ate. Others say that Diocletian did it
spontaneously.

On the 1st of May he repaired with his guards to a spot three miles
out of Nicomedia, where he had thirteen years before proclaimed
Galerius as Caesar, and there addressing his officers and court, he
said that the infirmities of age warned him to retire from power, and
to deliver the administration of the state into stronger hands. He
then proclaimed Galerius as Augustus, and Maximinus Daza as the new
Caesar. Constantine, who has given an account of the ceremony, which is
quoted by Eusebius in his life of that prince, was present, and the
troops fully expected that he would be the new Caesar; when they heard
another mentioned, they asked each other whether Constantine had
changed his name. But Galerius did not leave them long in suspense; he
pushed forward Maximinus and showed him to the assembly, and
Diocletian clothed him with the purple vest, after which the old
emperor returned privately in his carriage to Nicomedia, and
immediately after set off for Salona in Dalmatia, near which he built
himself an extensive palace by the sea-shore, in which he lived for
the rest of his life, respected by the other emperors, without cares
and without regret.

[Illustration: The Victims of Galerius.]

Part of the external walls which inclosed the area belonging to his
palace and other buildings still remain, with three of the gates,
as well as a temple, which is now a church at Spalatro, or Spalato, in
Dalmatia, a comparatively modern town, grown out of the decay of the
ancient Salona, and built in great part within the walls of
Diocletian's residence, from the name of which, "Palatium," it is
believed that "Spalato" is derived.

At the same time that Diocletian abdicated at Nicomedia, Maximianus,
according to an agreement between them, performed a similar ceremony
at Milan, proclaiming Constantius as Augustus, and Severus as Caesar.
Both Severus and Maximinus Daza were inferior persons, and creatures
of Galerius, who insisted upon their nomination in preference to that
of Maxentius and Constantine, whom Diocletian had at first proposed.
Maximianus retired to his seat in Lucania, but not being endowed with
the firmness of Diocletian he tried some time after to recover his
former power, and wrote to his old colleague to induce him to do the
same. "Were you but to come to Salona," answered Diocletian, "and see
the vegetables which I grow in my garden with my own hands, you w