Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/484

46a THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, sion was the love of power, and who neither desired ^^^^' present tranquillity nor future reputation. But he yielded, however reluctantly, to the ascendant which his wiser colleague had acquired over him, and retired, immediately after his abdication, to a villa in Lucania, where it was almost impossible that such an impatient spirit could find any lasting tranquillity. Retirement Diocletian, who, from a servile origin, had raised tian at Sa- himself to the throne, passed the nine last years of his lona. life in a private condition. Reason had dictated, and content seems to have accompanied, his retreat, in which he enjoyed for a long time the respect of those princes to whom he had resigned the possession of the world*. It is seldom that minds, long exercised in business, have formed any habits of conversing with themselves; and in the loss of power they principally regret the want of occupation. The amusements of letters and of devotion, which afford so many resources in solitude, were incapable of fixing the attention of Diocletian ; but he had preserved, or at least he soon re- covered, a taste for the most innocent as well as natural pleasures, and his leisure hours were sufficiently em- ployed in building, planting, and gardening. His an- Hisphilo- swer to Maximian is deservedly celebrated. He was sopf»y. solicited by that restless old man to reassume the reins of government and the imperial purple. He rejected the temptation with a smile of pity, calmly observing, that if he could show Maximian^ the cabbages which he had planted with his own hands at Salona, he should no longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of hap- piness for the pursuit of power *". In his conversations with his friends, he frequently acknowledged, that of all arts, the most difficult was the art of reigning ; and he expressed himself on that favourite topic with a de- ' Eumenius pays him a very fine compliment : " At enim divinum ilium virum, qui primus imperium et participavit et posuit, consilii et facti sui non pcenitet ; uec amisisse se putat quod sponte transcripsit. Felix beatus- que vera quem vestra, tantorum principum, colunt obsequia privatum." Panegyr. Vet. vii. 15. " We are obliged to the younger Victor for this celebrated bon mot. Eu- tropius mentions the thing in a more general manner.