where he reared the vastest and noblest dwelling that ever arose at the
bidding of a single man. From an ecumenical point of view, Spalato is
yet more. If it does not rank with Rome, Old and New, with Ravenna and
with Trier, it is because it never was, like them, an actual seat of
empire. But it not the less marks a stage, and one of the greatest
stages, in the history of the Empire.

On his own Dalmatian soil, Docles of Salone, Diocletian of Rome, was the
man who had won fame for his own land, and who, on the throne of the
world, did not forget his provincial birthplace. In the sight of Rome
and of the world Jovius Augustus was more than this. Alike in the
history of politics and in the history of art, he has left his mark on
all time that has come after him, and it is on his own Spalato that
his mark has been most deeply stamped. The polity of Rome and the
architecture of Rome alike received a new life at his hands. In each
alike he cast away shams and pretenses, and made the true construction
of the fabric stand out before men's eyes. Master of the Rome world, if
not King, yet more than King, he let the true nature of his power be
seen, and, first among the Cæsars, arrayed himself with the outward pomp
of sovereignty.

In a smaller man we might have deemed the change a mark of weakness, a
sign of childish delight in gewgaws, titles, and trappings. Such could
hardly have been the motive in the man who, when he deemed that his work
was done, could cast away both the form and the substance of power, and
could so steadily withstand all temptations to take them up again. It
was simply that the change was fully wrought; that the chief magistrate
of the commonwealth had gradually changed into the sovereign of the
Empire; that Imperator, Cæsar, and Augustus, once titles lowlier than
that of King, had now become, as they have ever since remained, titles