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Updated: June 8, 2025
The smoke from a cement factory hangs in the air like evening mists in an English valley; and, as we approach still nearer, the long line of buildings upon the quays, dominated by the great campanile and the colonnade of Diocletian's palace, gradually grows more impressive in the failing light.
Of the regular historians of his reign we have only the meagre narratives of Eutropius and Aurelius Victor, the others being now lost; but notices of Diocletian's life are scattered about in various authors, Libanius, Vopiscus, Eusebius, Julian in his "Cæsars," and the contemporary panegyrists, Eumenes and Mamertinus. His laws or edicts are in the "Code."
He and his colleagues restored the long-lost peace. They chastised the barbarians. Diocletian's reforms saved the Roman fabric from what seemed inevitable extinction, and enabled it to exist in some shape for almost another two hundred years. His system of division did not, however, save the Empire from civil wars.
The last-named town was, after the supreme power had been divided among two or more Augusti, a frequent seat of the imperial government of the Western provinces, and, like Milan, became a more important centre of public life than Rome. Of the extant collection of panegyrics, two were delivered there before Diocletian's colleague, the Emperor Maximianus.
Many of them still bore the marks of the persecutions they had borne in Diocletian's time: some had been blinded, or had their ears cut off; some had marks worn on their arms by chains, or were bowed by hard labor in the mines.
Under those vast resounding vaults swarmed a brood of mediaeval bravi like the wasps that hang their pear-shaped combs along the cloisters of Pavia. There the ghost of the dead empire still sat throned and sceptred. The rites of Christianity were carried on beneath Agrippa's dome, in Diocletian's baths, in the Basilicas.
In Rome it was openly stated that the army sent to the West, filled with mortal hatred of Carinus, had already reached the Ister, only nothing was said of it in the Cæsar's palace. There revelry was perpetual and if, from time to time, any one alluded to Diocletian's approach, he was pitilessly derided. "Who is this peasant?" asked Manlius. "Who ever heard his name among the patricians of Rome?
He was ambitious, and, as old Roman architecture interested him above all other subjects, he decided that he could attain his ideals only by study and travel in Italy. He returned to England in 1758 after four years of hard work with the results of his labors, the chief treasure being his careful drawings of Diocletian's villa.
The Sun-God Hercules holding a round object which admittedly signified the Golden Apple is to be seen on other coins issued during this reign. Among the coins issued by Diocletian's co-Emperor Maximian, is one bearing a representation of the Sun-God Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides near the Tree encircled by the Serpent he slew.
The result was for a long time doubtful. Diocletian's skill and experience as a general held the superior numbers of the foe in check. "Your leaders are good for nothing," cried Manlius; "Diocletian's centre might be broken by a general, resolute assault, for his weakest legions are stationed there, and then half his wing would be lost." "Make the necessary arrangements yourself," said Carinus.
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