Stephanus Baluzius Tutelensis, Notae in librum de Mortibus persecutorum

THE NOTES OF ÉTIENNE BALUZE OF TULLE

ON THE BOOK ON THE DEATHS OF THE PERSECUTORS.

Among the many and various manuscript codices which Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a man most devoted to letters and to men of letters, and most excellent in every kind of merit, has gathered from all Europe, Asia and Africa for the public benefit of learning, one was found worth its weight in gold, in which is contained the book of Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius On the Persecution, or On the Deaths of the Persecutors, which the Church had lacked until now. He does not do what most men are accustomed to do; for if they have come upon an unpublished work of some ancient writer, however slight and thin it may be, they carefully hide it, as though it would shine more brightly in darkness, so that they may boast that they alone possess what all would wish to have; and they take the greatest care that it should not come into the hands of others. The mind of this most illustrious man is too liberal and too lofty to be held by that false glory. Therefore, when he had learned that this book of Lactantius was extant among the ancient manuscript codices of his library, and was well assured how much benefit would accrue to the Church from it if it were made public, although he had often ordered before that, if anything unpublished were seen in those same ancient codices, it should all be committed to the press, yet on this occasion he gave a special order, and with his customary greatness of mind he at once commanded that this book of Lactantius should be brought forth into the clearest light.

We give it, therefore, from codex 1297 of the Colbertine Library (now in the Royal Library, in quarto, number 2627), which appears to be eight hundred years old, or thereabouts, complete indeed, but written by an unskilled hand, and therefore infected with a great many errors. And those whose correction was easy and obvious we have freely corrected; but we have left untouched those in which boldness in correcting was not free from danger. Perhaps others will be more fortunate. The book was composed and completed in the year in which, after the persecutors had been destroyed, the sweetest and fairest name of peace was heard in the Church of Christ, and tranquillity and freedom of speaking and writing were restored to our people. For who would have written a history of this kind

in the midst of a most savage persecution? Lactantius certainly wrote the books of the Divine Institutes while the persecution was raging, at its very beginnings, as is gathered from the second and fourth chapters of the fifth book; but he did not publish them, hindered, namely, by the necessity of circumstance and time, as he himself says at the beginning of the book On the Workmanship of God. But when peace had been given, and all fear had been driven from the breasts of Christians by the kindness of the emperor Constantine the Great, then indeed the ecclesiastical writers, making use of the indulgence of a most benign prince, turned their minds to writing, which they had not dared to do before. Accordingly Lactantius then revised the books of the Divine Institutes, in which certain passages are found here and there which, it is plainly established, were written after the war had been quelled and extinguished, and he added a great deal, above all those things which are addressed to Constantine at the beginnings of the books and in the epilogue; which some wrongly judge to be spurious and supposititious, so much so that Joseph Isaeus, who published the latest Roman edition of Lactantius, relying on their prejudgement, deleted everything that is read in other editions as written to Constantine. And yet I think it cannot truly be doubted that these things are Lactantius's, since they are both of the same style as the rest of his works, and certain phrases which are found there are the same in various places of this history and of Lactantius's other lucubrations. But beyond doubt there were anciently two editions of the Divine Institutes, one published almost immediately after peace had been given to the Church, while Lactantius was still in Bithynia, the other after the war of Cibalae and Mardia, when he had come into Gaul on account of Crispus, the son of Constantine. Those, therefore, who used the earlier edition certainly did not have the things which were afterwards added concerning Constantine; and so it is no wonder that these are missing in certain copies. But to return to the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors, from which the occasion of discussing the time at which the books of the Divine Institutes were written has drawn us away, it is certain that it was written by the Author at Nicomedia in Bithynia, where he lived for

the whole of that time during which the persecution raged in the East, and to have been completed after the war was concluded at the Campus Serenus in Thrace, after which the Church had unbroken peace, Maximinus, a man most hostile to our religion, having been routed and shortly afterwards put to death. This is gathered from several passages of the same history, but above all from the epilogue, in which the Author indicates in the plainest words that these things were written by him after peace had been granted to the people of God, which for ten years had been partly laid waste and partly scattered. Add that he dedicated his book to Donatus, an illustrious confessor of those regions, whom he also addresses in the middle of the work and at the end. For these things show that they were then together, or at least not separated by any great distance. This too must be carefully observed, that in this work he has written out only those edicts issued on behalf of the Christians which were posted at Nicomedia, and makes no mention of others: evidently because he reports only those things which he himself saw in person, and of which he could therefore easily obtain copies.

On the native country of Lactantius I see that there are various opinions; of which the weaker seems to be the one which maintains that he was born at Firmum, a town of Picenum, because he is called Firmianus. I prefer the one which holds that he was an African. For he both had Arnobius as his teacher in Africa; and when summoned to Nicomedia by Diocletian to teach the art of oratory there, as he himself writes, he seems to have come from nowhere else than from Africa, since in Jerome, in the book On Illustrious Men, we read that he described in hexameter verse his journey from Africa all the way to Nicomedia. He was moreover at Nicomedia at the time of the persecution which under Diocletian shook the whole Church; and also when peace was granted. For the things said in the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors about the Constitution of Constantine and Licinius posted at Nicomedia, and about the arrival of Licinius in that city, could certainly not have been written by anyone other than one who saw with his own eyes what he was writing. But when afterwards Constantine, after the Cibalene war, which he brought to an end in the year of Christ 304, on the 8th day before the Ides of October, had set out into Thrace and Macedonia, then without doubt Lactantius, perhaps already known to him in the past, came to him from Nicomedia, and afterwards at his command went to Gaul, where he instructed Crispus, the son of Constantine, in Latin letters. That most learned man Franciscus Chiffletius thought that Crispus was taught by Lactantius in the year of Christ 312, namely at the same time at which first Constantine, as he says, and soon his mother Helena acknowledged Christ, being instructed in the sacraments of our faith by Eusebius, Bishop of Besançon, and that Crispus, together with Helena and Lactantius, was left at Besançon by Constantine when he set out into Italy against Maxentius. But the narrative from which Chiffletius wove this history together is a writing of a later and inferior age, and deserves no credence. Moreover, it is certain that Lactantius was still in Bithynia when the war against Maxentius was being prepared, and for some time after. Lactantius therefore came into Gaul (which I see was also the view of that most distinguished man Jacobus Gothofredus) only in the year 315, when, peace having been settled between Constantine and Licinius after the battle of Cibalae and that of Mardia, the Great one went back to Gaul. For that he returned to his wife is easily gathered from Zozimus and the Epitome of Victor, where it is written that Constantine, son of the Great, born in the town of Arles not many days before, was made Caesar together with Crispus and with Licinianus, son of Licinius, which, as the Idatian Fasti show, took place in the year of Christ 317, on the Kalends of March. For since the fighting in Pannonia took place at the end of the year 314, and Constantine, son of Constantine, was born in Gaul at the beginning of the year 317, it follows necessarily that his father was in Gaul in the intervening time, and so returned there after the peace made with Licinius. On which occasion it is likely that Lactantius, the most learned of all men of his time, as Eusebius says, was brought by Constantine into Gaul, to imbue Crispus with knowledge of history and of the other liberal letters. And indeed I easily agree

with the most learned men Christopher Brower and Aegidius Bucherius, who report as a certain fact that Lactantius spent his extreme old age at Trier, while he was devoting himself to the education of Crispus, and that here in all likelihood he composed the books of the Divine Institutes addressed to the Emperor Constantine. But Chifflet, led by an honourable and becoming love of his native land, divides this honour with an even balance between the people of Trier and those of Besançon, conceding to Bucherius that Crispus was educated at Trier by Lactantius in such a way that he nevertheless wants this to have been done at Besançon also. But that conjecture has no foundation at all, apart from the good will of a most distinguished and excellent man, and his partiality towards his own people of Besançon. Moreover, that Lactantius was elsewhere than in the dominion of Licinius when the latter showed himself manifestly hostile to the religion of Christ, and so was at that time in Gaul, he himself shows, writing to Constantine at the beginning of the first book of the Divine Institutes. 'For the wicked,' he says, 'who still rage against the just in other parts of the world, the later it is, the more severely will the same Almighty pay out the wages of their crime.' Now Licinius began to rage openly against the Christians in the year 320, as most learned men have shown by sure arguments. From this it can be gathered that Lactantius was still among the living at that time. Indeed he himself seems to show that he prolonged his life beyond this year, at the end of the fourth book of the Divine Institutes, where among the various sects of heretics he also lists the Arians. For since they did not become fully known to the whole world until after the Council of Nicaea had been held, it appears that Lactantius outlived this Council, if the reading is genuine. I know that the most distinguished and most learned Michael Thomasius removed the name of the Arians from that passage, in the edition of the works of Lactantius which he prepared, and that he had Joseph Isaeus as a supporter of his opinion. But since they have few old books as asserters and defenders of this opinion of theirs, and since the most illustrious Cardinal Baronius bore witness concerning nine Vatican manuscripts and two of the Vallicelliana library that they have this clause; since I knew, moreover, that one Bologna manuscript, which both Thomasius and Latino Latini saw, and also four of the Royal Library, that is, the Colbertine ones, and the old editions, namely those which preceded that of Thomasius, since I knew, I say, that so many old codices and editions mention the Arians here, and that very few old copies are brought forward in which this name does not stand, compared with the multitude of those which have it, I was not unwilling to agree with the same Baronius in censuring Thomasius because, against the testimony of almost all the old copies and editions, he corrupted the text of Lactantius, adding no reason, or a slight one, for why he had done so. But now, when I call to mind that the codices which mix the Arians in with the heretics mentioned by Lactantius are not very old, whereas two of the Royal Library, marked 3735 and 3736, truly very ancient and excellent, and also that very ancient Bologna manuscript which Thomasius used, make no mention of these same Arians, I am compelled to weigh whether the emendation of the same Thomasius is to be retained against the testimony of so many manuscript copies, since it is certain that in matters of this kind a multitude of witnesses, who can be false and fabricated through the ignorance and rashness of scribes, must sometimes yield to the dignity and authority of a few older ones. However that may be, since it is established that Lactantius was the tutor of Crispus in his extreme old age, he must have died around the time at which Constantine celebrated the vicennalia of his reign. Whether his death occurred at Augusta Trevirorum or elsewhere is not ascertained. I strongly incline to this view, agreeing with Bucherius, that he both died and was buried in that city, since his extreme old age, which Jerome tells us he spent in Gaul, readily makes this persuasive.

