Chapter XIII: Diocletian
Read it here, here, or here.
1) Good quotes
On the man himself: His abilities were useful rather than splendid - a vigorous mind improved by the experience and study of mankind; dexterity and application in business; a judicious mixture of liberality and economy, of mildness and rigour; profound dissimulation under the disguise of military frankness; steadiness to pursue his ends; flexibility to vary his means; and, above all, the great art of submitting his own passions, as well as those of others, to the interest of his ambition, and of colouring his ambition with the most specious pretences of justice and public utility.
On alchemy: It may be remarked that these ancient books, so liberally ascribed to Pythagoras, to Solomon, or to Hermes, were the pious frauds of more recent adepts. The Greeks were inattentive either to the use or to the abuse of chymistry. In that immense register where Pliny has deposited the discoveries, the arts, and the errors of mankind, there is not the least mention of the transmutation of metals; and the persecution of Diocletian is the first authentic event in the history of alchymy. The conquest of Egypt by the Arabs diffused that vain science over the globe. Congenial to the avarice of the human heart, it was studied in China as in Europe, with equal eagerness, and with equal success. The darkness of the middle ages ensured a favourable reception to every tale of wonder, and the revival of learning gave new vigour to hope, and suggested more specious arts of deception. Philosophy, with the aid of experience, has at length banished the study of alchymy; and the present age, however desirous of riches, is content to seek them by the humbler means of commerce and industry.
Note how the Egyptians are to blame (again).
2) Chapter Summary Another very long chapter, but an excellent read, full of incident and character - not surprisingl my condensed Wordsworth edition skips straight to this after Chapter IX. Diocletian comes over as one of the best emperors so far - a slave from Illyria who rose to the top, managed it well, and retired in time to enjoy his later years plating cabbages by the Adriatic. In the meantime he puts down Carausius' rebellion in Britain, wins a war with Persia and sorts out the empire by dividing it into four. Of course, that simply meant new structures that could go wrong; but it was a good solution to the problem of unmanageability.
3) Points arising
i) Christianity
...simply isn't mentioned here, despite the notoriety of Diocletian's persecution of the Christians. Presumably Gibbon will cover this in Chapters XV and XVI, and is here cocking a snook at the pro-Christian writers for whom Diocletian is an unmitigated villain. NB that Gibbon does praise Diocletian's suppression of alchemy, a Levantine superstition with pretensions to deeper truths.
ii) Carausius
I give Gibbon credit for not giving Carausius too much space, even though his rebellion is the only interesting thing that has happened in Britain for 200 years.
iii) the Persian borderlands
Gibbon simply doesn't care much about geographical details, I think. I caught him out about the location of Margus in the last chapter, and in Chapter X we had that confusion about the Bosphorus. He thinks that the provinces of Intiline and Moxoene, rather than Rehimene and Sophene, were ceded to the Romans along with Zabdicene, Arzanene and Carducene, but he doesn't really care: these are "districts of obscure fame and inconsiderable extent" (apart from the last which is effectively Kurdistan). Certainly it is difficult to correlate them with today's political geography. Gibbon has the Araxes River as a tributary to the Euphrates, when in fact it flows into the Caspian; the river course he describes is more like that of the Khabur.
iv) Split
The ruins of Diocletian's home town, Doclea, from which he took his name, are just a short walk from the centre of Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro - I must have a look next time I am there.
Diocletian's residence in his retirement became the nucleus of the medieval town which is today Croatia's second city. In 1764 the Scottish architect Robert Adam published his Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia, and Gibbon clearly knew and loved the book, which showed the survival of an entire classical building project in a forgotten corner of the Venetian Republic and was apparently tremendously influential in the development of the neoclassical architectural style of the late 18th century. I went for the first time in 1996, and it is an amazing thing to see the 1600-year-old walls still in use. (Adam's illustrations make them look more romantically worn down and overgrown than I suspect they were even when he visited in 1757.) What struck me was that in the middle of this building, constructed about 300 AD, was an Egyptian sphinx which was twice as old; and that also the doors of today's cathedral, a significant work in themselves, date from 1220 (the cathedral still has the original paperwork), so are almost precisely half the age of the building on which they hang.
