EDWARD GIBBON: Historical Works, Memoirs & Letters (Including "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"). Edward Gibbon
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at Eskihissar, (Stratoniccia,) by Col. Leake. This inscription was first copied by Sherard, afterwards much more completely by Mr. Bankes. It is confirmed and illustrated by a more imperfect copy of the same edict, found in the Levant by a gentleman of Aix, and brought to this country by M. Vescovali. This edict was issued in the name of the four Caesars, Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius, and Galerius. It fixed a maximum of prices throughout the empire, for all the necessaries and commodities of life. The preamble insists, with great vehemence on the extortion and inhumanity of the venders and merchants. Quis enim adeo obtunisi (obtusi) pectores (is) et a sensu inhumanitatis extorris est qui ignorare potest immo non senserit in venalibus rebus quaevel in mercimoniis aguntur vel diurna urbium conversatione tractantur, in tantum se licen liam defusisse, ut effraenata libido rapien — rum copia nec annorum ubertatibus mitigaretur. The edict, as Col. Leake clearly shows, was issued A. C. 303. Among the articles of which the maximum value is assessed, are oil, salt, honey, butchers’ meat, poultry, game, fish, vegetables, fruit the wages of laborers and artisans, schoolmasters and skins, boots and shoes, harness, timber, corn, wine, and beer, (zythus.) The depreciation in the value of money, or the rise in the price of commodities, had been so great during the past century, that butchers’ meat, which, in the second century of the empire, was in Rome about two denaril the pound, was now fixed at a maximum of eight. Col. Leake supposes the average price could not be less than four: at the same time the maximum of the wages of the agricultural laborers was twenty-five. The whole edict is, perhaps, the most gigantic effort of a blind though well-intentioned despotism, to control that which is, and ought to be, beyond the regulation of the government. See an Edict of Diocletian, by Col. Leake, London, 1826.
Col. Leake has not observed that this Edict is expressly named in the treatise de Mort. Persecut. ch. vii. Idem cum variis iniquitatibus immensam faceret caritatem, legem pretiis rerum venalium statuere conatus. — M]
105 Indicta lex nova quae sane illorum temporum modestia tolerabilis, in perniciem processit. Aurel. Victor., who has treated the character of Diocletian with good sense, though in bad Latin.]
106 Solus omnium post conditum Romanum Imperium, qui extanto fastigio sponte ad privatae vitae statum civilitatemque remearet, Eutrop. ix. 28.]
107 The particulars of the journey and illness are taken from Laclantius, c. 17,) who may sometimes be admitted as an evidence of public facts, though very seldom of private anecdotes.]
108 Aurelius Victor ascribes the abdication, which had been so variously accounted for, to two causes: 1st, Diocletian’s contempt of ambition; and 2dly, His apprehension of impending troubles. One of the panegyrists (vi. 9) mentions the age and infirmities of Diocletian as a very natural reason for his retirement.
Note: Constantine (Orat. ad Sanct. c. 401) more than insinuated that derangement of mind, connected with the conflagration of the palace at Nicomedia by lightning, was the cause of his abdication. But Heinichen. in a very sensible note on this passage in Eusebius, while he admits that his long illness might produce a temporary depression of spirits, triumphantly appeals to the philosophical conduct of Diocletian in his retreat, and the influence which he still retained on public affairs. — M.]
109 The difficulties as well as mistakes attending the dates both of the year and of the day of Diocletian’s abdication are perfectly cleared up by Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p 525, note 19, and by Pagi ad annum.]
110 See Panegyr. Veter. vi. 9. The oration was pronounced after Maximian had resumed the purple.]
111 Eumenius pays him a very fine compliment: “At enim divinum illum virum, qui primus imperium et participavit et posuit, consilii et fact isui non poenitet; nec amisisse se putat quod sponte transcripsit. Felix beatusque vere quem vestra, tantorum principum, colunt privatum.” Panegyr. Vet. vii. 15.]
112 We are obliged to the younger Victor for this celebrated item. Eutropius mentions the thing in a more general manner.]
113 Hist. August. p. 223, 224. Vopiscus had learned this conversation from his father.]
114 The younger Victor slightly mentions the report. But as Diocletian had disobliged a powerful and successful party, his memory has been loaded with every crime and misfortune. It has been affirmed that he died raving mad, that he was condemned as a criminal by the Roman senate, &c.]
115 See the Itiner. p. 269, 272, edit. Wessel.]
116 The Abate Fortis, in his Viaggio in Dalmazia, p. 43, (printed at Venice in the year 1774, in two small volumes in quarto,) quotes a Ms account of the antiquities of Salona, composed by Giambattista Giustiniani about the middle of the xvith century.]
117 Adam’s Antiquities of Diocletian’s Palace at Spalatro, p. 6. We may add a circumstance or two from the Abate Fortis: the little stream of the Hyader, mentioned by Lucan, produces most exquisite trout, which a sagacious writer, perhaps a monk, supposes to have been one of the principal reasons that determined Diocletian in the choice of his retirement. Fortis, p. 45. The same author (p. 38) observes, that a taste for agriculture is reviving at Spalatro; and that an experimental farm has lately been established near the city, by a society of gentlemen.]
118 Constantin. Orat. ad Coetum Sanct. c. 25. In this sermon, the emperor, or the bishop who composed it for him, affects to relate the miserable end of all the persecutors of the church.]
119 Constantin. Porphyr. de Statu Imper. p. 86.]
120 D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 162.]
121 Messieurs Adam and Clerisseau, attended by two draughtsmen visited Spalatro in the month of July, 1757. The magnificent work which their journey produced was published in London seven years afterwards.]
122 I shall quote the words of the Abate Fortis. “E’bastevolmente agli amatori dell’ Architettura, e dell’ Antichita, l’opera del Signor Adams, che a donato molto a que’ superbi vestigi coll’abituale eleganza del suo toccalapis e del bulino. In generale la rozzezza del scalpello, e’l cattivo gusto del secolo vi gareggiano colla magnificenz del fabricato.” See Viaggio in Dalmazia, p. 40.]
123 The orator Eumenius was secretary to the emperors Maximian and Constantius, and Professor of Rhetoric in the college of Autun. His salary was six hundred thousand sesterces, which, according to the lowest computation of that age, must have exceeded three thousand pounds a year. He generously requested the permission of employing it in rebuilding the college. See his Oration De Restaurandis Scholis; which, though not exempt from vanity, may atone for his panegyrics.]