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De la mort des persécuteurs de l'église

VII.

Dioclétien, mauvais prince et auteur de tous nos maux, après avoir désolé l'empire, étendit ses mains impies sur les serviteurs de l'Éternel. L'avarice et la timidité de cet empereur faillirent à ruiner l'État. Il associa trois princes à l'empire, qu'il divisa en quatre parties. Il multiplia les armées, et chaque empereur mit sur pied plus de troupes qu'il n'y en avait lorsque tout n'obéissait qu'à un seul maître. En ce temps-là on prenait plus qu'on ne donnait ; les impositions étaient si excessives que les laboureurs furent contraints de déserter, et les campagnes se changèrent en forêts. Pour jeter la terreur partout, les provinces ayant été divisées en parties, chaque canton, presque chaque ville, gémissait sous son gouverneur ou son intendant. On ne voyait partout que des officiers du fisc, qui saisissaient des biens abandonnés. Parmi toutes ces rapines, peu d'affaires civiles ; ce n'était que condamnations et proscriptions. Au reste, les continuelles impositions sur toutes sortes de marchandises se levaient avec des rigueurs insupportables. Pour ce qui est de la subsistance des soldats, les peuples la fournissaient avec moins de murmures. L'insatiable avarice de Dioclétien ne pouvait consentir à la diminution de ses trésors, mais de tous côtés il amassait des deniers pour n'être pas obligé de toucher à son épargne. Ses injustices ayant causé une extrême cherté, il mit un prix aux denrées; mais la modicité du prix fixé donna occasion à beaucoup de meurtres, de sorte que l'on n'osait plus rien exposer en vente, ce qui redoubla encore la cherté. Ainsi l'impossibilité de l'exécution abolit enfin l'ordonnance, après toutefois qu'elle eut coûté la vie à plusieurs personnes. A tant de vices, Dioclétien joignait encore la folie des bâtiments. Il obligeait rigoureusement les provinces à fournir entrepreneurs, maçons, charrois, et tout ce qui est nécessaire pour bâtir. Il fit construire un palais pour sa personne, un cirque, un hôtel des monnaies, un arsenal, un palais pour sa femme, un autre pour sa fille. Tous ces édifices occupèrent la plus grande partie de Nicomédie; de sorte que l'on voyait des troupes de bourgeois sortir avec leurs femmes et leurs enfants comme si la villa eût été prise par l'ennemi. Et quand tous ces édifices, qui avaient causé la ruine des provinces, étaient achevés, s'ils n'étaient pas à son gré, il les faisait abattre, et en commandait d'autres, au hasard d'être encore démolis: ainsi sa manie n'avait point de bornes. Quelle extravagance aussi de vouloir égaler Nicomédie à la magnificence de Rome? Je ne parle point de ceux à qui leurs richesses furent fatales. Cette violence est presque passée en coutume, et l'usage l'autorise ; mais Dioclétien avait cela de particulier, qu'aussitôt qu'il voyait une maison magnifique, c'était une sentence de mort contre le propriétaire, comme s'il n'eût pu ravir le bien d'autrui sans perdre le possesseur.

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Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died

Chap. VII.

While Diocletian, that author of ill, and deviser of misery, was ruining all things, he could not withhold his insults, not even against God. This man, by avarice partly, and partly by timid counsels, overturned the Roman empire. For he made choice of three persons to share the government with him; and thus, the empire having been quartered, armies were multiplied, and each of the four princes strove to maintain a much more considerable military force than any sole emperor had done in times past. ¹ There began to be fewer men who paid taxes than there were who received wages; so that the means of the husbandmen being exhausted by enormous impositions, the farms were abandoned, cultivated grounds became woodland, and universal dismay prevailed. Besides, the provinces were divided into minute portions, and many presidents and a multitude of inferior officers lay heavy on each territory, and almost on each city. There were also many stewards of different degrees, and deputies of presidents. Very few civil causes came before them: but there were condemnations daily, and forfeitures frequently inflicted; taxes on numberless commodities, and those not only often repeated, but perpetual, and, in exacting them, intolerable wrongs.

Whatever was laid on for the maintenance of the soldiery might have been endured; but Diocletian, through his insatiable avarice, would never allow the sums of money in his treasury to be diminished: he was constantly heaping together extraordinary aids and free gifts, that his original hoards might remain untouched and inviolable. He also, when by various extortions he had made all things exceedingly dear, attempted by an ordinance to limit their prices. Then much blood was shed for the veriest trifles; men were afraid to expose aught to sale, and the scarcity became more excessive and grievous than ever, until, in the end, the ordinance, after having proved destructive to multitudes, was from mere necessity abrogated. To this there were added a certain endless passion for building, and on that account, endless exactions from the provinces for furnishing wages to labourers and artificers, and supplying carriages and whatever else was requisite to the works which he projected. Here public halls, there a circus, here a mint, and there a workhouse for making implements of war; in one place a habitation for his empress, and in another for his daughter. Presently great part of the city was quitted, and all men removed with their wives and children, as from a town taken by enemies; and when those buildings were completed, to the destruction of whole provinces, he said, "They are not right, let them be done on another plan." Then they were to be pulled down, or altered, to undergo perhaps a future demolition. By such folly was he continually endeavouring to equal Nicomedia with the city Rome in magnificence.

I omit mentioning how many perished on account of their possessions or wealth; for such evils were exceedingly frequent, and through their frequency appeared almost lawful. But this was peculiar to him, that whenever he saw a field remarkably well cultivated, or a house of uncommon elegance, a false accusation and a capital punishment were straightway prepared against the proprietor; so that it seemed as if Diocletian could not be guilty of rapine without also shedding blood.