The Python's felf however, paganism, now fwelled even to bursting with the divine honours lately affumed by Dioclefian, made dangerous attempts almoft untried before; and fervile Rome faw that bright diadem which she had refused to her firft emperor's merits, tried on by the irresistible defpotifm of her thirty-ninth, a plebeian by family, by original profeffion a fcrivener, yet by the coincidence of military prowess, with uncommon turns of fortune in his favour, we fee the æra actiatica in this reign put an end to; and mankind counting all events from his birth, who had no name but what the place supplied that he was born in Dioclea. This is strange; but far more curious still the tale told by Vopifcus, how Dioclefian, when in Mona once, meeting a druidefs, gave her a small donation; but the woman faid he need not to be so sparing of his money, for after he had killed a boar he fhould be emperor. The young foldier delighting in field sports killed many boars; and laughing, used to fay, the fybil was mistaken; for his fortune mended flowly: I kill the boars, faid he, but others eat the brawn. Time rolled away however, till at length Arrius Aper,* fatherin-law of Numerianus, treacheroufly grafping at the purple, murdered his daughter's husband. This traitor was configned to Dioclefian to dispatch, who asking his name, and hearing it, foon fheathed his bright fword in the affaffin's bowels, crying, et hunc aprum cum tæteris; which done, the foldiers without deliberation, praifing his decifive ftroke of justice, took him fuddenly upon their shoulders, and faluted him Imperator. The life of this man then was marked by wonders, among which the strangest far was the rare project he conceived of building a new palace at Salona, whence to retire, like Sylla, from the adulation of fubjects whom he fufpected, and from the vengeance that he dreaded for his crimes. 'Tis faid the taste in which his house was built, proves that the arts as well as fciences decayed; and when hiftorians relate the wonderful occurrence, language itself, like other branches of lite Aper means boar. + And this boar among the rest. rature rature, seems sinking under a rushing torrent of barbarity, very difficult to be accounted for even by the wifeft authors who have written upon the decline and fall of the Roman empire: a theme of cavil now, a fubject of contention, for modern petty wits and demi scholars; an object to be peeped at through my fmoaky glass of wretched RetrospecEnormous land-flips thus confound the naturalist, and crush the farmer; whilst vile attorneys only find account, by urging on difputes for deluged or for diflocated property. tion. CHAP CHAP. V. FROM THE DEATH OF DIOCLESIAN TO THE DEATH OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. PART OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. HAVING now climbed up the first three hundred years after our Christian æra, fpeculation begins to stagger at the height; and Retrospection ftands herself at gaze. Lighter than Phacton my whirling car seems shaking under me at every step; Nor will my steeds for obfervation stay, But hurry on too faft to mark our way. A moment however muft be bestowed on the retreat of Dioclefian; who, after reigning twenty years or more, whether fatiated with unavailing triumphs over yet unfubdued barbarians, or difgufted by perceiving that all his fubjects blood spilt in that fanguinary period availed nothing towards preventing perpetual converfions from paganism; or whether he was afraid of being affaffinated like his predeceffors, an apprehension by no means ill founded, quitted his crown, his purple, and his pomp, and fettled at Salona as he had long intended. Let the effect on us be what it will, the example struck his colleague Maximian with fuch force, that he, from imitation or caprice, adopted it, having first built the beautiful amphitheatre at Verona, which I faw in admirable prefervation about the year 1786, and fome thermæ at Milan made with immenfe expence: those fabricated at Rome by Dioclefian yet remain fo as to afford a very good idea of their grandeur. Cæfars however had been long created by both Emperors, in order order to divide the cares of government, fome time before their retiring from its fatigues, and thofe two youths naturally and quietly afcended the throne together. Galerius Armentarius, fo named of the flocks he fed in early life, was choice of a prince fprung from plebeian stock. Conftantius Chlorus, a collateral defcendant of the active and spirited emperor, Claudius, was the man chofen by Maximian a low-born foldier, and fo completely illiterate, that when his panegyrift compared him and his colleague to Scipio and Hannibal: Thofe men, faid he, I never heard about till now; they should have likened Dioclefian and me to Jupiter and Hercules. Wit will sometimes stoop to fervility; the orators took the hint, and did actually, the next opportunity, fo compare them. The appellations remained in use ten years ago; we. faw fome pillars in the street at Milan belonging to a temple fet up in honour of the Hercules Maximian. They were about removing them, I remember, for purpose of widening the way, fhewing no attention to poor Aufonius's verses Et Regio Herculei celebris, fub honore lavacri. But that the battle of Actium, fo long perpetuated by a calendar, should VOL. I. M or or before them, Doctor Stukely and his antiquarians may determine.. Amphibalus, long fuppofed the friend and fellow martyr of St. Alban here in Britain, where he was put to death, about the year 300, or foon after, was A. D. 1742, fuddenly found out by Conyers Middleton to have been nothing more than an ecclefiaftick's cloak, from which circumftance the Doctor derives much fource of empty triumph: yet now that the joke is over, fome one will perhaps find out in their turn, that he caught up this cloak of bifhop Ufher's fomewhat too haftily; for Frizius and Bale both speak of Amphibalus as of an author who left feveral tracts behind him; and fure the last named of these writers, though not perhaps an acrimonious Calvinist, as French biographers would wish us to believe, was yet unlikely to lose fo good a story against popery, by which he had himself been perfecuted under the reign of Queen Mary. One may obferve indeed that all the arguments urged by Doctor Middleton, have much lefs in them of learning than of fatire; more of plagiarism (I have heard) than of originality; and much more gay afperity than folid good fenfe. A town made famous in 1529, when Lutherans entered their neceffary proteft against the tyrannous innovations of the Romish church, first raised its head by command of Conftantius Chlorus; 'twas called Nemetum then, the Germans name it Speyer Spires: and while this Emperor repaired or fabricated new cities in Europe, Galerius his colleague revenged upon revolted Perfia fome of the indignities offered there to unhappy Valerian. This Ré Paftore however feemed to poffefs few of the fhepherd's qualities: implacable and fierce, the rigour of Aurelian's welljudged punishments became sharp cruelties when dictated by ferocious Armentarius, who having fucceeded to a fceptre more glittering to fight than extenfive in the ftretch, held it no long time; and feemed himself aware, that like an island of ice, though fun-beams played on its top, and created colours of immenfe variety; though the ftructure still appeared rocky, and danger waited on its every ftroke against thofe whom accident fhould drive across the course of its current; his em |