THE GOVERNMENT OF THE LATER EMPIRE

=Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine.=—­After a century of civil wars emperors were found who were able to stop the anarchy.  They were men of the people, rude and active, soldiers of fortune rising from one grade to another to become generals-in-chief, and then emperors.  Almost all arose in the semi-barbarous provinces of the Danube and of Illyria; some in their infancy had been shepherds or peasants.  They had the simple manners of the old Roman generals.  When the envoys of the king of Persia asked to see the emperor Probus, they found a bald old man clad in a linen cassock, lying on the ground, who ate peas and bacon.  It was the story of Curius Dentatus repeated after five centuries.

Severe with their soldiers, these emperors reestablished discipline in the army, and then order in the empire.  But a change had become necessary.  A single man was no longer adequate to the government and defence of this immense territory; and so from this time each emperor took from among his relatives or his friends two or three collaborators, each charged with a part of the empire.  Usually their title was that of Caesar, but sometimes there were two equal emperors, and both had the title of Augustus.  When the emperor died, one of the Caesars succeeded him; it was no longer possible for the army to create emperors.  The provinces were too great, and Diocletian divided them.  The praetorians of Rome being dangerous, Diocletian replaced them with two legions.  The Occident was in ruins and depopulated and hence the Orient had become the important part of the empire; Diocletian, therefore, abandoned Rome and established his capital at Nicomedia in Asia Minor.[169] Constantine did more and founded a new Rome in the East—­Constantinople.

=Constantinople.=—­On a promontory where Europe is separated from Asia only by the narrow channel of the Bosporus, in a country of vineyards and rich harvests, under a beautiful sky, Greek colonists had founded the town of Byzantium.  The hills of the vicinity made the place easily defensible; its port, the Golden Horn, one of the best in the world, could shelter 1,200 ships, and a chain of 820 feet in length was all that was necessary to exclude a hostile fleet.  This was the site of Constantine’s new city, Constantinople (the city of Constantine).

Around the city were strong walls; two public squares surrounded with porticos were constructed; a palace was erected, a circus, theatres, aqueducts, baths, temples, and a Christian church.  To ornament his city Constantine transferred from other cities the most celebrated statues and bas-reliefs.  To furnish it with population he forced the people of the neighboring towns to remove to it, and offered rewards and honors to the great families who would come hither to make their home.  He established, as in Rome, distributions of grain, of wine, of oil, and provided a continuous round of shows.  This was one of those rapid transformations, almost fantastic, in which the Orient delights.  The task began the 4th of November, 326; on the 11th of May, 330, the city was dedicated.  But it was a permanent creation.  For ten centuries Constantinople resisted invasions, preserving always in the ruins of the empire its rank of capital.  Today it is still the first city of the East.