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THE DECLINE AND FALL

as the seat of their power, and the centre of their extensive dominions. The emergencies of war very frequently required their presence on the frontiers; but Diocletian and Maximian were the first Roman princes who fixed, in time of peace, their ordinary residence in the provinces; and their conduct, however it might be suggested by private motives, was justified by very specious considerations of policy. Their residence at Milan The court of the Emperor of the West was, for the 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 watching 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, contributed to the beauty of the new capital; nor did it seem oppressed even by the proximity of Rome.[1] and Nicomedia To rival the majesty of Rome was the ambition likewise of Diocletian, who employed his leisure, and the wealth of the East, in the embellishment of Nicomedia, a city placed on the verge of Europe and Asia, almost at an equal distance between the Danube and the Euphrates. By the taste of the monarch, and at the expense of the people, Nicomedia acquired, in the space of a few years, a degree of magnificence which might appear to have required the labour of ages, and became inferior only to Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, in extent or populousness.[2] The life of Diocletian and Maximian was a life of action, and a considerable portion of it was spent in camps, or in their long and frequent marches; but, whenever the public business allowed them any relaxation, they seem to have retired with pleasure to their favourite

  1. See Aurelius Victor [Cæs. 39], who likewise mentions the buildings erected by Maximian at Carthage, probably during the Moorish war. We shall insert some verses of Ausonius de Clar. urb. v.

    Et Mediolani mira omnia: copia rerum:
    Innumeræ cultæque domus; fecunda virorum
    Ingenia, et mores læti; tum duplice muro
    Amplificata loci species; populique voluptas
    Circus; et inclusi moles cuneata Theatri;
    Templa, Palatinæque arces, opulensque Moneta,
    Et regio Herculei Celebris sub honore lavacri.
    Cunctaque marmoreis ornata Peristyla signis;
    Mœniaque in valli formam circumdata labro,
    Omnia quæ magnis operum velut æmula formis
    Excellunt: nec juncta premit vicinia Romæ.

  2. Lactant. de M. P. c. 7. Libanius Orat. viii. p. 203.