Of Lucius Caecilius. In the old codex the title of this work is framed simply thus: Of Lucius (or rather Lycius) Caecilius. Here begins the book to Donatus the confessor, on the deaths of the persecutors.

That this man, moreover, is Lactantius, whose seven books of the Divine Institutes are extant, along with certain other small works, the proofs are so many and so manifest that the matter seems to be placed beyond all controversy. For the style is wholly Lactantian, as those skilled in judging such things will readily recognize; and the author now and then inserts Virgilian verses into this work, as Lactantius is accustomed to do; finally, most of what is read there is read almost word for word in other books of the same author, as we shall note in their proper places below. Add the authority of Saint Jerome, who in his catalogue of illustrious men, reviewing the works of Lactantius, mentions among them a book on persecution, namely this one of ours. Nor should it trouble anyone that in the editions of Lactantius which are in the hands of the learned he is called not Caecilius but Caelius, as though it might seem possible to infer from this that Lucius Caecilius, the author of this book, is a different person from Lactantius. For although it is true that he is always called Caelius in the editions which give his praenomen, as all the later ones do, yet in the Roman edition of the year 1470, which Giovanni Andrea, Bishop of Aleria, oversaw, he is called simply Lactantius Firmianus without any praenomen; and in codex 1975 of the Colbertine library, which contains the commonly known works of Lactantius, he is expressly called in the title Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius; and in codex 3736 of the Royal Library, Caecilius Firmianus. Indeed, since I see that he is called only Firmianus in codices 3737, 3738 and 3740 of the Royal Library, and in codices 3573, 4095 and 4495 of the Colbertine, and also in the excellent and very ancient manuscript copy of the University of Oxford, I am easily led to believe that most of the old copies of his works have neither the praenomen Caelius nor Caecilius, and that nevertheless his true name is Caecilius, since he is so consistently called this in the title of this history in codex 3736 of the Royal Library and in codex 1975 of the Colbertine, as we have pointed out. However, it must indeed be admitted that L. Caelius Firmianus is always written in royal codex 3735, which we have said is the most ancient and the best. Why, moreover, in the title of the book on the deaths of the persecutors, and in that royal codex, the true name of Lactantius, which is the last of the four attributed to him, was omitted, must be believed (as Sirmond noted on Sidonius in a similar case) to have happened through the carelessness of a copyist: who, since out of a desire for brevity he did not wish to write out all the names of this Writer, in place of the last, which was his proper one, unskilfully chose rather the one that came in the first place.

To Donatus: an illustrious confessor of those times, who nine times endured tortures for the name of Christ, being held in prison for a space of six years, from which he was released in the last days of Galerius Maximianus, as is read below, chapters 16 and 35 of this work. To the same man Lactantius dedicated the book On the Wrath of God, written after the peace granted by God.

On the deaths of the persecutors: In Jerome it is read simply that Lactantius wrote one book on persecution. But we have retained the reading of the old copy, since it is manifest that the plan and purpose of the author was to describe the wretched ends of those who had stirred up persecution against the Christians. He said "deaths", moreover, in the way Cicero does in the second book On Ends: The deaths of generals are glorious. Likewise at the end of the first book of the Tusculan Disputations: But illustrious deaths met for one's country are wont to seem not only glorious to rhetoricians but even blessed. Tacitus, book 11 of the Annals: And many deaths perpetrated at the command of Messalina. And book 14: There follow the deaths of illustrious men. The same, book 3 of the Histories: In varied form of those perishing, and in every image of deaths. Likewise book 1: Ends equal to the praised deaths of the ancients. And Statius in the ninth book of the Thebaid:

And bore away deserted deaths without funeral rites.

And a little after:

There is no need to try arms further and to waste deaths.

Saint Augustine, letter 68: Moreover also, if any

deaths they inflict on themselves of their own accord, they want them to bring odium upon us. The same, book 1 Against Gaudentius, chapter 6: This is the innocence of the party of Donatus, that you do this with your own deaths added, which even at Carthage, to bring odium upon us, concerning the basilicas that were yours, you are asserted to have done, as far as you could and with whom you could, without your own deaths.

Chapter I.

God has raised up princes. Such as Constantine and Licinius, who, at the time when Lactantius was writing this, had given peace to the Church, since the persecution against our people had not yet been set in motion by Licinius.

Who struggled against, or who opposed. In the old book "illustrati" is read, which we have changed, because the emendation was certain.

Overthrew the holy temple. In the first edition I wrote that it is clear from chapter 13 of this book, and from book 5 of the Divine Institutes, chapter 11, that here the temple of Nicomedia overthrown by Diocletian and Maximian is meant. Afterwards, when I saw that the most distinguished and most learned man Gisbert Cuper had put forward another interpretation of this passage, which seems to be in accord with the truth, I gladly embraced it. He thinks, then, that the Christian religion in general ought to be understood there, since the ancients, following the apostle, are accustomed to call the body of Christians the temple of God, as we observe at the second chapter.

Poured out their guilty souls. Namely Diocletian, Maximian Herculius, Galerius Maximian, and Maximinus Daza, whose horrible deaths are described in this book.

The power and majesty. Lactantius, book 4 of the Institutes, chapter 26: to interpret the power and majesty of the one God. And book 6, chapter 9: he declares the power and majesty of the one God.

Chapter II.

After the tenth day. This passage above all confirms that this book is truly Lactantius's. For the same man himself, in the fourth book of the Divine Institutes, chapter 10, speaking of the Jews, says: From then on they had tetrarchs down to Herod, who lived under the rule of Tiberius Caesar, in whose fifteenth year, that is, when the two Gemini were consuls, on the tenth day before the Kalends of April, the Jews fastened Christ to the cross. For so it is read in all the ancient manuscript copies of Lactantius, in the Roman edition of the year 1470, in the Venetian of the year 1521, and in Paul of Middelburg in the Paulina. Xystus Betuleius, however, contends that in the better editions of Lactantius "on the seventh day before the Kalends" is read, and he derides that Roman edition which has "before the tenth". But at length, in the year 1650, Joseph Isaeus restored the old reading to this passage on the authority of very many old copies, and it is now confirmed by this work of Lactantius as well. See further the Notes of the most learned man Michael Thomasius on that passage of the fourth book of the Divine Institutes.

After the tenth day. In the fourth book of the Institutes "before the tenth day" is read. But this discrepancy brings in no contradiction. For "after the day" means the same as "before the day", as Paul advises in the law Anniculus, 132 of the Digest, On the meaning of words: A yearling is lost who dies on the last day of the year. And the custom of speaking shows that this is so: "before the tenth day of the Kalends", "after the tenth day of the Kalends". But this passage of Paul is not without difficulty. For Marcellus Francolinus, in his treatise on the time of the canonical hours, chapter 73, contends that here by the words "after the day" there cannot be understood any of the days which are before the Kalends, but the tenth after the Kalends, that is, the ninth day of the month; and he strives to confirm this with several examples. In vain. For since Lactantius, relating the same thing in two places, said in one "before the tenth day" and in the other "after the tenth day", it is manifest that these words must have the same sense. Moreover, the Romans never named from the Kalends the days which follow after the Kalends, but only those which precede them, as is unclear to no one even slightly learned.

He gathered the disciples. Lactantius, book 4 of the Institutes, chapter 20: "Having gathered the disciples again, He laid open the writings of Holy Scripture, that is, the secrets of the prophets, which before He suffered could in no way be discerned." And chapter 15: "Just as also the utterances of the Prophets, which, though they had been read by the people of the Jews for a thousand five hundred years and more, were nevertheless not understood until Christ had interpreted them both by word and by deeds."

He appointed. Lactantius, in the same place, chapter 21: "But when He had appointed to His disciples the preaching of the gospel and of His name, a cloud suddenly spread itself around Him and bore Him up into heaven."

For twenty-five years. Lactantius says that the Apostles, and among them Matthias and Paul, who after the death of Christ the Lord had been joined to the rest, preached the gospel throughout the whole earth for twenty-five years, up to the beginning of Nero's reign, and that Peter set out for Rome when Nero was ruling there. And that this was indeed the common opinion at that time concerning Peter's journey to the city of Rome is very probable, even though Eusebius, following some of the ancients, held otherwise, since Lactantius raises no controversy on the matter. Perhaps, then, from these twenty-five years, which belong equally to the preaching of all the Apostles, arose the opinion of the twenty-five years which certain ancients, and a countless throng of more recent writers, assign to the holy apostle Peter in the Roman see. Indeed, although I think it is denied by some in vain and to no purpose that he came to the city of Rome, which is proved by the clearest testimonies of the ancients, yet about the time I am in great doubt, since I see that the opinion of those who will have it that he came to Rome in the reign of Claudius involves so many and such great difficulties that they have been compelled to double his journey to the city, and likewise to invent a twofold contest of his with Simon the magician, first in the times of Claudius, then in the principate of Nero. How absurd this is, since it has been handed down to written record by none of the ancients, those skilled in these matters plainly see. For what is put forward by a more recent author without the authority of some older one is disregarded, as the most illustrious Cardinal Baronius has advised. Therefore, if it were permitted to depart from the common opinion rooted in men's minds, I would gladly prefer to it that of Lactantius; that is, I would readily grant that Peter preached the Gospel at Rome, not under Tiberius Claudius, as is commonly thought, but under Nero Claudius. For once this opinion, most true as I think, is established, all dispute at once comes to rest, without any detriment to the authority of the Roman Pontiff. For it was not the long series of years during which Peter was bishop of Rome that established the primacy of that Church, but the person of Peter, who placed his Chair there and made it firm and confirmed it with his blood.

They sent the foundations. That is, they laid them, as Lactantius himself wrote in the passage cited a little before: "But the disciples, dispersed through the provinces, laid the foundations of the Church everywhere, themselves also performing, in the name of their divine Master, great and almost incredible miracles." The writers on land-surveying say mittere for ponere, as the most distinguished Nicolas Rigault has shown at length in his Glossaries.

He turned many to justice. That is, to the worship of the true God, as Lactantius puts it, book 7 of the Institutes, chapter 17. The same, book 5, chapter 7: "Justice has indeed been restored to the earth, but assigned to few; and it is nothing other than the dutiful and religious worship of the one God." Lactantius uses this word throughout, to signify the religion of Christ, in this book and in his other works. Sulpicius Severus, book 2 of the Sacred History, speaking of the Romans who came together to hear Paul: "Who, having understood the truth, and being moved by the mighty works of the Apostles, which they then frequently performed, betook themselves to the worship of God."

