e Alps, appeared
far more convenient than that of Rome, for the important purpose of
watching the motions of the barbarians of Germany. Milan soon assumed
the splendor of an Imperial city. The houses are described as numerous
and well built; the manners of the people as polished and liberal. A
circus, a theatre, a mint, a palace, baths, which bore the name of
their founder Maximian; porticos adorned with statues, and a double
circumference of walls, contributed to the beauty of the new capital;
nor did it seem oppressed even by the proximity of Rome. [90] To rival
the majesty of Rome was the ambition likewise of Diocletian, who
employed his leisure, and the wealth of the East, in the embellishment
of Nicomedia, a city placed on the verge of Europe and Asia, almost at
an equal distance between the Danube and the Euphrates. By the taste of
the monarch, and at the expense of the people, Nicomedia acquired, in
the space of a few years, a degree of magnificence which might appear
to have required the labor of ages, and became inferior only to Rome,
Alexandria, and Antioch, in extent of populousness. [91] The life of
Diocletian and Maximian was a life of action, and a considerable portion
of it was spent in camps, or in the long and frequent marches; but
whenever the public business allowed them any relaxation, they seemed to
have retired with pleasure to their favorite residences of Nicomedia and
Milan. Till Diocletian, in the twentieth year of his reign, celebrated
his Roman triumph, it is extremely doubtful whether he ever visited the
ancient capital of the empire. Even on that memorable occasion his stay
did not exceed two months. Disgusted with the licentious familiarity of
the people, he quitted Rome with precipitation thirteen days before it
was expected that he should have appeared in the senate, invested with
the ensigns of the consular dignity. [92]

[Footnote 88: Livy gives us a speech of Camillus on that subject, (v.
51--55,) full of eloquence and sensibility, in opposition to a design
of removing the seat of government from Rome to the neighboring city of
Veii.]

[Footnote 89: Julius Caesar was reproached with the intention of
removing the empire to Ilium or Alexandria. See Sueton. in Caesar. c.
79. According to the ingenious conjecture of Le Fevre and Dacier,
the ode of the third book of Horace was intended to divert from the
execution of a similar design.]

[Footnote 90: See Aurelius Victor, who likewise men