Another error in detail I have to report: Gibbon follows Adam in describing the cathedral at Split as having formerly been the Temple of Jupiter, so it is not his fault that he is wrong. But today it is universally believed that the cathedral was constructed as Diocletian's own mausoleum. There is a certain irony in this; he would be turning in his grave at the idea of it being a place of Christian worship, had they not turfed him out of it. Rebecca West, whose prose style is generally even better than Gibbon's, has a lovely and moving speculation as to how his body might have got lost: For about a hundred and seventy years the sarcophagus of Diocletian was visible, firmly planted in the middle of the mausoleum, described by intelligent visitors. Then it suddenly was not there any more. It is suggested that a party of revengeful Christians threw it into the sea; but that is an action comprehensible only in a smouldering minority, and Christianity had been the official religion of the Roman Empire since the time of the Emperor's death. Nor can it be supposed that the sarcophagus was destroyed by the Avar invaders, for they did not reach the coast until a couple of centuries later. Probably the occasion of its disappearance was far less dramatic.
The everyday routine of life persisted in Aspalaton, however many barbarians committed murder; in the textile factory the shuttles crossed and recrossed the loom. Without doubt it continued to be necessary that Diocletian's mausoleum should be cleaned and repaired, and one day the owner of a yard near by may have said, "Yes, you may put it down there," and watched the sarcophagus reverently, wondering that he should be the guardian of such a holy thing. It may be also that the workmen who laid it down did not come back, that there was a threat to the city from land or sea which called them and the authorities who employed them and the owner of the yard himself to the defense. Soon it might be that people would say of the sarcophagus, "I wonder when they will come and take it back"; but continued unrest might make it advisable that the treasures of the temples should be kept dispersed. Not so much later it might be that a break in a chain of family confidences, due to violent death or flight or even natural death, if it were sudden, would leave the sarcophagus unidentified and only vaguely important. Some day a woman would say of it, "I really do not know what that is. It is just something that has always been here; and it is full of old things." She spoke the truth. It was full of old things: the bones of Diocletian the man, the robes of Diocletian the Emperor, the idea of a world order imposed on the peoples by superior people, who were assumed to know because they could act. Aspalaton, the palace of the great Restorer of the Earth, had passed away. It had become Split, a city lived in by common people, who could establish order within the limits of a kitchen or a workshop or a textile factory, but had been monstrously hindered in the exercise of that capacity by the efforts of the superior people who establish world order.
I have no doubt that one day Diocletian's sarcophagus will turn up in the cellar of an old and absent-minded family of Split; and in the cellar of the Dalmatian mind, the foundation on which its present philosophy is built, the old Emperor is to be found also.
4) Coming next
Chapter XIV: Between Diocletian and Constantine. Read it here, here or here.
1) Good quotes
On the man himself: His abilities were useful rather than splendid - a vigorous mind improved by the experience and study of mankind; dexterity and application in business; a judicious mixture of liberality and economy, of mildness and rigour; profound dissimulation under the disguise of military frankness; steadiness to pursue his ends; flexibility to vary his means; and, above all, the great art of submitting his own passions, as well as those of others, to the interest of his ambition, and of colouring his ambition with the most specious pretences of justice and public utility.
On alchemy: It may be remarked that these ancient books, so liberally ascribed to Pythagoras, to Solomon, or to Hermes, were the pious frauds of more recent adepts. The Greeks were inattentive either to the use or to the abuse of chymistry. In that immense register where Pliny has deposited the discoveries, the arts, and the errors of mankind, there is not the least mention of the transmutation of metals; and the persecution of Diocletian is the first authentic event in the history of alchymy. The conquest of Egypt by the Arabs diffused that vain science over the globe. Congenial to the avarice of the human heart, it was studied in China as in Europe, with equal eagerness, and with equal success. The darkness of the middle ages ensured a favourable reception to every tale of wonder, and the revival of learning gave new vigour to hope, and suggested more specious arts of deception. Philosophy, with the aid of experience, has at length banished the study of alchymy; and the present age, however desirous of riches, is content to seek them by the humbler means of commerce and industry.
Note how the Egyptians are to blame (again).
2) Chapter Summary Another very long chapter, but an excellent read, full of incident and character - not surprisingl my condensed Wordsworth edition skips straight to this after Chapter IX. Diocletian comes over as one of the best emperors so far - a slave from Illyria who rose to the top, managed it well, and retired in time to enjoy his later years plating cabbages by the Adriatic. In the meantime he puts down Carausius' rebellion in Britain, wins a war with Persia and sorts out the empire by dividing it into four. Of course, that simply meant new structures that could go wrong; but it was a good solution to the problem of unmanageability.