A faithful and steadfast temple. That is, the Church, which is the true temple of God, which is not in walls but in the heart and faith of the men who believe in Him and are called the faithful, as Lactantius says in the fourth book of the Institutes, chapter 14. And in the following chapter the Church

he calls the eternal and immortal temple of God; and he repeats this in the second chapter of the book On the Anger of God. Hence below, concerning Nero, in this very book: He sprang forward to cut down the heavenly temple. And in chap. 15: For Constantine, so as not to seem to dissent from the precepts of his superiors, allowed the meeting-houses, that is, the walls, which could be restored, to be pulled down, but the true temple of God, which is in men, he kept unharmed. Hence in the fourth book of the Institutes, chap. 10, he says that it had been necessary for the Son of God to descend to earth, to establish a temple for God and to teach justice.

He has set it firm. Lactantius, Institutes book 7, chap. 10: He has set for Himself a firm dwelling.

First of all persecuted. Tertullian in the Apology, chap. 5: Consult your records. There you will find that Nero was the first to rage with the Caesarian sword against this sect, then especially rising at Rome. But we even glory in such a dedicator of our condemnation. Petilian, bishop of Constantina, or Cirta, of the Donatist party, in Augustine, Against the Letters of Petilian, book 2, chap. 92: I shall leave aside Nero, who first persecuted the Christians. Sulpicius Severus, book 2, speaking of Nero: who, the vilest, I will not say of kings, but of all men and even of savage beasts, proved worthy to be the first to begin the persecution against the Christians.

Not even a place of burial. On the contrary, Suetonius tells us that he was given a funeral at a cost of two hundred thousand [sesterces], and that his remains were laid in the monument of the Domitii, which was seen from the Campus Martius, set upon the Hill of Gardens, and that there were those who for a long time adorned his tomb with spring and summer flowers.

Kept alive. It was the conviction of certain of the ancients that Nero was not dead but still lived, and would come before the end of the age, and either would himself be the Antichrist, or would rage through the West at the same times as he through the East, as Casaubon observed on Suetonius. On this matter see also the Ecclesiastical Annals of the most illustrious Cardinal Baronius. But Lactantius was of another mind, who declares that those who think so are raving. Therefore the conjecture of Joseph Isaeus is altogether false, who in his Notes on the seventh book of the Divine Institutes, chap. 16, suspects that Lactantius held the opinion that he believed that most mighty King, who at the end of the world will be established as ruler of all, would be Nero; and on that account he charges Lactantius with error.

As the Sibyl says. Thus Lactantius is accustomed to cite the Sibylline books, although he knew that they were not of one Sibyl but of several. So he himself in the first book of the Divine Institutes, chap. 6: And there are separate books of the individual [Sibyls]; which, because they are inscribed with the name of the Sibyl, are believed to be of one. But we too shall say "the Sibyl" without distinction, wherever we have to make use of their testimonies. Now there are two places in the published oracles of the Sibyls to which I think Lactantius looked in this passage. The first is found in the fifth book:

And there will come from the ends of the earth a matricide man, fleeing, and pondering in mind with sharp mouth, who will lay waste all the earth, and will master all things.

Which were thus rendered into Latin by Sebastian Castellio:

And a certain slayer of his mother will come from the ends of the world, a man in flight, breathing savagely and raging, who will lay waste all lands and conquer all things.

The second place reads thus in the eighth book of the Sibylline oracles:

when he returns, the fugitive matricide coming from the ends of the earth, giving these things to all, he will bestow great wealth on Asia.

As when the fugitive slayer of his mother returns from the farthest world, giving these to all, he will enrich Asia abundantly.

Chapter III.

Another not less. That is, Domitian, the bald Nero

called by Juvenal, whom Tertullian in the Apology, ch. 5, calls a portion of Nero in cruelty; and Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. book 3, ch. 17, the successor of Nero's impiety and hatred against God. Tertullian: Domitian too, a portion of Nero in cruelty, had made the attempt; but because he was also a man, he easily checked what he had begun, even restoring those whom he had banished. So the old editions, and two ancient manuscripts of the Colbert Library. Later editors have preferred qua: how rightly, let others judge. Moreover, what is said here by Tertullian about the restoring of the Christians whom Domitian had banished, Franciscus Zephyrus interprets in such a way that he would have it understood that Domitian, because he had not put off all humanity, and did not see the Christians to be deserving of exile or other penalty, checked his assault, and that he himself restored those whom he had already banished to an island and to other places here and there. This, however, I once thought false, because it is established from Dio and Clement of Alexandria, and also from Lactantius, that the Christians were not recalled from the islands before the reign of Nerva. But now I think that this contradiction can be reconciled thus, that we should say that Domitian did indeed recall the Christians deported to islands or other places of exile, but that they could not enjoy his indulgence before the reign of Nerva, because Domitian seems to have departed from the living immediately after it was granted. This reconciliation, moreover, is not mine, but that of Henry Dodwell, a most learned man.

It was erased. Macrobius, Saturnalia book 1, ch. 12: October, indeed, Domitian had seized for his own name; but as an ill-omened word it was decided that it should be erased from every bronze and stone.

Had built many wonderful works. Suetonius in the Domitian: He restored very many and very large works consumed by fire, among them also the Capitol, which had burned again, but all under his own inscription only, and without any record of the original builder.

Neither of images nor of inscriptions. Eusebius writes this very thing, book 3, ch. 20 of the Ecclesiastical History. Suetonius: The Senate, on the other hand, was so overjoyed that, the senate house being filled in eager haste, it did not refrain from tearing the dead man to pieces with the most insulting and bitter kind of acclamations; it even ordered ladders to be brought in, and his shields and images to be pulled down before their eyes and dashed to the ground on the spot; finally it decreed that his inscriptions should everywhere be erased and all memory of him abolished. See also Xiphilinus on Nerva, and the Secret History of Procopius of Caesarea, p. 37, of the Lyons edition.

The Church restored. Dio relates, in Xiphilinus, that Nerva acquitted all who had been accused of impiety towards the gods, brought the exiles back to their homeland, and moreover forbade by edict that it should be permitted to anyone henceforth to accuse anybody either of impiety or of the Jewish sect (so they then called the religion of Christ). On that occasion, moreover, John the Apostle, who had been banished by Domitian to the island of Patmos, released from exile, returned to Ephesus, as Eusebius reports from Clement of Alexandria, book 3, ch. 33.

Good emperors. Although pagans. Lactantius at the end of the seventh book of the Divine Institutes, to Constantine: Since you alone of all have stood forth to furnish outstanding examples of virtue and holiness, by which you might not only equal the glory of the ancient emperors, whom report nonetheless numbers among the good, but even, what is greatest, surpass it. They indeed were perhaps by nature only like the just. For he who is ignorant of God, the ruler of the universe, can attain a likeness of justice, but justice itself he cannot. On the good emperors who both permitted our people freedom of belief and made use of their service in the palace and in the provinces, and raised them to the highest dignities, Eusebius should be consulted at the beginning of the eighth book of the Eccl. Hist.

No corner of the earth. Lactantius, Institutes book 4, ch. 24: For since he who is hung on a gibbet is both conspicuous to all and higher than the rest, the cross was chosen rather, to signify that He would be so conspicuous and so exalted that, for the knowing of Him

and the worshipping of Him alike, all nations from the whole world should flock together. Finally, there is no race so inhuman, no region so remote, that either His passion or the sublimity of His majesty is unknown to it.

No nation, finally. In the old manuscript one reads, no nation of God, finally. But we have thrown out the word Dei, which was wholly superfluous here. And the passage of Lactantius just quoted confirms our emendation.

Chapter IV.

The princely eminence. Lactantius, in the epilogue of the seventh book, addressing Constantine: The providence of the supreme divinity has raised you to the princely eminence.

Against the Carpi. Constantine, in the oration to the assembly of the saints, chap. 24, calls them Getae or Goths; the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle, Franks; Zozimus, in the first book of his histories, Scythians, which is also how Cuspinianus interprets them. And indeed Constantine writes in the same oration that Decius perished in the Scythian plains. The matter can be reconciled thus: because the Carpi and the Goths had the same origin, and because both had their dwellings near the river Ister, as Zozimus teaches, their names were easily interchanged, and one writer would refer to the Goths what elsewhere is read of the Carpi and the Scythians. I would wish the same to be understood of the Franks too, who were of the same origin as the Carpi and the Goths.

Nor burial. The Epitome of Victor: On barbarian soil, amid the confused throngs, he was sunk in the whirlpool of a marsh, so that not even his corpse could be found. The author of the Alexandrian Chronicle tells the matter very differently, writing that Decius was slain together with his son by one of the chiefs at Abyrtum. Eusebius in the Chronicle: Decius is killed with his son at Abrittum; on which see the Notes of Joseph Scaliger.

Chapter V.

Valerian. Remarkable are the things Trebellius Pollio relates of the moderation and gentleness and the other high virtues of Valerian; and they are confirmed also by Eusebius, who in book 7 of the Ecclesiastical History, chap. 10, commends him most of all on this ground, that he was most gentle and most kindly towards the Christians; and he adds that none of the earlier emperors, not even those who are said to have been openly Christians, embraced our people with such humanity and goodwill as Valerian displayed at the beginning of his reign, and that his whole household abounded in Christian men, so that it seemed to be a Church of God. But afterwards, vastly changed from that man, he raged most cruelly against the Christians; and soon the hand of God followed, which afflicted him heavily.

To make the Roman bow down to him. The Acts of the holy martyr Pontius, chap. 24: The emperor Valerian, namely, having been led into captivity by Sapor, King of the Persians, received the deserts of his deeds not by the sword but by mockery all the days of his life, so that whenever King Sapor wished to mount his horse, he would set his limbs on the horse not by Valerian's hands but by his bent back, placing his foot on his neck. So Valerian performed for Sapor not the office of a groom, but plainly served him in place of a stirrup or a ladder when he was about to mount his horse, as Salmasius rightly observed from this passage of the Acts of St Pontius, whose author he takes to be Eutropius, on Trebellius Pollio, p. 276.

His son, an emperor. That is, Gallienus, of whom the same Pollio relates that, on learning of his father's captivity, he rejoiced, so far was he from avenging it. A little later Trebellius adds: And while most people mourned his father's captivity, he, under a show of propriety, on the ground that his father seemed to have been deceived by zeal for valour, rejoiced beyond measure.

