The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon [274]
[Footnote 12: Julian, the grandson of Constantius, boasts that his family was derived from the warlike Maesians. Misopogon, p. 348. The Dardanians dwelt on the edge of Maesia.]
[Footnote 13: Galerius married Valeria, the daughter of Diocletian; if we speak with strictness, Theodora, the wife of Constantius, was daughter only to the wife of Maximian. Spanheim, Dissertat, xi. 2.]
[Footnote 14: This division agrees with that of the four praefectures; yet there is some reason to doubt whether Spain was not a province of Maximian. See Tillemont, tom. iv. p. 517.
Note: According to Aurelius Victor and other authorities, Thrace belonged to the division of Galerius. See Tillemont, iv. 36. But the laws of Diocletian are in general dated in Illyria or Thrace. - M.]
[Footnote 15: Julian in Caesarib. p. 315. Spanheim's notes to the French translation, p. 122.]
This important measure was not carried into execution till about six years after the association of Maximian, and that interval of time had not been destitute of memorable incidents. But we have preferred, for the sake of perspicuity, first to describe the more perfect form of Diocletian's government, and afterwards to relate the actions of his reign, following rather the natural order of the events, than the dates of a very doubtful chronology.
The first exploit of Maximian, though it is mentioned in a few words by our imperfect writers, deserves, from its singularity, to be recorded in a history of human manners. He suppressed the peasants of Gaul, who, under the appellation of Bagaudae, ^16 had risen in a general insurrection; very similar to those which in the fourteenth century successively afflicted both France and England. ^17 It should seem that very many of those institutions, referred by an easy solution to the feudal system, are derived from the Celtic barbarians. When Caesar subdued the Gauls, that great nation was already divided into three orders of men; the clergy, the nobility, and the common people. The first governed by superstition, the second by arms, but the third and last was not of any weight or account in their public councils. It was very natural for the plebeians, oppressed by debt, or apprehensive of injuries, to implore the protection of some powerful chief, who acquired over their persons and property the same absolute right as, among the Greeks and Romans, a master exercised over his slaves. ^18 The greatest part of the nation was gradually reduced into a state of servitude; compelled to perpetual labor on the estates of the Gallic nobles, and confined to the soil, either by the real weight of fetters, or by the no less cruel and forcible restraints of the laws. During the long series of troubles which agitated Gaul, from the reign of Gallienus to that of Diocletian, the condition of these servile peasants was peculiarly miserable; and they experienced at once the complicated tyranny of their masters, of the barbarians, of the soldiers, and of the officers of the revenue. ^19
[Footnote 16: The general name of Bagaudoe (in the signification of rebels) continued till the fifth century in Gaul. Some critics derive it from a Celtic word Bagad, a tumultuous assembly. Scaliger ad Euseb. Du Cange Glossar. (Compare S. Turner, Anglo-Sax. History, i. 214. - M.)]
[Footnote 17: Chronique de Froissart, vol. i. c. 182, ii. 73, 79.
The naivete of his story is lost in our best modern writers.]
[Footnote 18: Caesar de Bell. Gallic. vi. 13. Orgetorix, the Helvetian, could arm for his defence a body of ten thousand slaves.]
[Footnote 19: Their oppression and misery are acknowledged by Eumenius (Panegyr. vi. 8,) Gallias efferatas injuriis.]
Their patience was at last provoked into despair. On every side they rose in multitudes, armed with rustic weapons, and with irresistible fury. The ploughman became a foot soldier, the shepherd mounted on horseback, the deserted villages and open towns were abandoned to the flames, and the ravages