Cabbages

Of Diocletian: "His answer to Maximian is deservedly celebrated. He was solicited by that restless old man to reassume the reigns of government and the Imperial purple. He rejected the temptation with a smile of pity, calmly observing that, if he could show Maximian the cabbages which he had planted with his own hands at Salona, he should no longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit of power." Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 13.