much reputation by the use of the plumbatoe, or darts
loaded with lead. Each soldier carried five of these, which he darted
from a considerable distance, with great strength and dexterity. See
Vegetius, i. 17.]

[Footnote 96: See the Theodosian Code, l. vi. tit. ii. with Godefroy's
commentary.]

Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And This Three Associates.--Part IV.

When the Roman princes had lost sight of the senate and of their ancient
capital, they easily forgot the origin and nature of their legal power.
The civil offices of consul, of proconsul, of censor, and of tribune,
by the union of which it had been formed, betrayed to the people its
republican extraction. Those modest titles were laid aside; [97] and
if they still distinguished their high station by the appellation
of Emperor, or Imperator, that word was understood in a new and more
dignified sense, and no longer denoted the general of the Roman armies,
but the sovereign of the Roman world. The name of Emperor, which was
at first of a military nature, was associated with another of a
more servile kind. The epithet of Dominus, or Lord, in its primitive
signification, was expressive, not of the authority of a prince over his
subjects, or of a commander over his soldiers, but of the despotic power
of a master over his domestic slaves. [98] Viewing it in that odious
light, it had been rejected with abhorrence by the first Caesars. Their
resistance insensibly became more feeble, and the name less odious; till
at length the style of our Lord and Emperor was not only bestowed by
flattery, but was regularly admitted into the laws and public monuments.
Such lofty epithets were sufficient to elate and satisfy the most
excessive vanity; and if the successors of Diocletian still declined
the title of King, it seems to have been the effect not so much of their
moderation as of their delicacy. Wherever the Latin tongue was in use,
(and it was the language of government throughout the empire,) the
Imperial title, as it was peculiar to themselves, conveyed a more
respectable idea than the name of king, which they must have shared with
a hundred barbarian chieftains; or which, at the best, they could derive
only from Romulus, or from Tarquin. But the sentiments of the East
were very different from those of the West. From the earliest period
of history, the sovereigns of Asia had been celebrated in the Greek
language by the title of Basileus, or King; and since it was