His skin was torn off him. That is, from Valerian. The emperor Constantine confirms this story in the oration to the assembly of the saints, chap. 24: You too, Valerian, when you had displayed the same cruelty against the servants of God, set the just judgement of God before the eyes of all, captured by

enemies, led about in chains with a purple cloak and the rest of the imperial dress, but at last, when your skin had been stripped from you and you had been ordered by Sapor, king of the Persians, to be preserved, you furnished an everlasting trophy of your calamity to be gazed upon. This passage receives light from Lactantius. See further what the most distinguished Henri de Valois notes there.

As a memorial of the triumph. This is that trophy which, Constantine writes to Sapor their king, was so greatly boasted of by the Persians, in Eusebius, Life of Constantine, book 4, chapter 11.

Chapter VI.

Mad and headlong. Flavius Vopiscus: Aurelian, as cannot be denied, was a severe, savage and bloodthirsty prince. Eutropius, book 9, of the same man: A man mighty in war, yet of an unrestrained temper, and rather inclined to cruelty.

He was destroyed. Elegantly the same Constantine says in the same work, chapter 24: You likewise, Aurelian, firebrand of all vices; by how present and manifest a vengeance of the divine power, while you were rushing through Thrace roused by fury, were you cut down in the middle of the public road and filled the ruts of the public highway with your impious blood.

At Coenofrurium. Between Heraclea and Byzantium. Flavius Vopiscus in the Deified Aurelian: But while he was making a journey, at the halting-station of Coenophrurium, which is between Heraclea and Byzantium, he was slain through the malice of his secretary and by the hand of Mucapor. See Eutropius, book 9.

On a false suspicion. The same Vopiscus relates this story at length; consult him.

Chapter VII.

Avarice. The same Vopiscus in the Numerian: When Diocletian was staying at an inn among the Tungri in Gaul, while still serving in the lower ranks, and was settling the account of his daily board with a certain woman, a Druidess, and she said: Diocletian, you are too greedy, too stingy, Diocletian is said to have replied, in jest, not in earnest: Then I shall be generous, when I am Emperor.

Three partners in the rule. Maximian, surnamed Herculius, in the year of Christ 285; Constantius, surnamed Chlorus, and Galerius Maximian, surnamed Armentarius, in the year 293. Four princes of the world indeed, says Vopiscus in the Carinus, brave, wise, kind and very generous, of one mind in the state. But these things were written about living princes, and flattery lay beneath them, as is evident from the book of the Emperor Julian on the Caesars. In the Alexandrian Chronicle it is written that Diocletian shared the empire with Maximian Herculius in the third year of his reign, and that Maximian Jovius and Constantius were taken into partnership in the empire at Nicomedia on the 12th day before the Kalends of June, in the ninth year of Diocletian's reign, that is, in the year of Christ 292, as Baronius interprets it, or more truly in the year 293. But we shall speak later about the beginnings of Maximian Herculius and the others: for now it will be enough to point out that the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle errs gravely when he records that Maximian Jovius and Constantius were made Caesars on the 12th day before the Kalends of June, whereas that they were raised to the princely eminence on the Kalends of March is beyond all controversy.

By the enormity of the indictions. That is, of the taxes. Salvian, book 5, page 105 of our second and third edition: For by what other things were they made Bagaudae, if not by our iniquities, if not by the dishonesty of judges, if not by the proscriptions and plunderings of those who have turned the name of public levy into the profits of their own gain, and have made the tax indictions their own spoils? And on page 107: New burdens are decreed for them, new indictions are decreed. Likewise at the end of page 108: For just as in the burden of new indictions they weigh down the poor, so in the help of new remedies they support them: just as the lesser people are most oppressed by new taxes, so they are most relieved by new remedies.

The fields were deserted. The same Salvian, page 103. And now what sort of thing is this, how familiar to the Romans, that they ruin one another by exaction. Likewise, page 104: Meanwhile the poor are laid waste, widows groan, orphans are trampled underfoot, so much so that many of them, and of no obscure birth

born, and liberally brought up, flee to the enemy, so as not to die by the affliction of public persecution; and the rest.

Rationales. That is, the procurators of the Emperors, whose charge it was to claim for the treasury, in the provinces, lapsed and vacant property, as that most learned man Henri de Valois observed on Ammianus Marcellinus and on Eusebius. And rightly were Rationales sent at this time, because much property lay vacant owing to the desertion of the fields.

Ad exhibendos milites. That is, to furnish pay to the soldiers. For in the civil law exhibere means to supply food and the other things necessary for life, as in law 1 of the Digest, On the office of the prefect of the city, and law 34 of the Digest, On business transacted. So too in the canon law. For there is extant in the third book of the Common Extravagants, under the title On census payments, a constitution of Benedict XII in which the word exhibere is taken for procurare, as the gloss notes here, that is, to provide food. Indeed in the eighth chapter of the Acts one reads in the same sense: Now in those places were the estates of the chief man of the island, named Publius, who, receiving us, entertained us kindly for three days.

Legem pret. rer. venal. Entirely to the point on this passage is Ammianus Marcellinus, book 22, page 226 of Henri de Valois's edition, treating of the Emperor Julian: Among his chief and serious concerns, however, he seemed to be doing something superfluous in that, for no reasonable cause and out of love of popularity once taken up, he strove for cheapness of saleable goods, which, when regulated otherwise than is fitting, is wont at times to produce scarcity and famine. The ancients called it vilitas when things were had for a small price, as the same Valois shows at length on this passage of Ammianus. Arnobius in the first book against the Gentiles: That very often there were the greatest harvests of grain, such cheapness and abundance of things that all commerce stood amazed, the standing of prices being laid low.

Lex necessitate ipsa. Since laws were passed with this intent, that they should benefit, not that they should harm, as Pope Symmachus writes to Avitus, bishop of Vienne. Lucius Valerius in Titus Livy, book 34, speaking of the repeal of the Oppian law: To whom is it not plain that, because of the want and misery of the state, since the money of all private persons was to be turned to public use, that law was written to remain only so long as the cause for writing the law should remain?

Magna pars civitatis. Of Nicomedia, where Diocletian lived, which indeed he strove to make equal to the city of Rome, as Lactantius will say shortly. So Constantine the Great desired to make Constantinople equal to Rome. The fragment on Constantius Chlorus and Constantine the Great, published by Henri de Valois after Ammianus Marcellinus, page 475: And Constantine named Byzantium Constantinople as a mark of his victory; and he adorned it as his own country with immense splendour, and desired it to be made equal to Rome. Eutropius, book 10, speaking of Constantine: He was the first who undertook to raise the city of his name to such a height as to make it the rival of Rome.

Licitum consuetudine. The comedy Querolus: I do not easily understand what you mean by a jesting perjury. Still, let us pass over what, as I see, custom has already made light. St Ambrose, letter 64: Is a thing therefore lawful because it is not forbidden?

Chapter VIII.

Frater ejus. These words are not to be taken as though Maximian Herculius were by nature the brother of Diocletian, but a brother in the empire, as the Emperor Severus elegantly puts it writing to Albinus in Julius Capitolinus, that is, after the custom of kings, who are wont to call one another brothers, as that most learned man Charles du Fresne has shown at length on Anna Comnena, page 274. For it is plain from the panegyric which Mamertinus delivered to Herculius that he was the brother of Diocletian not by nature but by choice, to use the words of St Ambrose from letter 63: You have mingled different blood, says Mamertinus, by your affections. Your brotherhood is not by chance, but chosen. This very thing is confirmed also by Eumenius in the first panegyric to Constantine

the Great, where, after praising Diocletian's constancy in keeping to the practice of private life, he adds: "This man, therefore, he who had been adopted by him as a brother was ashamed to imitate." Besides, Diocletian was a Dalmatian, the other a Pannonian. Add that no historian relates that they were brothers by birth. In the same manner, moreover, Galerius Maximianus, because he had been made Caesar together with Constantius, is called his brother by Trebellius Pollio in the Divus Claudius: "These things I have set down so that it may be clear to all that Constantius, a man of divine lineage, a most holy Caesar, is himself also of an Augustan family, and will give many Augusti from himself, without prejudice to Diocletian and Maximian the Augusti and to his brother Galerius." Indeed, those who held the same or an equal magistracy in the commonwealth were called brothers, as is clear from letter 160 of Saint Augustine. As for the rest, in fixing the beginnings of Maximian Herculius there are various opinions of learned men, greatly at variance among themselves, which Dionysius Petavius enumerates in book XI of De doctrina temporum, ch. 31. He himself places them in the year of Christ 285, in which Diocletian entered upon the second year of his tribunician power, just as of his rule. This the most learned man gathers from the fact that the anonymous author of the panegyric addressed to Maximian and Constantine affirms that Maximian experienced the vigils and cares of empire for twenty years, and was emperor in the twentieth year and consul for the eighth time; and also because Aurelius Victor relates that he had power for one year less than Diocletian. Certainly the years of Maximian's rule have this fixed rule, as it seems to me: that the twentieth year of his rule must coincide with his eighth consulship. Since, therefore, it is certain that his eighth consulship fell in the year of Christ 304, and we know from the Idatian Fasti that the beginning of his rule was the Kalends of April, it follows that he was made emperor by Diocletian on the Kalends of April in the year 285, when Diocletian had already been ruling since the month of November immediately preceding. For Eusebius too in the Chronicle says that Maximian was taken into partnership in the empire in the second year of Diocletian; not indeed in Scaliger's edition, but in three ancient manuscript copies of the Colbertine library, of which one is very ancient and excellent, and also in that old Venetian edition, and in the one which Arnaldus Pontacus, Bishop of Bazas, published corrected according to the faith of the old copies. This, however, is not to be understood as though Maximian were said to have been taken into partnership in the empire when Diocletian had already ruled for a whole year, but in the second year from the time Diocletian had been raised up, beginning from the Kalends of January, as they then used to begin the year. To this rule too must be referred the words of Aurelius Victor, who says that Maximian had power for one year less than Diocletian, that is, a year begun, not completed. For, as I have said, that rule is certain, that the twentieth year of Maximian's rule cannot be separated from his eighth consulship. The words of the panegyric, moreover, are to be cited: "You, emperor for the twentieth year, consul for the eighth time, Rome wished to hold back again in a kind of embrace of her own, so that she seemed already to foresee and to fear what has happened." These words must be interpreted thus, that we say Maximian remained at Rome after Diocletian's departure, and there entered upon his consulship on the Kalends of January of the year 304, as the nineteenth year of his rule was ending; that he began the twentieth on the Kalends of April, which fell within his eighth consulship; that then, having left Rome in the year in which he was consul for the eighth time, he stirred up complaints and suspicions among the Roman citizens, as though they already foresaw and feared what has happened, that is, the laying down of the empire, which came about in the year following his eighth consulship, when he had entered upon the twenty-first year of his rule. Thus Diocletian held the empire only four months and twelve days longer than Maximian. He ruled, moreover, for twenty years, five months, twelve days, but Maximian for twenty years and one whole month. Here again another difficulty presents itself, namely whether Maximian was made by Diocletian first Caesar,

