Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/440

 416 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, moted to the government of Maesia, the honours of the ^^^^' consulship, and the important command of the guards of the palace. He distinguished his abilities in the Persian war; and, after the death of Numerian, the slave, by the confession and judgement of his rivals, was declared the most worthy of the imperial throne. The malice of religious zeal, whilst it arraigns the savage fierceness of his colleague Maximian, has af- fected to cast suspicions on the personal courage of the emperor Diocletian^. It would not be easy to persuade us of the cowardice of a soldier of fortune, who acquired and preserved the esteem of the legions, as well as the favour of so many warlike princes. Yet even calumny is sagacious enough to discover and to attack the most vulnerable part. The valour of Dio- cletian was never found inadequate to his duty or to the occasion; but he appears not to have possessed the daring and generous spirit of a hero, who courts danger and fame, disdains artifice, and boldly chal- lenges the allegiance of his equals. His abilities were useful rather than splendid ; a vigorous mind, improved by the experience and study of mankind ; dexterity and application in business ; a judicious mixture of liberality and economy, of mildness and rigour; pro- found dissimulation under the disguise of mihtary frank- ness ; steadiness to pursue his ends ; flexibility to vary his means ; and above all, the great art of submitting his own passions, as well as those of others, to the in- terest of his ambition, and of colouring his ambition with the most specious pretences of justice and public utility. Like Augustus, Diocletian may be considered as the founder of a new empire. Like the adopted son of Caesar, he was distinguished as a statesman rather than as a warrior; nor did either of those princes employ force, whenever their purpose could be effected by policy. ^ Lactantius (or whoever was the author of the little treatise De Mortibus Persecutorum) accuses Diocletian of timidity in two places, c. 7, 8. In chap. 9, he says of him, " erat in omni tumultu meticulosus et animi dis- jectus."