ut we have preferred, for
the sake of perspicuity, first to describe the more perfect form of
Diocletian's government, and afterwards to relate the actions of his
reign, following rather the natural order of the events, than the dates
of a very doubtful chronology.

The first exploit of Maximian, though it is mentioned in a few words by
our imperfect writers, deserves, from its singularity, to be recorded
in a history of human manners. He suppressed the peasants of Gaul,
who, under the appellation of Bagaudae, [16] had risen in a general
insurrection; very similar to those which in the fourteenth century
successively afflicted both France and England. [17] It should seem that
very many of those institutions, referred by an easy solution to the
feudal system, are derived from the Celtic barbarians. When Caesar
subdued the Gauls, that great nation was already divided into three
orders of men; the clergy, the nobility, and the common people. The
first governed by superstition, the second by arms, but the third and
last was not of any weight or account in their public councils. It was
very natural for the plebeians, oppressed by debt, or apprehensive of
injuries, to implore the protection of some powerful chief, who acquired
over their persons and property the same absolute right as, among the
Greeks and Romans, a master exercised over his slaves. [18] The greatest
part of the nation was gradually reduced into a state of servitude;
compelled to perpetual labor on the estates of the Gallic nobles, and
confined to the soil, either by the real weight of fetters, or by the no
less cruel and forcible restraints of the laws. During the long series
of troubles which agitated Gaul, from the reign of Gallienus to that
of Diocletian, the condition of these servile peasants was peculiarly
miserable; and they experienced at once the complicated tyranny of their
masters, of the barbarians, of the soldiers, and of the officers of
the revenue. [19]

[Footnote 16: The general name of Bagaudoe (in the signification of
rebels) continued till the fifth century in Gaul. Some critics derive it
from a Celtic word Bagad, a tumultuous assembly. Scaliger ad Euseb. Du
Cange Glossar. (Compare S. Turner, Anglo-Sax. History, i. 214.--M.)]

[Footnote 17: Chronique de Froissart, vol. i. c. 182, ii. 73, 79. The
naivete of his story is lost in our best modern writers.]

[Footnote 18: Caesar de Bell. Gallic. vi. 13. Orgetorix, the Helvetian,
could arm f