Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 1.djvu/99

 DIOCLETIAN 55 and other buildings still remain, with three of the gates, as well as a temple, which is now a church at Spalatro, or Spalato, in Dalmatia, a comparatively mod- ern town, grown out of the decay of the ancient Salona, and built in great part within the walls of Diocletian's residence, from the name of which, " Palatium," it is believed that " Spalato " is derived. At the same time that Diocletian abdicated at Nicomedia, Maximianus, ac- cording to an agreement between them, performed a similar ceremony at Milan, proclaiming Constantius as Augustus, and Severus as Caesar. Both Severus and Maximinus Daza were inferior persons, and creatures of Galerius, who in- sisted upon their nomination in preference to that of Maxentius and Constan- tine, whom Diocletian had at first proposed. Maximianus retired to his seat in Lucania, but not being endowed with the firmness of Diocletian he tried some time after to recover his former power, and wrote to his old colleague to induce him to do the same. " Were you but to come to Salona," answered Diocletian,. " and see the vegetables which I grow in my garden with my own hands, you would no longer talk to me of empire." In his retirement he used to observe to his associates how difficult it is, even for the best-intentioned man, to govern well, as he cannot see everything with his own eyes, but must trust to others, who often deceive him. Once only he left his retirement to meet Galerius in Pannonia for the pur- pose of appointing a new Caesar, Licinius, in the place of Severus, who had died. Licinius, however, did not prove grateful, for after the death of Galerius, in 311, he ill-treated his widow, Valeria, Diocletian's daughter, who then, with her mother, Prisca, took refuge in the territories of Maximinus Daza. The latter offered to marry Valeria, but on her refusal exiled both her and her mother into the deserts of Syria, and put to death several of their attendants. Diocletian remonstrated in favor of his wife and daughter, but to no purpose, and his grief on this occasion probably hastened his death, which took place at his residence near Salona in July, 313. In the following year his wife and daughter were put to death by order of Licinius. Diocletian ranks among the most distinguished emperors of Rome ; his reign of twenty-one years was upon the whole prosperous for the empire, and cred- itaMe to the Roman name. He was severe, but not wantonly cruel, and we ought to remember that mercy was not a Roman virtue. His conduct after his abdication shows that his was no common mind. The chief charge against him is his haughtiness in introducing the Oriental ceremonial of prostration into the Roman court. The Christian writers, and especially Lactantius, have spoken unfavorably of him ; but Lactantius cannot be implicitly trusted. Of the regu- lar historians of his reign we have only the meagre narratives of Eutropius and Aurelius Victor, the others being now lost ; but notices of Diocletian's life are scattered about in various authors, Libanius, Vopiscus, Eusebius, Julian in his " Caesars," and the contemporary panegyrists, Eumenes and Mamertinus. His laws or edicts are in the " Code." Among other useful reforms, he abolished the frumentarii, or licensed informers, who were stationed in every province to