Gaul was slowly recovering from chaos and ruin. During the anarchy which had preceded the accession of Diocletian, she had lain at the mercy of the Germanic tribes across the Rhine. The Roman watch on the river had been almost abandoned; the legions and the garrisons had been so weakened as to be powerless to keep the invader in check. The Gallic provinces were, in the striking words of the Panegyrist, “maddened by their injuries of the years gone by.”[22] The result had been the peasant rising of the Bagaudæ, ruthlessly suppressed by Maximian in 285, but the desperate condition of the country may be inferred from the fact that Diocletian and Maximian felt compelled to recognise the pretensions of Carausius in the province of Britain, which, for some years, was practically severed from the Empire. And, moreover, the peace of Gaul, which Maximian laboriously restored, was punctuated by invasion from the Germans across the Rhine. In the Panegyric of Mamertinus there occurs a curious passage, which shows with what eyes the Romans regarded that river. The orator is eulogising Maximian in his most fulsome strain for restoring tranquillity, and then says: “Was there ever an Emperor before our day who did not congratulate himself that the Gallic provinces were protected by the Rhine? When did the Rhine shrink in its channel after a long spell of fine weather without making us shiver with fear? When did it ever swell to a flood without giving us an extra sense of security?”[23] In other words, the danger of invasion rose and fell with the rising and falling of the Rhine. But now, continues the Panegyrist, “thanks thanks to Maximian, all our fears are gone. The Rhine may dry up and shrink until it can scarce roll the smooth pebbles in its limpid shallows, and none will be afraid. As far as I can see beyond the Rhine, all is Roman” (_Quicquid ultra Rhenum prospicio, Romanum est_). Rarely has a court rhetorician uttered a more audacious lie. ----- Footnote 22: _Gallias priorum temporum injuriis efferatas_, _Pan._, vi., 8. Footnote 23: _Pan. Vet._, ii., 7. -----