quired and preserved the esteem of the legions
as well as the favor of so many warlike princes. Yet even calumny is
sagacious enough to discover and to attack the most vulnerable part. The
valor of Diocletian was never found inadequate to his duty, or to the
occasion; but he appears not to have possessed the daring and generous
spirit of a hero, who courts danger and fame, disdains artifice, and
boldly challenges the allegiance of his equals. His abilities were
useful rather than splendid; a vigorous mind, improved by the experience
and study of mankind; dexterity and application in business; a judicious
mixture of liberality and economy, of mildness and rigor; profound
dissimulation, under the disguise of military frankness; steadiness
to pursue his ends; flexibility to vary his means; and, above all, the
great art of submitting his own passions, as well as those of others, to
the interest of his ambition, and of coloring his ambition with the
most specious pretences of justice and public utility. Like Augustus,
Diocletian may be considered as the founder of a new empire. Like the
adopted son of Caesar, he was distinguished as a statesman rather than
as a warrior; nor did either of those princes employ force, whenever
their purpose could be effected by policy.

[Footnote 1: Eutrop. ix. 19. Victor in Epitome. The town seems to have
been properly called Doclia, from a small tribe of Illyrians, (see
Cellarius, Geograph. Antiqua, tom. i. p. 393;) and the original name of
the fortunate slave was probably Docles; he first lengthened it to
the Grecian harmony of Diocles, and at length to the Roman majesty of
Diocletianus. He likewise assumed the Patrician name of Valerius and it
is usually given him by Aurelius Victor.]

[Footnote 2: See Dacier on the sixth satire of the second book of Horace
Cornel. Nepos, 'n Vit. Eumen. c. l.]

[Footnote 3: Lactantius (or whoever was the author of the little
treatise De Mortibus Persecutorum) accuses Diocletian of timidity in
two places, c. 7. 8. In chap. 9 he says of him, "erat in omni tumultu
meticulosu et animi disjectus."]

The victory of Diocletian was remarkable for its singular mildness. A
people accustomed to applaud the clemency of the conqueror, if the usual
punishments of death, exile, and confiscation, were inflicted with
any degree of temper and equity, beheld, with the most pleasing
astonishment, a civil war, the flames of which were extinguished in the
field of battle. Di