and in the following year Augustus; or whether he was at once called Augustus and brother, the name of Caesar being omitted. Certain persons raised this controversy, taking their argument from book 27 of Ammianus Marcellinus, chapter 6, where, having said that the boy Gratian was made partner in the empire by his father Valentinian, which happened in the year of Christ 367, he adds that this was done contrary to the custom established of old, because Valentinian had not first made Gratian Caesar, but had at once named him Augustus. From this most learned men inferred that Maximian, who was raised to the imperial dignity long before the times of Valentinian, was first made Caesar by Diocletian, especially because they saw him so called by Eutropius, book 9, where he treats of the Bagaudae subdued in Gaul. Eutropius then adds that Diocletian at one and the same time made Maximian Herculius Augustus from Caesar, and Constantius and Galerius Maximian Caesars. But that most learned man Henry de Noris, in his dissertation on the coin of Diocletian and Maximian, chapter 2, contends even from that very passage that Eutropius erred, because the inauguration of Maximian as Augustus preceded the designation of the Caesars by a full five years. Antonius Pagius, likewise a man most skilled in these matters, understood the force and weight of this argument; and, to weaken it, he says that Eutropius describes, as is his custom, things done in different years in a brief summary. Certainly that reply would be excellent, if Eutropius had not observed the order of times there. But since he says that Maximian was made Augustus after Carausius had occupied the Britains, the Quinquegentiani had harassed Africa, Narseus had brought war upon the East, and Achilleus had rebelled in Egypt, which the Chronicle of Eusebius shows to have happened during the third, fourth and fifth years of Diocletian's reign, it is plain that the time is meant at which Constantius and Galerius Maximian were made Caesars. And so it was rightly observed by that most distinguished man that Eutropius erred in this place. Whence we infer with certainty that that passage is of no weight for establishing the opinion of those who think that Herculius was made by Diocletian first Caesar, then Augustus. For that he was at once called Augustus is proved by several laws passed under the consulship of Diocletian and Aristobulus, which bear in their heading the name of Diocletian and Aristobulus as Augusti; among which one is dated on the Nones of August. Since moreover Maximian was admitted by Diocletian into partnership in the empire in that year in which the public laws bear his name as that of an Augustus, not as that of a Caesar, it seems that there can be no doubt about this dignity of his. Nor indeed are those who compiled the Code of Justinian, in which those laws are recorded, to be accused of negligence or error in this place; but rather the diligence of those who rightly distinguished these things is to be praised. For, for example, a law issued by Diocletian when Carinus, for the second time, and Numerian were consuls, who were consuls in the year in which Diocletian was raised up as emperor, they inscribed with the name of Diocletian alone; but the one which was issued when Diocletian, for the fifth time, and Maximian, for the fourth time, were consuls, at the time when Constantius and Maximian were Caesars, they inscribed thus: The Emperors Diocletian and Maximian, Augusti, and Constantius and Maximian, most noble Caesars. In the same way another law issued by Constantius and Galerius Maximian after the abdication of the former Augusti they inscribe not only with the names of those who had issued it, but also with those of Severus and Maximian, or Maximin, most noble Caesars, who were raised to that eminence at the same time at which Constantius and Galerius Maximian attained the supreme rank. Therefore those laws which are found to have been given by Diocletian and Maximian as Augusti under the consulship of Diocletian and Aristobulus, since they are many, show that Maximian Herculius was made Augustus in that year in which Diocletian made him a sharer in his dignity and power.

In both one mind. That is, in Diocletian and Maximian, who the ancients note were of one accord in an equal partnership of power, and that Maximian always complied with Diocletian in all things. Mamertinus, in the panegyric which he delivered to Maximian: This concord of yours

brings it about, most unconquered princes, that in so great an equality of successes fortune too answers to you. For you rule the commonwealth with one mind; nor is so great a distance of places between you that you do not govern as if even with right hands joined. The same in the Genethliacus: For we understand, most sacred princes, that there is in you a twin agreement, although you are unequal in age; nor is he the more hesitant for you, but you imitate one another in turn, in turn you aspire to each other's years. Thus you are younger. both are older. Neither favours his own character more. Each wishes to be what his brother is. Flavius Vopiscus in the Carinus, speaking of Diocletian and Maximian, Galerius Maximian and Constantius: Four princes of the world, truly brave, wise, kind, and exceedingly generous, of one mind in the commonwealth. Yet I see that the Emperor Julian thought otherwise, who says in his book on the Caesars that the gods indeed admired their concord, but that one of them, bearing himself harshly and intemperately, eager for revolution and full of treachery, and not in harmony with the tetrachord in all things, was not admitted by Silenus to the banquet of the Emperors. In which passage it is clear enough that Maximian Herculius is meant.

Avaritia minori Altero ("in avarice, to the lesser, the other"). These words are certainly corrupt and depraved. For here Lactantius seems to say that Herculius was more avaricious than Diocletian, whom nevertheless a little later he writes was not very careful in preserving the riches which Africa and Spain, most opulent provinces, supplied to him. And below, chapter 29, speaking of the same man, he says: He seizes the treasuries, he gives lavishly, as is his custom. From which one may gather how much credit is to be given to the Acts of Saint Maurice and his companions written by Eucherius, where Herculius is described as savage in spirit, cruel in avarice. Very distinguished men have attempted an emendation of this passage, namely Spark and Colomiès. And Colomiès thinks it should be read thus: In this alone they differed, that the elder one had more of avarice, but also more of timidity, while the younger had less, but more spirit, not for doing good but for evil. Spark, however: In this alone they differed, that the younger one had more of avarice (but the elder less, though more of timidity), but more spirit, not for doing good but for evil. The same man reports that a most learned man, the Bishop of St Asaph, thinks it should be read thus: that the younger one had more of avarice, but more of timidity, while the elder had less, but more spirit. Neither of these emendations is sufficiently approved by me. If, however, any of them were to be admitted. that one would seem preferable to me which we have said is Spark's; yet on this condition, that we read it simply as we have printed it, except that avaritiae must be put back in place of avaritia. In which case this passage would have to be understood thus. Diocletian was indeed avaricious, to such a degree that in his insatiable avarice he never wished his treasures to be diminished, but was always heaping up extraordinary riches and largesses, so that he might keep what he stored away whole and inviolate. Maximian too was avaricious, but not so careful in guarding riches; and therefore he can be called more avaricious than Diocletian, because, since he squandered his riches, he was forced to devise every day new ways and new arts of exacting and amassing money; for which reason perhaps those Acts of Saint Maurice written by Eucherius call him cruel in avarice. It is also plain that the timidity attributed there to one of the Emperors must fall upon Diocletian. Up to this point I think everything can fit together correctly. Afterwards, as I judge, some things are missing to complete the comparison. For what follows next certainly does not pertain to Diocletian, but to Maximian.

Wealthy senators. Namely after the example of the deified Aurelian, about whom Vopiscus writes this in his life: He is said, moreover, to have been of such cruelty that he heaped on very many senators a feigned charge of conspiracy and usurpation, so that he might the more easily put them to death.

Their eyes were gouged out. Lactantius, Institutes book 7, chapter 26, on Rome: And the God of heaven must be entreated and adored by us, if indeed His statutes and decrees can be deferred, lest sooner than we think that abominable tyrant

should come, who would attempt so great a crime and gouge out that light by whose destruction the world itself is to fall. Treating of the same Roman Senate, Mamertinus writes thus in his birthday speech for Maximian: Rome herself too, mistress of the nations, elated with immoderate joy at your nearness, sent the lights of her senate.

Constantius. Surnamed Chlorus, the father of Constantine the Great, a most excellent and most kindly prince, as he is rightly and deservedly called in an old inscription of Nicomedia not yet published, which the most distinguished Jean Vaillant, the king's antiquary, copied in that city some years ago from an old stone found in the courtyard of the New Mosque, and most courteously shared with me. It reads thus:

To the most excellent and most kindly prince Flavius Valerius Constantius, most noble Caesar, Germanicus Maximus, consul, the colony of the Nicomedians, devoted to his divinity and majesty.

This inscription was set up after the victory which Constantius won over the Germans or Alamanni, after he was called Germanicus, in the year of Christ 294, when he himself and Galerius Maximianus were consuls. Of this victory Eutropius speaks thus, book 9: About the same time a battle was fought by Constantius Caesar in Gaul near the Lingones. In a single day he experienced adverse and favourable fortune. For when, the barbarians suddenly rushing upon him, he had been driven inside the city under so headlong a necessity that, the gates being shut, he was hauled up onto the wall by ropes, scarcely five hours later, his army arriving, he cut down nearly sixty thousand of the Alamanni. But if anyone would have the title Germanicus added to Constantius after the conquest of the Franks, that opinion too can be sound.

Chapter IX.

Maximian. Whose forename was Galerius and whose surname was Armentarius. He was the son-in-law of Diocletian, since he had his daughter Valeria as wife, a most chaste and most unhappy woman. But we shall treat of her at greater length later.

To this beast. Thus Lactantius is accustomed to name the persecutors of the Christians. Of which appellation he gives this reason in the fifth book of the Divine Institutes, chapter 11: For what Caucasus, what India, what Hyrcania ever nourished beasts so monstrous, so bloodthirsty? Since the rage of all wild beasts rages only until the belly is sated, and once hunger is appeased it at once grows quiet. That is the true beast, at whose single command dark gore is shed everywhere, everywhere cruel grief, everywhere fear, and death in many a form. No one can describe as it deserves the monstrousness of so great a brute, which, lying in one place, yet rages with iron teeth through the whole world, and not only tears apart the limbs of men but also grinds the very bones, and rages against their ashes, so that no place of burial may remain. This passage, found thanks to our pointing it out, is the one the illustrious Ezechiel Spanheim meant in his annotations on the Caesars of the Emperor Julian, p. 52, where, copying out the words of Lactantius that are illustrated there, he adds that he somewhere gives the reason why he calls those emperors beasts. Nor would it be an absurd conjecture if anyone should suspect that these words too were spoken against Galerius Maximian, a most cruel man, whom both Lactantius and the others call the author of the persecution raised against the Christians, as we shall observe below. For the same reason Sulpicius Severus, in the second book of the Sacred History, calls Nero the foulest of monstrous beasts; and Victor, book 5 on the Vandal persecution, likewise calls King Huneric a beast.

