Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/472

 448 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, of life, and was protected, in some measure, by the '__ opinion of political utility. The form and the seat of government were intimately blended together ; nor was it esteemed possible to transport the one without de- stroying the other". But the sovereignty of the capital was gradually annihilated in the extent of conquest ; the provinces rose to the same level, and the van- quished nations acquired the name and privileges, with- out imbibing the partial affections, of Romans. During a long period, however, the remains of the ancient con- stitution, and the influence of custom, preserved the dignity of Rome. The emperors, though perhaps of African or Illyrian extraction, respected their adopted country, as the seat of their power, and the centre of their extensive dominions. The emergencies of war very frequently required their presence on the fron- tiers; but Diocletian and Maximian were the first Ro- man princes who fixed, in time of peace, their ordinary residence in the provinces; and their conduct, how- ever it might be suggested by private motives, was justified by very specious considerations of policy. Their resi- The court of the emperor of the west was, for the Milan ^ most part, established at Milan, whose situation, at the foot of the Alps, appeared far more convenient than that of Rome, for the important purpose of watch- ing the motions of the barbarians of Germany. Milan soon assumed the splendour of an imperial city. The houses are described as numerous and well built ; the manners of the people as polished and liberal. A circus, a theatre, a mint, a palace, baths which bore the name of their founder Maximian, porticoes adorned with statues, and a double circumference of walls, con- tributed to the beauty of the new capital ; nor did it seem oppressed even by the proximity of Rome ''. To " Julius Caesar was reproached with the intention of removing the en)pire to Ilium or Alexandria. See Sueton. in Caesar, c. 79. According to the ingenious conjecture of Le Fevre and Dacier, the third ode of the third book of Horace was intended to divert Augustus from the execution of a similar design. " See Aurelius V^ictor, who likewise mentions the buildings erected by