nations acquired the name and privileges, without imbibing
the partial affections, of Romans. During a long period, however,
the remains of the ancient constitution, and the influence of custom,
preserved the dignity of Rome. The emperors, though perhaps of African
or Illyrian extraction, respected their adopted country, as the seat
of their power, and the centre of their extensive dominions. The
emergencies of war very frequently required their presence on the
frontiers; but Diocletian and Maximian were the first Roman princes who
fixed, in time of peace, their ordinary residence in the provinces; and
their conduct, however it might be suggested by private motives, was
justified by very specious considerations of policy. The court of the
emperor of the West was, for the most part, established at Milan, whose
situation, at the foot of the 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. 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. 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