His mother. Romula, of whom a little later.

New Dacia. That is, the Dacia of Aurelian, namely that part of Moesia into which Aurelian had transferred the peoples whom he had led away from the Dacia of Trajan. It had been lost under Gallienus, but was recovered for Roman rule by Aurelian, and afterwards abandoned again by him, because he despaired of being able to hold it, and having been led away

from it the Romans were settled in the middle of Moesia, as Eutropius relates in his ninth book. Flavius Vopiscus in the Life of Aurelian: Seeing Illyricum laid waste and Moesia utterly lost, he abandoned the province across the Danube, Dacia, which had been established by Trajan, withdrawing the army and the provincials, despairing that it could be retained; and the peoples led away from it he settled in Moesia, and called it his own Dacia, which now divides the two Moesias. Then, therefore, without doubt Romula, the mother of Galerius, who was from beyond the Danube, had fled for refuge into the new Dacia.

Having crossed the river. That is, the Danube, where the boundary of the two Dacias of that time had been established.

Huge flesh. Eusebius relates things consistent with Lactantius, in book 8 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 16, and in the first book of the Life of Constantine, chapter 55: namely that in Galerius Maximian the whole bulk of the body, because of an excessive abundance of food, had grown into a certain immense fatness, even before the disease of which he died.

Through Armenia. The Greater, as Sextus Rufus teaches. There were thus two Armenias, separated from each other by the river Euphrates. The Lesser was joined to Cappadocia, the Greater adjoined the kingdom of the Persians. So, since the war was being prepared in Greater Armenia, the armies were far from Nicomedia, and so Diocletian was safe against fear of the Persians. Sextus Rufus therefore relates that Maximian Caesar, having been repulsed by the Persians in the first encounter, scarcely obtained from Diocletian leave to try the fortune of Mars again with an army restored from the frontier troops of Dacia. In Greater Armenia the Emperor himself reconnoitred the enemy with two horsemen, and coming upon the enemy camp with twenty-five thousand men, he suddenly attacked the countless columns of the Persians and cut them down to utter destruction. The king of the Persians, Narseus, fled. His wife and daughters were captured, and kept with the greatest guarding of their chastity. Out of admiration for this the Persians confessed that the Romans were superior not only in arms but also in character: they gave back Mesopotamia with the five regions beyond the Tigris. This passage is notable, and one that deserved to be written out by us.

Narseus having been put to flight. That these things happened in the year of Christ 298 Henri de Valois proves by many arguments in his notes on Eusebius, p. 170; consult him. Although, it must indeed be admitted, it is expressly written in that excellent and most ancient Eusebian Chronicle of the Colbert library that Galerius's victory over the Persians happened in the 17th year of Diocletian's rule; but in the old Venetian edition it is put back to the 14th year. The triumph over the defeated Narseus, however, was celebrated at Rome at the time of the vicennalia, in the year 303, as we shall show below at chapter 17.

He was rejecting the name of Caesar. He was not the only one who preferred to have imperial power rather than wait for it. Julian Caesar followed him; not content with the name of Caesar, he both wished and allowed himself to be called Augustus. When this was reported to the Emperor Constantius, he resolved, as Ammianus Marcellinus relates in book 20, that Leonas his quaestor should go with swift step into the Gauls with letters addressed to Julian, instructing him, if he had regard for his own safety and that of those closest to him, to lay aside his swollen pride and keep himself within the power of a Caesar. But Julian resisted, declaring that under the title of high imperial rank he would obey far more dutifully, as is read in the Epitome of Victor.

Diocles before his rule. Below, chapter 19: On him Diocletian threw his own purple, which he took off himself, and he became Diocles again. The Epitome of Victor: Diocletian, a Dalmatian, freedman of the senator Anulinus, his mother and likewise his town being named Dioclea, was called Diocles from their names until he took up imperial power; when he took possession of the power of the Roman world, he converted the Greek name to the Roman fashion. See Valesius in his notes on Eusebius, p. 165. Flavius Vopiscus must therefore be emended in the passage cited by us above from the Life of Numerian: where one should read Diocles nimium avarus [Diocles, too greedy], in place of what is read there, Diocletiane.

He reigned with the greatest good fortune. See what we note below, at chapter 17.

Chapter X.

Scrutator rer. futur. [Searcher of future things]. Aurelius Victor: For a searcher of things impending, when by fate internal disasters, etc.

Quidam ministrorum [Certain of the attendants]. This passage too plainly shows that this book is Lactantius's. For he himself has entirely similar things in the fourth book of the Institutes, ch. 27: For when they sacrifice to their gods, if someone stands by bearing a signed forehead, they in no way obtain favourable omens from the sacrifice, nor can the seer, when consulted, give answers. And this has often been the chief cause for wicked kings to persecute justice. For when certain of our attendants were standing by their masters as they sacrificed, by placing the sign on their foreheads they put their gods to flight, so that they could not portray the future in the entrails of the victims. When the haruspices understood this, at the instigation of the same demons to whom they made offerings, complaining that profane men were present at the rites, they drove their princes into a fury to storm the temple of God. In this place, to note it in passing, Joseph Isaeus erred gravely, thinking that what is meant here is the cleansing of the temple of Jupiter, Apollo, or of any other demon, whereas this passage is to be understood of the Church, that is, of the body of Christians, as Cuper, cited above, rightly explains it. For at the time when the princes were driven into a fury to storm the temple of God, Diocletian was not at Nicomedia but in the East, as Lactantius teaches; and what he said in the fourth book about the storming of God's temple he explains of the pernicious and unjust orders of Diocletian, who ordered not only those who ministered at the rites but all who were in the palace to sacrifice, and commanded that the soldiers too be compelled to the abominable sacrifices. Thus that first persecution of the soldiers falls in the year 302. And certainly it is not fury but rather piety that is needed to cleanse a temple; but for storming the temple, that is, the body of Christians, because God, Who was worshipped in the temple of the Christians, had thrown into confusion the rites to which the Emperors were giving their attention, fury supplied the spirit. Thomasius did better, who kept the word expugnarent here and rejected the other: since if we read expurgarent, by the temple of God one would have to understand that of Apollo or of another of that kind, which Lactantius would have called not the temple of God but the profane dwelling of a demon. But nevertheless he too did not attain the sense of this passage. For he thinks that by temple are here meant those Christian men who were present at the sacrifices, who suffered martyrdom because of the complaints of the demons and of their priests, whereas it is certain that the Church as a whole is meant here. The occasion of the error, therefore, was the word expurgarent, which some editions have in place of expugnarent. Moreover, that expugnarent is to be read is shown by six ancient codices of the Royal Library, as many of the Colbertine, and also two other ancient codices of Bologna, which both Thomasius and Isaeus saw; as Latinus Latinius attested in the margin of his Lactantius, which my most illustrious and most learned fellow countryman Antoine Faure, Doctor of Theology of Paris and Provost of the Church of Reims, shared with me out of our friendship. Petrus Ciaconius too advised in the margin of his Lactantius, which the same most illustrious man gave me to use, that it should be read in this way. And so indeed do that old Roman edition, the Venetian one of the year 1521, and the Basel one of Xystus Betuleius have it.

Immortale signum [The immortal sign]. Lactantius, Institutes book 4, ch. 27: Whom the immortal sign has fortified like an impregnable wall. Elsewhere he said the heavenly sign.

Tagis [Of Tages]. I think these things were said in an oratorical manner, because Tages the Etruscan was formerly a great haruspex and master of haruspices. Arnobius, in the second book Against the Nations: Before Thages the Etruscan reached the shores of light, did any man know, or take care to learn and study whether it was something to be known, whether anything was signified by the fall of lightning or in the veins of entrails? On which see the observations of Gebhart Elmenhorst. Hence that passage of Ammianus Marcellinus from book 17, p. 101: In the Tagetic books it is read that those soon to be struck by the lightning of Vejovis are so dulled that they can hear neither thunder nor any greater

crashes. Thus Henri de Valois emended this passage, whereas before it used to be read Tagetis Thusci. In an old manuscript codex of the Colbert library is written Tagetinicis.

Praepositi. That is the name of a military rank, and indeed one below the Tribunes, who nevertheless commanded a cohort just as the Tribunes did, as Henri de Valois observes on Ammianus Marcellinus. Lactantius, chapter 46 of this history: These things are written out in many copies, and are sent through the Praepositi and Tribunes. Of their number was that Dorotheus whose praise Eusebius sets out in book 8 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 1, as the same Valois gathered from the Acts of the martyrs Indes and Domna.

Milites cogi. Rightly therefore does Eusebius note, in the same first chapter of the eighth book, that the persecution began first with those who were serving as soldiers. Nor at that time did it proceed further.

Bithyniam. In the old codex is read Bethaniam, by an obvious error. For it is certain that the things narrated next were carried out at Nicomedia, the metropolis of Bithynia.

Chapter XI.

Mater ejus. [The mother] of Galerius Maximianus, whom he called Romula above.

Deor. Montium cultrix. Commodian, book 1, chapter 25: You call [them] mountain gods. For so it is read in the very ancient manuscript codex of Saint-Aubin of Angers, from which Jacques Sirmond copied out the Instructions of Commodian, whereas in both editions of Rigault it is written Mountains and gods you call [them]. Wrongly. For even the title itself, which is inscribed To the Montesiani, was a warning that the reading of the old exemplar should be kept. It is difficult, however, to explain who the mountain gods were. For an old Roman inscription, in which mention of these gods is found, makes their explanation more difficult. It is found in Gruter, page 21:

AN ALTAR TO JUPITER OF THE LIGHTNING-MAKER, BY THE COMMAND OF THE MOUNTAIN GODS. VALERIUS CRESCENTIO, FATHER OF ALL THE GODS, AND AURELIUS EXUPERANTIUS, PRIEST OF SILVANUS, WITH THE BROTHERS AND SISTERS, DEDICATED [IT].

Further, there were other Monteses, who are mentioned in the Praedestinatus, book 1, chapter 69, and in the Constitution of Honorius Augustus published in the appendix of the Theodosian Code, title 12, whom Saint Augustine, in the letter to Quodvultdeus, calls Montenses, as do many others too, whom the most distinguished Charles du Fresne lists under the word Montenses. These were Donatists, as is well enough known even from the second book of Optatus of Milevis.

