagant compliments, however, soon lose their impiety by losing their meaning; and when the ear is once accustomed to the sound, they are heard with indifference as vague though excessive professions of respect. Diocletian assumes the diadem, and introduces From the time of Augustus to that of Diocletian, the Roman princes, conversing in a familiar manner among their fellowcitizens, were saluted only with the same respect that was the Persian usually paid to senators and magistrates. Their principal ceremonial. distinction was the Imperial or military robe of purple; whilst the senatorial garment was marked by a broad, and the equestrian by a narrow, band or stripe of the same honourable colour. The pride, or rather the policy, of Diocletian, engaged that artful prince to introduce the stately magnificence of the court of Persia. 101 He ventured to assume the diadem, an ornament detested by the Romans as the odious ensign of royalty, and the use of which had been considered as the most desperate act of the madness of Caligula. It was no more than a broad white fillet set with pearls, which encircled the emperor's head. The sumptuous robes of Diocletian and his successors were of silk and gold; and it is remarked with indignation that even their shoes were studded with the most precious gems. The access to their sacred person was every day rendered more difficult by the institution of new forms and cere 100 See Van Dale de Consecratione, p. 354, &c. It was customary for the emperors to mention (in the preamble of laws) their numen, sacred majesty, divine oracles, &c. According to Tillemont, Gregory Nazianzen complains most bitterly of the profanation, especially when it was practised by an Arian emperor." 101 See Spanheim de Usu Numismat. Dissert. xii. perors to environ themselves with personal pomp displayed itself more and more. ** The magnificence and the ceremonial of the East were entirely introduced by Diocletian, and were consecrated by Constantine to the Imperial use. Thenceforth the palace, the court, the table, all the personal attendance, distinguished the emperor from his subjects still more than his superior dignity. The organisation which Diocletian gave to his new court attached less honour and distinction to rank than to services performed towards the members of the Imperial family. Hegewisch, Historical Essay on Roman Finances a In the time of the republic, says Hegewisch, when the consuls, the prætors, and the other magistrates appeared in public to perform the functions of their office, their dignity was announced both by the symbols which use had consecrated, and the brilliant cortège by which they were accompanied. But this dignity belonged to the office, not to the individual; this pomp belonged to the magistrate, not to the man. **The consul, followed, in the comitia, by all the senate, the prætors, the quæstors, the ædiles, the lictors, the apparitors, and the heralds, on re-entering his house, was served only by freedmen and by his slaves. The first emperors went no further. Tiberius had, for his personal attendance, only a moderate number of slaves and a few freedmen (Tacit. Ann. iv. 7). But in proportion as It is singular that the son of a slave the republican forms disappeared one reduced the haughty aristocracy of Rome after another, the inclination of the em- to the offices of servitude.-M. the Few historians have characterised in a more philosophic manner the influence of a new institution.-G. A.D. 303. NEW FORM OF ADMINISTRATION. 95 monies. The avenues of the palace were strictly guarded by the various schools, as they began to be called, of domestic officers. The interior apartments were intrusted to the jealous vigilance of the eunuchs; the increase of whose numbers and influence was the most infallible symptom of the progress of despotism. When a subject was at length admitted to the Imperial presence, he was obliged, whatever might be his rank, to fall prostrate on the ground, and to adore, according to the eastern fashion, the divinity of his lord and master, 102 Diocletian was a man of sense, who, in the course of private as well as public life, had formed a just estimate both of himself and of mankind: nor is it easy to conceive that in substituting the manners of Persia to those of Rome he was seriously actuated by so mean a principle as that of vanity. He flattered himself that an ostentation of splendour and luxury would subdue the imagination of the multitude; that the monarch would be less exposed to the rude licence of the people and the soldiers, as his person was secluded from the public view; and that habits of submission would insensibly be productive of sentiments of veneration. Like the modesty affected by Augustus, the state maintained by Diocletian was a theatrical representation; but it must be confessed that, of the two comedies, the former was of a much more liberal and manly character than the latter. It was the aim of the one to disguise, and the object of the other to display, the unbounded power which the emperors possessed over the Roman world. New form tration, two Augusti and two Cæsars. Ostentation was the first principle of the new system instituted by Diocletian. The second was division. He divided the empire, the provinces, and every branch of the civil as well of adminis as military administration. He multiplied the wheels of the machine of government, and rendered its operations less rapid but more secure. Whatever advantages and whatever defects might attend these innovations, they must be ascribed in a very great degree to the first inventor; but as the new frame of policy was gradually improved and completed by succeeding princes, it will be more satisfactory to delay the consideration of it till the season of its full maturity and perfection.103 Reserving, therefore, for the reign of Constantine a more exact picture of the new empire, we shall content ourselves with describing the principal and decisive outline, as it was traced by the hand of Diocletian. He had asso 102 Aurelius Victor. Eutropius, ix. 26 [16]. It appears by the Panegyrists that the Romans were soon reconciled to the name and ceremony of adoration. 103 The innovations introduced by Diocletian are chiefly deduced, 1st, from some very strong passages in Lactantius; and, 2ndly, from the new and various offices which, in the Theodosian code, appear already established in the beginning of the reign of Constantine. |