ar greater difficulty and
importance. The policy of Diocletian, which inspired the councils of his
associates, provided for the public tranquility, by encouraging a
spirit of dissension among the barbarians, and by strengthening the
fortifications of the Roman limit. In the East he fixed a line of camps
from Egypt to the Persian dominions, and for every camp, he instituted
an adequate number of stationary troops, commanded by their respective
officers, and supplied with every kind of arms, from the new arsenals
which he had formed at Antioch, Emesa, and Damascus. [32] Nor was the
precaution of the emperor less watchful against the well-known valor
of the barbarians of Europe. From the mouth of the Rhine to that of
the Danube, the ancient camps, towns, and citidels, were diligently
reestablished, and, in the most exposed places, new ones were skilfully
constructed: the strictest vigilance was introduced among the garrisons
of the frontier, and every expedient was practised that could render
the long chain of fortifications firm and impenetrable. [33] A barrier so
respectable was seldom violated, and the barbarians often turned against
each other their disappointed rage. The Goths, the Vandals, the
Gepidae, the Burgundians, the Alemanni, wasted each other's strength by
destructive hostilities: and whosoever vanquished, they vanquished
the enemies of Rome. The subjects of Diocletian enjoyed the bloody
spectacle, and congratulated each other, that the mischiefs of civil war
were now experienced only by the barbarians. [34]

[Footnote 32: John Malala, in Chron, Antiochen. tom. i. p. 408, 409.]

[Footnote 33: Zosim. l. i. p. 3. That partial historian seems to
celebrate the vigilance of Diocletian with a design of exposing the
negligence of Constantine; we may, however, listen to an orator: "Nam
quid ego alarum et cohortium castra percenseam, toto Rheni et Istri et
Euphraus limite restituta." Panegyr. Vet. iv. 18.]

[Footnote 34: Ruunt omnes in sanguinem suum populi, quibus ron
contigilesse Romanis, obstinataeque feritatis poenas nunc sponte
persolvunt. Panegyr. Vet. iii. 16. Mamertinus illustrates the fact by
the example of almost all the nations in the world.]

Notwithstanding the policy of Diocletian, it was impossible to maintain
an equal and undisturbed tranquillity during a reign of twenty years,
and along a frontier of many hundred miles. Sometimes the barbarians
suspended their domestic animosities, and the relaxed