ROME 



793 



paid by Rome, gave the rights of citizenship to the 

 former, thus equalising all and unifying the empire. 

 His brutal personality has no further interest for 

 us any more than that of his fifteen successors, 

 nearly all of whom came by a violent death, gener- 

 ally at the hands of the soldiers who had set them 

 up. For them the dreary Augustan History, or its 

 vivid condensation by Gibbon, must suffice, with 

 our own articles on Heliogabalus, Severus, the 

 three Gordians, Decius, Gallus, and Gallienus. 

 They left the Roman empire weak at every frontier, 

 exposed to the Franks on the Rhine and the Goths 

 on the Danube. The former ravaged Gaul and 

 Spain, the latter Asia Minor and Greece, while the 

 Persians, relieved of the Parthian yoke, had again 

 become a formidable power in the east. In Rome 

 and throughout Italy anarchy and distress pre- 

 vailed till a temporary revival was brought about 

 by the Illyrian emperors Claudius (268-270) driv- 

 ing back the Goths, and the yet abler Aurelian 

 (270-275), by his victories over Goths and Germans 

 and his successes in the east and west, restoring 

 the lustre of the Roman arms, and, for a brief 

 space, the unity of the empire. 



Diocletian (284-305), also an Illyrian, the next 

 great name on the imperial roll, introduced a system 

 of safeguards against dissolution within and aggres- 

 sion from without. He assumed the most capable 

 colleague he could find to share with him the 

 government of the empire. This was Maximian, 

 who, like himself, took the title of Augustus. He 

 further reinforced this dual control by associating 

 with him Galerius and Constantius, able generals, 

 like Maximian, whom he proclaimed as C&sares, 

 below the two Augusti in rank, but with the right 

 of succession to these. He himself had Thrace, 

 Egypt, and Asia under him ; to Maximian he gave 

 Italy and Africa, to Constantius Gaul, Spain, and 

 Britain, to Galerius the Dahubian provinces. 

 Thus internal sedition was suppressed within the 

 empire, and, this distraction removed, the frontier 

 fortifications could be perfected. The Rhine, the 

 Danube, and the Persian boundary were garrisoned 

 at frequent intervals and the barbarians kept in 

 check, while all temptation of the soldiers to 

 sedition was overawed by the repressive measures 

 at the command of the four rulers acting in concert. 

 Rome now ceased to be the one capital. If she 

 remained a capital, it was as the seat of a nominal 

 senate. The Augusti and Ccesares lived at their 

 headquarters, Diocletian at Nieomedia, Maximian 

 at Milan, Constantius at Treves, Galerius at 

 Sirmiuni. This was a momentous departure from 

 the tradition by which the emperors had claimed 

 to be but the supreme magistrates of the city and 

 the chiefs of her armies. Rome indeed was less 

 imperial than any town in which the emperor chose 

 to live. The policy of keeping the soldiery 

 estranged from the emperor's presence took the 

 form of increased dignity in his demeanour and 

 mode of life, the oriental magnificence introduced 

 by Aurelian reaching extravagant lengths in 

 Diocletian. He reorganised the services, civil and 

 military, under new titles, which came to be more 

 valued than the republican consul or senator, and 

 typified the completely autocratic power he 

 assumed. So long as he lived his system worked 

 effectively ; but after twenty-one years, and in break- 

 ing health, he abdicated publicly the power he felt 

 incapable of wielding. His masterful personality 

 no longer felt, rupture between Cresares and 

 ti ended in civil wars, till the son of the 

 Ciesar Constantius, Constantine, who had himself 

 become CiEar of the army in Britain, overcame all 

 rivalry, and in 323 ruled the empire single-handed. 

 Christianity, since its rise under Augustus and its 

 Kjirfid under Tiberius and the later emperors, had 

 triumphed over the last attempt under Diocletian 



to crush it by persecution, and the politic Constan- 

 tine, adopting it as his own religion, made it also 

 the state's. To the tottering imperial fabric it 

 brought new strength, armed with which he pro- 

 ceeded to develop Diocletian's policy of rehabilita- 

 tion. From Rome he transferred the seat of 

 government to Byzantium, henceforth called Con- 

 stantinople, commanding by its position the Greek 

 and Asiatic worlds. Remodelling Rome's tradi- 

 tional institutions, lie made a new senate, with a 

 large infusion of Greeks, all of his own choosing ; 

 he instituted a new prwfectus urbi, and founded 

 in the ' Rome on the Bosporus ' an absolute 

 monarchy. Reducing the number of soldiers under 

 each general, he weakened the army's power to 

 revolt by dividing it into two classes, one for the 

 towns, the other for the frontiers. The same sub- 

 dividing process he carried into the provinces, 

 splitting them up into districts, which again he 

 rearranged into thirteen larger ones, subject to four 

 prefects, responsible in their turn to the emperor. 

 Multiplying officials who owed everything to him, he 

 made them the nucleus of a new nobility, to super- 

 sede the old, and to find their interest in per- 

 petuating his power. These sagacious measures, 

 coupled with the prestige of the new religion, rein- 

 forced the empire greatly ; but the taxation 

 required to keep it up proved an element of weak- 

 ness. The costly court and the highly paid officials 

 drained the treasury, which had to be replenished 

 by exactions from the people, who met them from 

 the proceeds of the land they tilled. The forays 

 of barbarians, increasing in number and range, 

 steadily reduced the means of these small holders, 

 who tims, except in profound peace, could not 

 satisfy the tax-gatherers. Farms disappeared, 

 not to be replaced, and unproductive waste-lands 

 encroached more and more within the frontier. 

 The death of Constantine was the signal for civil 

 war among the rival Ca-sars, till Constantino's 

 only surviving son, Constantius II. (351-363), 

 succeeded in reuniting the empire under the same 

 house. Not without misgiving he made a ' Csesar ' 

 of his cousin Julian and entrusted him with Gaul, 

 where Julian's success was such as to rouse his 

 jealousy. Constantius accordingly commanded his 

 cousin's legions to start for Persia ; but instead of 

 complying they proclaimed Julian emperor and 

 Augustus. Constantius died soon after, and an 

 inevitable collision was averted. Julian (361-363) 

 interests us more by his defence of the Rhine 

 frontier and his Persian campaign than by his 

 'apostasy' from Christianity. He succeeded in 

 staving off the barbarian inroads on the western 

 provinces ; but his diversion in favour of the 'creed 

 outworn ' did not survive his last encounter on the 

 Tigris, where he was killed. Jovian, who suc- 

 ceeded him on the battlefield, outlived him a 

 few months, and Valentinian I. (364-375), the 

 next emperor, at the instance of the army which 

 proclaimed him, took as colleague his brother 

 Valens, whom he made emperor of the east. For 

 ten years the dual government prevailed, and the 

 barbarians were kept in check at the Rhine and 

 Danube, but his death found Valens unequal to 

 his post. The Goths, goaded by the Huns in their 

 rear, had thrown themselves on the hospitality 

 of their imperial neighbours, but were so harshly 

 treated that they turned on them and killed 

 Valens in battle" (378). They threatened Con- 

 stantinople, but the next emperor, Theodosius 

 (379-395), made them his allies and even auxiliaries, 

 so that he was able to keep on the throne his 

 colleague of the west, the feeble Gratian. That 

 emperor was murdered (383) by Maximus, whom 

 Theodosius recognised as Ctesar and left in command 

 of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, till Maximus (386), 

 worsted by Theodosius in his attempt on Italy and 



