that even their shoes were
studded with the most precious gems. The access to their sacred person
was every day rendered more difficult by the institution of new forms
and ceremonies. The avenues of the palace were strictly guarded by the
various schools, as they began to be called, of domestic officers.
The interior apartments were intrusted to the jealous vigilance of
the eunuchs, the increase of whose numbers and influence was the most
infallible symptom of the progress of despotism. When a subject was at
length admitted to the Imperial presence, he was obliged, whatever might
be his rank, to fall prostrate on the ground, and to adore, according to
the eastern fashion, the divinity of his lord and master. Diocletian was
a man of sense, who, in the course of private as well as public life,
had formed a just estimate both of himself and of mankind: nor is it
easy to conceive, that in substituting the manners of Persia to those
of Rome, he was seriously actuated by so mean a principle as that of
vanity. He flattered himself, that an ostentation of splendor and luxury
would subdue the imagination of the multitude; that the monarch would be
less exposed to the rude license of the people and the soldiers, as his
person was secluded from the public view; and that habits of submission
would insensibly be productive of sentiments of veneration. Like the
modesty affected by Augustus, the state maintained by Diocletian was
a theatrical representation; but it must be confessed, that of the two
comedies, the former was of a much more liberal and manly character than
the latter. It was the aim of the one to disguise, and the object of the
other to display, the unbounded power which the emperors possessed over
the Roman world.

Ostentation was the first principle of the new system instituted
by Diocletian. The second was division. He divided the empire,
the provinces, and every branch of the civil as well as military
administration. He multiplied the wheels of the machine of government,
and rendered its operations less rapid, but more secure. Whatever
advantages and whatever defects might attend these innovations, they
must be ascribed in a very great degree to the first inventor; but
as the new frame of policy was gradually improved and completed
by succeeding princes, it will be more satisfactory to delay the
consideration of it till the season of its full maturity and perfection.
Reserving, therefore, for the reign of Constanti