Jejuniis insistebant. So Mary, the maidservant of Tertullus the principalis, as is read in her acts: And so, while Tertullus was celebrating the birthday of his son, when he was offering victims to impure idols and empty images, Mary applied herself to fasting.

Inter se. That is, between Diocletian Augustus and Maximianus Caesar, as what follows shows.

Illos libenter mori. Sulpicius Severus, in the second book of his Ecclesiastical History, speaking of this very persecution: For indeed men then rushed eagerly into glorious contests. Nothing is more common in the acts of the martyrs than those voluntary cries: I am a Christian, I wish to die, and the rest of this kind. Hence that holy envy of Christians towards the dead, because they had not been worthy to be sharers in their death, as that of Valerius in the Acts of Saint Pontius the martyr. Hence too the hot zeal and, so to speak, pious madness of certain people who offered themselves of their own accord to death and torments; against whom Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, was inflamed, as Saint Augustine testifies in the Breviculus of the Conference with the Donatists, book 3, chapter 13, where he shows that a letter was written by Mensurius to Secundus, bishop of Tigisis, in which was read: That those who, not having been arrested, offered themselves to the persecutions and declared of their own accord that they had scriptures which they would not hand over, when no one had asked this of them, displeased Mensurius, and that he forbade the Christians to honour them. To this also the sixtieth canon of Elvira refers. Elegant, moreover, and especially memorable is the passage of Pontius the Deacon in the Life of Saint Cyprian, where, speaking

concerning his flight, when he was being sought for martyrdom, says: That was indeed fear, but a just fear, a fear that dreaded to offend the Lord, a fear that preferred to obey the precepts of God rather than to be crowned in that way. For a mind dedicated to God in all things, and a faith bound over to the divine admonitions, believed that unless it had obeyed the Lord, Who was then bidding it to hide, it would sin even in its very suffering. Hence, finally, the prayers of certain people to the martyrs, begging that they might deserve to be sharers of martyrdom; as those of Eulampia in the Menologion of the Greeks at the tenth day of October, in the second volume of the Antiquae lectiones of Henricus Canisius. For these examples suffice, out of many and almost innumerable ones which could easily be cited.

He ascribed to the fault of others. Eutropius, book 9: Diocletian was of a crafty character, shrewd besides, and very subtle of mind, and one who wished to satisfy his own severity through the odium falling on another. Suidas relates the same about him, saying that he was of a varied and crafty mind, but often concealed the faults of his nature by singular prudence and acuteness, shifting all harsher measures onto others.

Out of his own hatred against the Christians. Lactantius, book 5 of the Institutes, chapter 11, speaking of this very persecution: Others out of their own hatred against the just.

That they must be removed. The Acts of the passion of Saint Salvinus, bishop and martyr: The greater part of the people were shouting, saying: Let the Christians be removed, and pleasure is assured.

Fearing. Lactantius, in the same place: Others, out of excessive timidity, dared more than was ordered.

Wishing to curry favour. The same, in the same place: Some, in order to please, and to pave for themselves by this service the way to higher things.

Milesian Apollo. Eusebius relates this story in the second book of the Life of Constantine, chapter 50, but he does not explain to the temple of which Apollo it belongs. Pausanias records in his Arcadica that Xerxes son of Darius took away from the Milesians the bronze Apollo which had stood at Branchidae, and which many years later Seleucus sent back to the same people. Branchidae, moreover, was a place in the territory of Miletus above the harbour of Panormus, famous for the oracle of Apollo, which the Ionians and Aeolians were formerly accustomed to consult, as Henri Valois observes from the first book of Herodotus in his notes on Ammianus Marcellinus, page 382. Lactantius, book 7 of the Institutes, chapter 13: A certain Polytes consulted the Milesian Apollo. Macrobius, book 1 of the Saturnalia, chapter 17: Meandrius writes that the Milesians sacrifice to Apollo Oulios for their safety.

As an enemy of the divine religion. Namely, that just men living on earth, that is, Christians, prevented him from foretelling true things, and that for this reason false oracles were given from the tripod, as Eusebius teaches in the second book of the Life of Constantine. These words the author of the Acts of Saint George the martyr in Surius copied out and made his own.

Chapter XII.

On the seventh day before the Kalends of March. Correctly. For on this day the Terminalia are marked in the old Roman Calendar, which was produced in the time of Constantine and made public by Herwart and Bucherius. Saint Augustine, book 7 of the City of God, chapter 7: They say that the Terminalia are celebrated in the month of February, when the purificatory rite takes place which they call februum. The first day of this persecution, therefore, as is to be noted, was the seventh day before the Kalends of March, the very day of the Terminalia; which is proved also from chapter 48, as will be observed there.

When both old men were holding the consulship. That is, Diocletian and Maximian Herculius, who it is agreed were consuls for the eighth and seventh time in the year of Christ 303. These words, moreover, indicate with certainty the date of this persecution, about which learned men fight among themselves with such great contention. For Onuphrius, Baronius, Petavius, not to mention each one, maintain that it began in the three hundred and second year of Christ; Scaliger, Valois and many others, in the following year; and that their opinion is true this passage of Lactantius proves. For besides, it is evident from chapter 17 that it took place a little before Diocletian went to Rome. But it is certain that he set out for Rome at the close of the nineteenth year of his reign, and there triumphed over Narseus, King of the Persians, as is rightly noted by Joseph

Scaliger on the Chronicle of Eusebius. Moreover Lactantius below, chapter 48, gathering together the history of this persecution, after saying that the edict of Constantine and Licinius on behalf of the Christians, by which peace was given to the Church, was posted at Nicomedia on the day of the Ides of June, when Constantine and Licinius were consuls for the third time, says that from the overthrow of the church of Nicomedia until its restoration there were ten years and four months, more or less. But if you reckon from the seventh day before the Kalends of March of the year 303 (on which the church of Nicomedia was demolished) up to the day of the Ides of June of the year 313, you will find that from the overthrow of that church until its restoration there passed ten years, three months and nineteen days. Lastly, that the persecution began in the year 303 can also be proved from the fact that Eusebius, book 7, chapter 16, says that after the eighth year it began to slacken somewhat. For if you count the time from the Easter festival of the year 303 up to the month of April of the year 311, in which Galerius Maximianus, being at the point of death, ordered the persecution to cease, you will easily find that eight full years had elapsed from the beginning of the persecution, and that it was the beginning of a new one. Thus it began to slacken after the eighth year, as Eusebius observed. It is therefore evident that the arguments which Petavius, in book 11 of De doctrina temporum, chapter 32, adduces from Sulpicius Severus to prove that the persecution began in the year 302, are weak, since they rest on the foundation that it ended in the year 312, whereas it is certain that it did not subside until the following year.

An image of God is sought. That is to say, as among the pagans, who did not think that there could be temples without images. And yet Pliny, book 2, chapter 7, had said: I consider it a mark of human weakness to seek the likeness and form of God. The churches of the Christians therefore had no images, as Desiderius Heraldus observes at length on the sixth book of Arnobius. See also Casaubon in his Notes on the Alexander Severus of Aelius Lampridius.

The Scriptures are burned. Eusebius relates this, book 8 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 2, as do many others whom it would be superfluous to mention. For the matter is very well known. From this arose the insulting term "traditor" against those who, from fear of punishment, had handed over the divine books to the imperial judges. On this matter the African writers are to be consulted above all, and especially that Donatist who wrote the Acts of the holy martyrs Saturninus, Dativus and their companions. Nor meanwhile should the proceedings of the purgation of Caecilian, bishop of Carthage, and of Felix, bishop of Aptunga, be passed over.

Chapter XIII.

On the next day. That is, on the sixth day before the Kalends of March. On this day, therefore, the edict of Diocletian and Maximian against our people was posted at Nicomedia, the persecution having already begun. Eusebius, however, book 8, chapter 2, writes that it was posted in the month of March, as the feast of the Lord's Passion was approaching; and the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle says that it was posted on 25 March, on the very day of Easter. These accounts, it seems to me, can be reconciled thus: the edict was first posted at Nicomedia, as being the royal city, on the sixth day before the Kalends of March, and was then sent to the other cities of the empire, being posted in the month of March in the place where Eusebius was then living, in Palestine in the month of April, and at Alexandria or elsewhere on the very day of Easter.

They would lack all honour. Rufinus rendered this as follows in Eusebius, book 8, chapter 2: If anyone among our people was furnished with the prerogative of any honour, it should be taken away and he should remain infamous.

They would not have freedom. This is explained more clearly by Eusebius, book 8, chapter 2, according to the translation of Rufinus. For the other translators have not grasped the sense of the law with sufficient success. Rufinus, then, has it thus: If any of the slaves persisted as a Christian, he could not obtain freedom. For penalties were established first against those holding honours, then against the common people, and lastly against slaves, from whom all hope of freedom was taken away if they persisted in the profession of the Christian religion. Hence it is evident that Henri Valois, a man otherwise most learned, is mistaken, who in his Notes on

Eusebius, p. 164, says that this interpretation of Ruffinus cannot be accepted. Nicephorus Callistus strayed still further: in book 7, chapter 3, he so understood this passage of the edict as to suppose that freedom was given to slaves who abjured Christianity. However, the most distinguished Gisbert Cuper thinks that Lactantius here does not refer to the freedom of slaves, and approves the opinion of Valesius so fully that he judges it not even open to doubt. But since Ruffinus was skilled in both languages, and was also very close to the times in which those measures had been enacted, it is very probable that he knew both the force of Eusebius's words and in what manner the matter had been carried out in that persecution of Diocletian. Moreover, the condition of slaves would have been better than that of men of rank if no penalties had been enacted against them. The opinion of the most distinguished Dodwell, who interprets this passage of freedmen, would seem more probable. But the authority of the same Ruffinus always stands in the way of my embracing it.

