When Diocletian selected a spot for his retirement, he solicitously observed, that his palace should command every beauty that the country afforded. In this retirement he began to live, to see the beauty of the sun, and to enjoy, as Vopiscus relates, true happiness in the society of those he had known in his youth241. His palace was situated at Spalatro, in Dalmatia.

While residing at this place, Diocletian made a very remarkable and strictly true confession:—“Four or five persons,” said he, “who are closely united, and resolutely determined to impose on a prince, may do it very easily. They never show things to him but in such a light as they are sure will please. They conceal whatever would contribute to enlighten him; and as they only besiege him continually, he cannot be informed of any thing but through their medium, and does nothing but what they think fit to suggest to him. Hence it is, that he bestows employments on those he ought to exclude from them; and, on the other hand, removes from offices such persons as are most worthy of filling them. In a word, the best prince is often sold by these men, though he be ever so vigilant, and even suspicious of them.”

As the voyager enters the bay, the marine wall and long arcades of the palace, one of the ancient temples, and other parts of that building, present themselves. The inhabitants have destroyed some parts of the palace, in order to procure materials for building. In other places houses are built of the old foundations; and modern works are so intermingled with the ancient, as scarcely to be distinguishable.

The palace of Diocletian possessed all those advantages of situation, to which the ancients were most attentive. It was so great that the emperor Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, who had seen the most splendid buildings of the ancients, affirms242, that no plan or description of it could convey a perfect idea of it. The vast extent of ground which it occupied is surprising at first sight; the dimensions of one side of the quadrangle, including the towers, being no less than six hundred and ninety-eight feet, and of the other four hundred and ninety-two feet:—making the superficial contents four hundred and thirteen thousand two hundred and sixteen feet; that is, about nine and a half English acres. But when it is considered that it contained proper apartments not only for the emperor himself, and for the numerous retinue of officers who attended his court, but likewise edifices and open spaces for exercises of different kinds, that it was capable of lodging a prÆtorian cohort, and that two temples were erected within its precincts, we shall not conclude the area to have been too large for such a variety of buildings.

For a description of this celebrated place, we must refer to Mr. Adam’s Antiquities; but there is one circumstance that may be highly interesting at the present time, which is, that not the smallest vestige of a fire-place is to be seen in any part of the building; and it may be therefore conjectured, that the various apartments might have been heated by flues or funnels, conveying and distributing heated air.

Of the temples, one of them was dedicated to Æsculapius; the ascent to which was by a stair of fifteen steps, and it received no light but from the door. Beneath it are vaults of great strength; its roof is an arch adorned with sunk pannels of beautiful workmanship, and its walls are of a remarkable thickness. This temple remains almost entire.

There is another temple, dedicated to Jupiter, who was worshipped by Diocletian with peculiar veneration; and in honour of whom he assumed the name of Jovius. This temple is surrounded with one row of columns, having a space between them and the wall. It is lighted by an arched window over the door, and is vaulted beneath like that of Æsculapius. There are remains of two other buildings, not much inferior in extent, nor probably in original magnificence; but by the injuries of time, and the depredations of the Spalatrines, these are reduced to a very ruinous condition.

Besides these the visitor sees large vaults along that side of the palace which looks to the sea; partly destroyed, partly filled up, and some occupied by merchants as storehouses.

In one of the towers belonging to the palace, Diocletian is supposed to have been buried; and we are told that, about two hundred and seventy-five years ago, the body of the emperor was discovered there in a sarcophagus of porphyry.

The shafts of the columns of the temple of Jupiter are of oriental alabaster of one stone. The capitals and bases of the columns, and on the entablature, are of Parian marble. The shafts of the columns of the second order, which is composite, are alternately of verd-antique, or ancient green marble and porphyry, of one piece. The capitals and entablature are also of Parian marble.

All the capitals throughout the palace are raffled more in the Grecian than the Roman style; so that Mr. Adam243 thinks it probable, that Diocletian, who had been so often in Greece, brought his artificers thither, in order to vary the execution of his orders of architecture in this palace, from those he had executed at his baths at Rome, which are extremely different both in formation and execution244.