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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 considered as the first distinction
among men, it was soon employed by the servile provincials of the East,
in their humble addresses to the Roman throne. Even the attributes, or
at least the titles, of the Divinity, were usurped by Diocletian and
Maximian, who transmitted them to a succession of Christian emperors.
Such extravagant compliments, however, soon lose their impiety by losing
their meaning; and when the ear is once accustomed to the sound, they
are heard with indifference, as vague though excessive professions of
respect.

From the time of Augustus to that of Diocletian, the Roman princes,
conversing in a familiar manner among their fellow-citizens, were
saluted only with the same respect that was usually paid to senators and
magistrates. Their principal distinction was the Imperial or military
robe of purple; whilst the senatorial garment was marked by a broad, and
the equestrian by a narrow, band or stripe of the same honorable color.
The pride, or rather the policy, of Diocletian, engaged that artful
prince to introduce the stately magnificence of the court of Persia. He
ventured to assume the diadem, an ornament detested by the Romans as the
odious ensign of royalty, and the use of which had been considered as
the most desperate act of the madness of Caligula. It was no more than a
broad white fillet set with pearls, which encircled the emperor's head.
The sumptuous robes of Diocletian and his successors were of silk and
gold; and it is remarked with indignation,