OF THE ROiAIAN EMPIRE. 21 morse of his repeated crimes, he strangled himself with C ll A i'. his own hands. After he had lost the assistance, and ^^^ disdained the moderate counsels of Diocletian, the se- cond period of his active life was a series of public calamities and personal mortifications, which were ter- minated, in about three years, by an ignominious death. lie deserved his fate ; but we should find more reason to applaud the humanity of Constantine, if he had spared an old man, the benefactor of his father, and the father of his wife. During the whole of this me- lancholy transaction, it appears that Fausta sacrificed the sentiments of nature to her conjugal duties"'. The last years of Galerius were less shameful and Death of unfortunate; and though he had filled with more glorv ^^.TT, , , ,. o •' A. 1). .'311. the subordniate station of Caesar than the superior May. rank of Augustus, he preserved, till the moment of his death, the first place among the princes of the Roman world. He survived his retreat from Italy about four years; and wisely relinquishing his views of universal empire, he devoted the remainder of his life to the enjoyment of pleasure, and to the execution of some works of public utility, among which we may dis- tinguish the discharging into the Danube the super- fluous waters of the lake Pelso, and the cutting down the immense forests that encompassed it ; an operation worthy of a monarch, since it gave an extensive coun- try to the agriculture of his Pannonian subjects ". His death was occasioned by a very painful and lingering " Zosiraus, 1. ii. p. 82 ; Euineiiius in Panegyr. Vet. vii. 16 — 21. The latter of these has undoubtedly rej)iesented the whole art'air iu the most favourable light for his sovereign. Yet even from this partial narrative we may conclude, that the repeated clemency of Constaniine, and the reiterated treasons of Maxiinian, as they are described by Lactantius, (de iI. P. c. 29, 30.) and copied by the moderns, are destitute of any historical foundation. " Aurelius Victor, c. 40. But that lake was situated on the Upper Pan- non:a, near the borders of Noricum ; and the province of aleria (a name which the wife of (Jalerius gave to the drained country; undoubtedly lay between the Drave and the Danube. Sextus lUifus, c. 9. 1 should there- fore suspect tJKit 'icloi has confounded the lake Pelso with the olocean marches, or, as they are now called, the lake Sabaton. It is placed in the heart of Valeria, and its present extent is not less than twelve Hungarian miles (about seventy English) in length, and two in breadth. See Severini I'annonia, I. i, c. 9.
