Note 26 — Chapter IV · PIPPIN, KING OF THE FRANKS.

Diocletian became emperor of Rome in the year 284, and shortly after associated Maximian with himself in the imperial government. In the division of the empire, Diocletian received the eastern portion, including Thrace, Egypt, Syria, and Asia—the territory of which Constantinople was afterwards the capital, though he made his capital in Nicomedia. This emperor is infamous from his severe persecution of the Christians 303–305. In the latter year he abdicated, compelling Maximian to do the same, and spent the remainder of his life in the cultivation of his gardens in Dalmatia. To the successors of this man, the popes as head of the Church that had suffered so signally by the cruelty of the imperial persecution, did abject homage.