28 Diocletian lived to an old age in a private station, at a villa which is not far from Salonae, in honourable retirement, exercising extraordinary philosophy, inasmuch as he alone of all men, since the foundation of the Roman empire, voluntarily returned from so high a dignity to the condition of private life, and to an equality with the other citizens. That happened to him, therefore, which had happened to no one since men were created, that, though he died in a private condition, he was enrolled among the gods.
1 In the old sense of the word, as Tzschucke thinks, on account of his victory. He had been made emperor before, as appears from Herodian, vii. 2.
2 A city of Gallia Transpadana, at the top of the Adriatic.
3 Ambo.] Both Gallus and Volusianus.Tzschucke.
4 Extinctus est.] He was killed by the soldiery, according to Zosimus, i. 29, and Zonaras, xii. 22.
5 A town of Lower Pannonia, on the river Drave. Cellar. Geog. Ant. ii. 8, 27.
6 Vilissimus opifex.] Victor de Caes. 33, 9, calls him ferri opifex, a worker in iron.
7 A town of the Ubii, so called because Agrippina was born there. It is now Cologne.
8 In Gallia Belgica, Amm. Marcell. xv. 11, now, as Tzschucke thinks, Chalons sur Marne.
9 See c. 10.
10 Tacitus made it his care to put the assassins to death. Vopisc. Vit. Tacit. c. 13; Aurel. Vict. Epit. c. 36.
11 A town in Upper Moesia, between the Danube and the Margus or Morava.
12 A name of uncertain signification, but supposed, says Tzschucke, to mean rebels or robbers.
13 Cellarius thinks that they may be the same as the Pentapolitani, that is, the Cyrenaeans, Cyrenaica comprising five cities, Berenice, Arsinoe, Ptolemais, Apollonia, and Cyrene.
14 King of Persia; more frequently written Narses.
15 The emperor mentioned in c. 11. Constantius was the grandson of Crispus, Claudius's brother.
16 The metropolis of Dacia Mediterranea; thought to be the same as the present Sofia in Bulgaria.
17 Apud Lingonas.] Lingonae, or Lingones, the chief town of the Lingones in Gaul, previously called Andomatunum; now Langres.
18 The speculatores, under the emperors, were a body of troops attached to the praetorian cohorts, or perhaps forming part of them, and having the care of the emperor's person. Ipsum Othonem comitabantur speculatorum lecta corpora, cum caeteris praetoriis cohortibus. Tac. Hist. ii 11.
19 Adorari.] See C. Nep. life of Conon, c. 3.
20 Pompa ferculorum illustri.] Fercula are representations of cities, rivers, and other objects in the conquered countries, carried in procession at a triumph, in imitation of Romulus, who carried the spoils of a slain enemy suspensa ferculo, Liv. i. 10.Tzschucke. Ferculum was a kind of frame in which anything might be carried or suspended.