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OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
355

the whole monarchy; and each of them was prepared to assist his colleagues with his counsels or presence. The Cæsars, in their exalted rank, revered the majesty of the emperors, and the three younger princes invariably acknowledged, by their gratitude and obedience, the common parent of their fortunes. The suspicious jealousy of power found not any place among them; and the singular happiness of their union has been compared to a chorus of music, whose harmony was regulated and maintained by the skilful hand of the first artist.[1]

Series of events This important measure was not carried into execution till about six years after the association of Maximian, and that interval of time had not been destitute of memorable incidents. But we have preferred, for the sake of perspicuity, first to describe the more perfect form of Diocletian's government, and afterwards to relate the actions of his reign, following rather the natural order of the events than the dates of a very doubtful chronology.

A.D. 287
State of the peasants of Gaul
The first exploit of Maximian, though it is mentioned in a few words by our imperfect writers, deserves, from its singularity, to be recorded in a history of human manners. He suppressed the peasants of Gaul, who, under the appellation of Bagaudæ,[2] had risen in a general insurrection; very similar to those which in the fourteenth century successively afflicted both France and England.[3] It should seem that very many of those institutions, referred by an easy solution to the feudal system, are derived from the Celtic barbarians. When Cæsar subdued the Gauls, that great nation was already divided into three orders of men; the clergy, the nobility, and the common people. The first governed by superstition, the second by arms, but the third and last was not of any weight or account in their public councils. It was very natural for the Plebeians, oppressed by debt or apprehensive of injuries, to implore the protection of some powerful chief, who acquired over their persons and property the same absolute rights as, among the Greeks and Romans, a master

    the right of appointing the officials in their dominions. Their military powers were dependent on the Augusti, to whom all their victories were ascribed. They wore the purple, but not the diadem.]

  1. Julian in Cæsarib. p. 315. Spanheim's notes to the French translation, p. 122.
  2. The general name of Bagaudæ (in the signification of Rebels) continued till the fifth century in Gaul. Some critics derive it from a Celtic word, Bagad, a tumultuous assembly. Scaliger ad Euseb. Du Cange Glossar. [For the social state of Gaul, and the action of the priests, cp. Salvian, de Gubern. Dei, v. 5, 6.]
  3. Chronique de Froissart, vol. i. c. 182, ii. 73-79. The naiveté of his story is lost in our best modern writers.