3) Points arising
i) Christianity
...simply isn't mentioned here, despite the notoriety of Diocletian's persecution of the Christians. Presumably Gibbon will cover this in Chapters XV and XVI, and is here cocking a snook at the pro-Christian writers for whom Diocletian is an unmitigated villain. NB that Gibbon does praise Diocletian's suppression of alchemy, a Levantine superstition with pretensions to deeper truths.
ii) Carausius
I give Gibbon credit for not giving Carausius too much space, even though his rebellion is the only interesting thing that has happened in Britain for 200 years.
iii) the Persian borderlands
Gibbon simply doesn't care much about geographical details, I think. I caught him out about the location of Margus in the last chapter, and in Chapter X we had that confusion about the Bosphorus. He thinks that the provinces of Intiline and Moxoene, rather than Rehimene and Sophene, were ceded to the Romans along with Zabdicene, Arzanene and Carducene, but he doesn't really care: these are "districts of obscure fame and inconsiderable extent" (apart from the last which is effectively Kurdistan). Certainly it is difficult to correlate them with today's political geography. Gibbon has the Araxes River as a tributary to the Euphrates, when in fact it flows into the Caspian; the river course he describes is more like that of the Khabur.
iv) Split
The ruins of Diocletian's home town, Doclea, from which he took his name, are just a short walk from the centre of Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro - I must have a look next time I am there.
Diocletian's residence in his retirement became the nucleus of the medieval town which is today Croatia's second city. In 1764 the Scottish architect Robert Adam published his Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia, and Gibbon clearly knew and loved the book, which showed the survival of an entire classical building project in a forgotten corner of the Venetian Republic and was apparently tremendously influential in the development of the neoclassical architectural style of the late 18th century. I went for the first time in 1996, and it is an amazing thing to see the 1600-year-old walls still in use. (Adam's illustrations make them look more romantically worn down and overgrown than I suspect they were even when he visited in 1757.) What struck me was that in the middle of this building, constructed about 300 AD, was an Egyptian sphinx which was twice as old; and that also the doors of today's cathedral, a significant work in themselves, date from 1220 (the cathedral still has the original paperwork), so are almost precisely half the age of the building on which they hang.
Another error in detail I have to report: Gibbon follows Adam in describing the cathedral at Split as having formerly been the Temple of Jupiter, so it is not his fault that he is wrong. But today it is universally believed that the cathedral was constructed as Diocletian's own mausoleum. There is a certain irony in this; he would be turning in his grave at the idea of it being a place of Christian worship, had they not turfed him out of it. Rebecca West, whose prose style is generally even better than Gibbon's, has a lovely and moving speculation as to how his body might have got lost: For about a hundred and seventy years the sarcophagus of Diocletian was visible, firmly planted in the middle of the mausoleum, described by intelligent visitors. Then it suddenly was not there any more. It is suggested that a party of revengeful Christians threw it into the sea; but that is an action comprehensible only in a smouldering minority, and Christianity had been the official religion of the Roman Empire since the time of the Emperor's death. Nor can it be supposed that the sarcophagus was destroyed by the Avar invaders, for they did not reach the coast until a couple of centuries later. Probably the occasion of its disappearance was far less dramatic.
The everyday routine of life persisted in Aspalaton, however many barbarians committed murder; in the textile factory the shuttles crossed and recrossed the loom. Without doubt it continued to be necessary that Diocletian's mausoleum should be cleaned and repaired, and one day the owner of a yard near by may have said, "Yes, you may put it down there," and watched the sarcophagus reverently, wondering that he should be the guardian of such a holy thing. It may be also that the workmen who laid it down did not come back, that there was a threat to the city from land or sea which called them and the authorities who employed them and the owner of the yard himself to the defense. Soon it might be that people would say of the sarcophagus, "I wonder when they will come and take it back"; but continued unrest might make it advisable that the treasures of the temples should be kept dispersed. Not so much later it might be that a break in a chain of family confidences, due to violent death or flight or even natural death, if it were sudden, would leave the sarcophagus unidentified and only vaguely important. Some day a woman would say of it, "I really do not know what that is. It is just something that has always been here; and it is full of old things." She spoke the truth. It was full of old things: the bones of Diocletian the man, the robes of Diocletian the Emperor, the idea of a world order imposed on the peoples by superior people, who were assumed to know because they could act. Aspalaton, the palace of the great Restorer of the Earth, had passed away. It had become Split, a city lived in by common people, who could establish order within the limits of a kitchen or a workshop or a textile factory, but had been monstrously hindered in the exercise of that capacity by the efforts of the superior people who establish world order.
I have no doubt that one day Diocletian's sarcophagus will turn up in the cellar of an old and absent-minded family of Split; and in the cellar of the Dalmatian mind, the foundation on which its present philosophy is built, the old Emperor is to be found also.
4) Coming next
Chapter XIV: Between Diocletian and Constantine. Read it here, here or here.