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OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
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flattered himself that an ostentation of splendour and luxury would subdue the imagination of the multitude; that the monarch would be less exposed to the rude licence of the people and the soldiers, as his person was secluded from the public view; and that habits of submission would insensibly be productive of sentiments of veneration. Like the modesty affected by Augustus, the state maintained by Diocletian was a theatrical representation; but it must be confessed that, of the two comedies, the former was of a much more liberal and manly character than the latter. It was the aim of the one to disguise, and the object of the other to display, the unbounded power which the emperors possessed over the Roman world.
New form of administration, two Augusti, and two CæsarsOstentation was the first principle of the new system instituted by Diocletian. The second was division. He divided the empire, the provinces, and every branch of the civil as well as military administration. He multiplied the wheels of the machine of government, and rendered its operations less rapid but more secure. Whatever advantages, and whatever defects, might attend these innovations, they must be ascribed in a very great degree to the first inventor; but, as the new frame of policy was gradually improved and completed by succeeding princes, it will be more satisfactory to delay the consideration of it till the season of its full maturity and perfection.[1] Reserving, therefore, for the reign of Constantine a more exact picture of the new empire, we shall content ourselves with describing the principal and decisive outline, as it was traced by the hand of Diocletian. He had associated three colleagues in the exercise of the supreme power; and, as he was convinced that the abilities of a single man were inadequate to the public defence, he considered the joint administration of four princes not as a temporary expedient, but as a fundamental law of the constitution. It was his intention that the two elder princes should be distinguished by the use of the diadem, and the title of Augusti: that, as affection or esteem might direct their choice, they should regularly call to their assistance two subordinate colleagues; and that the Cæsars, rising in their turn to the first rank, should- ↑ The innovations introduced by Diocletian are chiefly deduced,—1st, from some very strong passages in Lactantius; and 2dly, from the new and various offices, which, in the Theodosian code, appear already established in the beginning of the reign of Constantine. [It is only in some cases that we can distinguish with probability, and only in a few with certainty, between the work of Diocletian and that of Constantine in organizing the new constitution of the Empire. An editor must follow the author's judicious example and reserve his supplementary remarks for the fuller picture in chap. xvii.]
