he wall itself has been several times thrown down and rebuilt. He also
built the city in Gaul which still bears his name, slightly altered into
Orleans. He was one of those stern, brave Emperors, who vainly tried to
bring back old Roman manners, and fancied it was Christianity that
corrupted them; and he was just preparing for a great persecution when
he was murdered in his tent, and there were three or four more Emperors
set up and then killed almost as soon as their reign was well begun. The
last thirty of them are sometimes called the Thirty Tyrants. This power
of the Praetorian Guard, of setting up and pulling down their Emperor as
being primarily their general, lasted altogether fully a hundred years.

[Illustration: COIN OF SEVERUS]

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE.

284-312.

A Dalmatian soldier named Diocles had been told by a witch that he
should become Emperor by the slaughter of a boar. He became a great
hunter, but no wild boar that he killed seemed to bring him nearer to
the purple, till, when the army was fighting on the Tigris, the Emperor
Numerianus died, and an officer named Aper offered himself as his
successor. Aper is the Latin for a boar, and Diocles, perceiving the
scope of the prophecy, thrust his sword into his rival's breast, and was
hailed Emperor by the legions. He lengthened his name out to
Diocletianus, to sound more imperial, and began a dominion unlike that
of any who had gone before. They had only been, as it were, overgrown
generals, chosen by the Praetorians or some part of the army, and at the
same time taking the tribuneship and other offices for life. Diocletian,
though called Emperor, reigned like the kings of the East. He broke the
strength of the Praetorians, so that they could never again kill one
Emperor and elect another as before; and he never would visit Rome lest
he should be obliged to acknowledge the authority of the Senate, whose
power he contrived so entirely to take away, that thenceforward Senator
became only a complimentary title, of which people in the subdued
countries were very proud.

[Illustration: DIOCLETIAN.]

He divided the empire into two parts, feeling that it was beyond the
management of any one man, and chose an able soldier of low birth but
much courage, named Maximian, to rule the West from Trier as his
capital, while he himself ruled the East from Nicomedia. Each of the two
Emperors chose a future successor, who was to rule in