Diocletiānus Caius Valerius Jovius

, a celebrated Roman emperor, born of an obscure family in Dalmatia. He was first a common soldier, and by merit and succe he gradually rose to the office of a general, and at the death of Numerian he was invested with the imperial purple. In this high station, he rewarded the virtue and fidelity of Maximian, who had shared with him all the subordinate offices in the army, by making him his colleague on the throne. He created two subordinate emperors, Constant i us and Galerius, whom he called Cæsars , whilst he claimed for himself and his colleague the superior title of August us . Diocletian has been celebrated for his military virtues; and though he was naturally unpolished by education and study, yet he was the friend and patron of learning and true genius. He was bold and resolute, active and diligent, and well acquainted with the arts which endear a sovereign to his people, and make him respectable even in the eyes of his enemies. His cruelty, however, against the followers of christianity has been deservedly branded with the appellation of unbounded tyranny, and insolent wantonne . After he had reigned 21 years in the greatest prosperity, he publicly abdicated the crown at Nicomedia, on the 1st of May, A.D. 304, and retired to a private station at Salona. Maximian, his colleague, followed his example, but not from voluntary choice; and when he some time after endeavoured to rouse the ambition of Diocletian, and persuade him to rea ume the imperial purple, he received for answer, that Diocletian took now more delight in cultivating his little garden, than he formerly enjoyed in a palace, when his power was extended over all the earth. He lived nine years after his abdication in the greatest security and enjoyment at Salona, and died in the 68th year of his age. Diocletian is the first sovereign who voluntarily resigned his power; a philosophical resolution, which, in a later age, was imitated by the emperor Charles  V. of Germany.