Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/471

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 447 triumph ''. Maximian, the equal partner of his power, CHAP, was his only companion in the glory of that day. The two Caesars had fought and conquered ; but the merit of their exploits was ascribed, according to the rigour of ancient maxims, to the auspicious influence of their fathers and emperors ^ The triumph of Diocletian and Maximian was less magnificent perhaps than those of Aurelian and Probus ; but it was dignified by se- veral circumstances of superior fame and good fortune. Africa and Britain, tiie Rhine, the Danube, and the Nile, furnished their respective trophies ; but the most distinguished ornament was of a more singular nature, a Persian victory followed by an important conquest. The representations of rivers, mountains, and pro- vinces, were carried before the imperial car. The images of the captive wives, the sisters, and the chil- dren of the great king, afforded a new and grateful spectacle to the vanity of the people ^ Ih the eyes of posterity this triumph is remarkable, by a distinction of a less honourable kind. It was the last that Rome ever beheld. Soon after this period, the emperors ceased to vanquish, and Rome ceased to be the capital of the empire. The spot on which Rome was founded, had been Long ab- consecrated by ancient ceremonies and imaginary mi- g^^^j.^J^^'^® racles. The presence of some god, or the memory of from Rome, some hero, seemed to animate every part of the city, and the empire of the world had been promised to the capitol*. The native Romans felt and confessed the power of this agreeable illusion. It was derived from their ancestors, had grown up with their earliest habits q Eusebius in Chron. Pagi ad annum. Till the discovery of the treatise De Mortibus Persecutorum, it was not certain that the triumph and the Vincenalia were celebrated at the same time. «■ At the time of the Vincenalia, Galerius seems to have kept his station on the Danube. See Lactant. de M. P. c. 38. 8 Eutropius (ix. 27.) mentions them as a part of the triumph. As the persons had been restored to Narses, nothing more than their images could ,;j be exhibited. t Livy gives us a speech of Camillus on that subject, (v. 51 — 55.) full of eloquence and sensibility, in opposition to a design of removing the seat of government from Rome to the neighbouring city of Veii.