The ceremony of his abdication was performed in a spacious plain, about three miles from Nicomedia. The emperor ascended a lofty throne, and in a speech, full of reason and dignity, declared his intention, both to the people and to the soldiers who were assembled on this extraordinary occasion. A.D. 305. May 1As soon as he had divested himself of the purple, he withdrew from the gazing multitude, and, traversing the city in a covered chariot, proceeded, without delay, to the favourite retirement which he had chosen in his native country of Dalmatia. On the same day, which was the first of May,[1] Maximian, as it had been previously concerted, made his resignation of the Imperial Compliance of Maximiandignity at Milan. Even in the splendour of the Roman triumph,Diocletian had meditated his design of abdicating the government. As he wished to secure the obedience of Maximian, he exacted from him either a general assurance that he would submit his actions to the authority of his benefactor, or a particular promise that he would descend from the throne, whenever he should receive the advice and the example. This engagement, though it was confirmed by the solemnity of an oath before the altar of the Capitoline Jupiter,[2] would have proved a feeble restraint on the fierce temper of Maximian, whose passion 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 of Diocletian at SalonaDiocletian, who, from a servile origin, had raised himself to the throne, passed the nine last years of his 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.[3] 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
- ↑ The difficulties as well as mistakes attending the dates both of the year and of the day of Diocletian's abdication are perfectly cleared up by Tillemont, Hist, des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 525, Note 19, and by Pagi ad annum.
- ↑ See Panegyr. Veter. vi. 9 [8]. The oration was pronounced after Maximian had reassumed the purple.
- ↑ Eumenius pays him a very fine compliment, "At enim divinum ilium virum, qui primus imperium et participavit et posuit, consilii et facti sui non pœnitet; nee amisisse se putat quod sponte transcripsit. Felix beatusque vere quern vestra, tantorum principum, colunt obsequia privatum." Panegyr. Vet. vii. 15.
