A.D. 287. of Maximian, he crossed with it from Gessoriacum (Boulogne), and, seizing on Britain, proclaimed himself Augustus and struck money with his effigy. For seven years he maintained his ill-gotten power, but, though at length murdered by his lieutenant, Allectus, Carausius deserves some historical remembrance as the first creator of a British-manned navy.
The Veneti on the coast of Gaul. In the reign of Diocletian events somewhat similar occurred. The Britons again revolted; Egypt was again the scene of fresh discord and confusion, and though the various attempts to throw off the Roman yoke still proved abortive, the general decline of intellectual power among the Roman people became so apparent that fresh enemies arose against her in almost every quarter. The Veneti, who, four centuries before, had given Julius Cæsar[1] no little trouble ere he reduced them to subjection, perceiving the weakness of Rome and the impunity with which her territory had been ravaged by the Northern hordes, rose in arms against her, and exercising an arbitrary dominion over the seas that washed their coasts, exacted tribute from all strangers, and for a while successfully bade defiance to Rome, whose mariners dreaded the navigation of the Bay of Biscay.
Constantinople founded, A.D. 323. The reign, too, of Diocletian, who seems to have had an especial dislike for Rome and the senate, saw the commencement of a new system of imperial government, which, afterwards more fully developed by Constantine, led to the removal of the chief seat of government to Constantinople, a change which exerted a vast influence on commerce, and essentially
- ↑ Cæsar, Bell. Gall. iii. 8.