Which edict a certain man. From the silence of Lactantius, who was then at Nicomedia, it is sufficiently given to be understood that the name of this man was unknown, because he was without doubt of the common people. For if he had been an illustrious man, conspicuous by the prerogative of secular honours, as Eusebius describes him, who had either heard it so by report or received it from the tradition of his elders, Lactantius would neither have been ignorant of his name nor kept silent about it, and it would also have reached Eusebius. For it mattered to the Christian commonwealth that the name of that man who had dared that great deed should become known to all the Churches. Therefore I hold very suspect what is read in certain ancient martyrologies at the seventh day of the month of September, where, after the words of Ruffinus interpreting Eusebius have been copied out, these deeds are said to have been done by a certain blessed John. For since it is gathered with certainty from Lactantius and Eusebius that this man, at once brought forward, was at once handed over to death, and so expired at the end of February, how can it be that his natal day falls in the month of September, so far from the beginning of the persecution? And indeed, although the authority of those martyrologies wavers with me, I nevertheless cannot assent to the most distinguished Godfrey Henschen, who in the third volume of February, p. 107, contends that this story ought to be understood of Saint George the martyr, whom he says suffered at Nicomedia in the year of Christ 303, on the 23rd day of the month of April, when the solemnity of the Lord's saving Passion was at hand. For besides the fact that it is certain that the persecution began at the end of February, and that he who tore down and cut up the edict was put to death in the same month, that is, two months before the twenty-third day of the month of April, those Acts of Saint George which Henschen edited do not say this, and they are so full of fables and monstrous narratives that it is plainly evident that nothing good and sound can be gathered from them. The story of the Empress Alexandra alone, who, since she was a Christian, is said to have been condemned to beheading by Diocletian himself pronouncing the sentence, is a story that surpasses all the fictions of the poets, since it is certain, as we shall say a little later, that Diocletian had no other wife during the whole time of his reign than Prisca. Moreover, since Henschen himself writes that Easter fell in the year 303 on the 18th day of April, and the Lord's Passion on the sixteenth day, it is plain that this story cannot be understood of Saint George, who, if he suffered in the year in which Easter fell on the 18th day of April, as Henschen would have it, certainly did not suffer when the Paschal solemnity was imminent, but after the feast days had passed. Yet this was Henschen's stronger argument, taken from the preface of Eusebius's book on the martyrs of Palestine, where it is written that the edicts on destroying the churches and burning the sacred books were posted in Palestine in the month of April, when the day of the saving Passion was at hand. While this may be true with regard to Palestine, it is false with regard to Nicomedia, where it is certain that the edict was posted on the 11th day before the Kalends of March, the day after the Terminalia.

Although not rightly. Ruffinus in Eusebius, book 8, chapter 5: Kindled by excessive heat of faith, as if he were reproving

his imprudent and untimely ardour for the faith of Christ.

The victories over the Goths and Sarmatians. Because the emperors called themselves Gothicus and Sarmaticus in the title of the edict, as in an old inscription which Cuspinianus reports in his book on the Caesars, p. 435. In the title of the edict, moreover, were placed not only the names of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, but also those of the Caesars Constantius and Galerius Maximian, as can easily be gathered from the account of the passion of the holy martyrs Saturninus, Dativus, Felix and their companions, and from the martyrdom of the holy women Agape, Chionia and Irene.

Lawfully roasted. The manner of roasting Christians alive is explained below, ch. 21. He said 'lawfully roasted' because he was roasted according to the laws which the Augusti had passed; just as in book 5 of the Institutes, ch. 11, he calls those rites lawful which were performed according to ancient custom, because custom holds the force of law. For the same reason he said, in book 6, ch. 9, that injuries are lawfully inflicted on enemies, namely after war, the law of war having been observed, has been declared and proclaimed through envoys. For Joseph Isaeus is badly mistaken here, who thinks the word 'lawfully' is used ironically in this place, plainly because he did not understand its true meaning.

With admirable patience. These are the words of Rufinus, translating and explaining Eusebius: Raging against him at once with every kind of cruelty, they could not achieve even this alone, that anyone should see him sorrowful in his punishments, but with a glad and cheerful countenance, when his vitals had already failed under the tortures, his spirit nevertheless rejoiced in his countenance. Hence his torturers were themselves the more grievously tormented, because they were exhausting every kind of punishment on one whom they could not even make sad by them.

Chapter XIV.

He set fire. Eusebius, book 8, ch. 6, dealing with this fire, confesses that he does not know by what chance it was started. Others write that the palace was struck by lightning and burned, as Constantine does in his oration to the assembly of the saints, ch. 25.

All his own forthwith he ord[ered]. In the old manuscript one reads 'he forthwith seized all his own'. We have emended it.

Power having been given. Lactantius, book 5 of the Institutes, ch. 11, dealing with this very persecution: For once power had been received, each raged according to his own character. Some through excessive timidity dared more than was ordered. Others from their own hatred against the just, some from a natural savagery of mind, several in order to please, and by this service to pave for themselves a way to higher things. Some showed themselves headlong in killing, like one in Phrygia who burned an entire people together with their very meeting-house.

They tortured. So it is written in the old book: but above the last line, as usually happens, a sign has been placed to show that one should read 'they were tortured', a plainly manifest error. And that this is the source of very many of the errors which occur in ancient authors we have often discovered in manuscript codices. For the scribes first copied the books, which were then handed over to correctors. These, however, frequently turned a good reading into a bad one under the appearance of correction.

They were contending. Lactantius in the passage cited a little before: And so in devising kinds of punishment they devise nothing other than victory.

The household of the Caesar. That is, of Galerius. It was therefore decided to exempt this, as though it were abominable to suspect the Caesar's household of any crime against Diocletian, and so that the authors of the fire, who had come out of his house, should not be uncovered if room had been given to inquiry.

His departure having been prepared. There was no war at that time, so far as I know. But this man of mad and ferocious mind behaved so defiantly and arrogantly that by this way of acting he drove Diocletian more vehemently to the destruction of the Christian religion, whom he saw applying himself hitherto only softly to so great a task.

Chapter XV.

His daughter Valeria. She was married to Galerius Maximianus Caesar, led a wretched life after the death of her husband, and perished by a wretched death together with her mother under the rule of Licinius, as Lactantius teaches at the end of this work. By this account the conjecture of the most illustrious Cardinal Baronius is entirely overthrown, who writes at the year 294 that the daughter of Diocletian who was joined in marriage to Galerius Maximianus did not survive long after the wedding, since no record of her exists in the more ancient monuments, nor is any offspring read to have been begotten of her. He then adds that her father, in order to consecrate the memory of his dead daughter to eternity, wished a part of Pannonia to be established and surnamed by her name; and he cites for this matter book 19 of Ammianus Marcellinus. But Marcellinus does not say this, but only that that part of Pannonia was both established and so named in honour of Valeria, daughter of Diocletian. I shall quote his very words: He came to Valeria, once a part of Pannonia, but both established and so named in honour of Valeria, daughter of Diocletian. Moreover, Aurelius Victor in his book On the Caesars teaches that it was established and named not by Diocletian but by Galerius Maximianus: He called the province Valeria by the name of his wife. These things being thus laid down as though they were certain, Baronius adds that Diocletian, when the affinity contracted between him and Galerius had been dissolved by the death of Valeria, hastened to join to him in the bond of marriage the maiden whom he had in a nearer degree in his kinship: namely Susanna, daughter of Gabinius, brother of Pope Caius, both of whom were joined to Diocletian by blood, inasmuch as they were born of a brother of that same Diocletian, as is evident from the Acts of that same Saint Susanna. But this whole story collapses, since the foundation on which it had been placed collapses, that is, the death of Valeria, who, as is established, long outlived Galerius. So dangerous, moreover, are the errors of great men that this slip of Baronius has drawn very many learned men along with it, Odoricus Raynaldus, Joannes Bollandus and others.

His wife Prisca. She was afterwards, while her husband was still living, driven into exile with her daughter Valeria by Maximinus, and at last beheaded by order of Licinius, as Lactantius will teach at the end of this work. But here a great difficulty presents itself. For in the ancient Acts of Saint Susanna, virgin, who is written to have consummated her martyrdom at Rome under the rule of Diocletian, mention is made of Serena Augusta, wife of that same emperor, who was secretly a Christian, where her feast day is recorded at the 17th day before the Kalends of September. A grave difficulty indeed, if the truth and authority of those Acts were established. But while they bear many and great signs of forgery, they are proved false above all on this very head, that they will have Serena to have been the wife of Diocletian. For I shall show that Diocletian had no other wife during the whole time of his reign than Prisca. For if she was the mother of Valeria, as indeed she was, it is necessary that she married Diocletian before he became emperor, that is, before the year of Christ 284, since Valeria was joined in marriage to Galerius Maximianus in the year 293, in at least the twelfth year of her age. That Prisca her mother was living at that time is gathered with certainty from this, that she survived long afterwards, and died only in the year 313, after the victory which Licinius won over Maximinus. These records the most illustrious founder of the Ecclesiastical Annals, Cardinal Baronius, had not perceived; and yet he suspected that there would be those who would call into doubt that story about Serena Augusta, because no mention at all of her is found elsewhere, neither among the pagan writers nor in ancient inscriptions; and, as though he had put an end to that most difficult question, he asks the petty scholars, if the name of Serena Augusta displeases them, to say by what other name the consort of Diocletian, an Augusta, is found to have been called by more ancient authors, and, since they will not have found one, not to make a controversy about the name. Satisfaction has therefore been given most abundantly to the question

he asked. That spurious wife of Diocletian, then, having been rejected, let us see whether Eleutheria, whom the most illustrious man Hadrianus Valesius, in the defence of his discussion on basilicas, inferred to have been the wife of Diocletian from the Life of Pope Vigilius, which is extant in the pontifical acts commonly attributed to Anastasius the Librarian, was truly the wife of Diocletian. Vigilius had come to Constantinople by order of Justinian and Theodora; and, when he was being compelled to do what he was unwilling to do, he says: "As I see, it was not the most pious princes Justinian and Theodora who made me come to them, but today I know that I have found Diocletian and Eleutheria." From this passage, then, that most illustrious man inferred that Eleutheria was the wife of Diocletian, because it is certain that a comparison is drawn there between Justinian and Diocletian, and between Theodora, Justinian's consort, and Eleutheria, who is therefore Diocletian's wife. But from the arguments that have been brought against Serena it also follows that Eleutheria, or Lutheria, as it stands in the very old manuscript codex 417 of the Colbert library, or Leutheres, as it is found written in codex 753 of the Royal library, was not the wife of Diocletian, since it is certain, as I said before, that he had no other wife than Prisca during the whole time of his principate. Therefore either Vigilius erred in the History, or the book of the pontifical acts is corrupt in this passage. Indeed, in codex 736 of the same Colbert library it reads thus: "But today I know that I have found Diocletian and Decius, or Leutherius." So now that woman has been changed into a man. Furthermore, from what has so far been said about Serena and Eleutheria anyone can easily gather what credence is to be given to the History of Saint George the Martyr, in which it is written that the empress Alexandra, Diocletian's consort, having seen a certain remarkable miracle performed in the person of the Martyr, acknowledged the truth, that is, embraced the faith of Christ. This, to be sure, is Alexandra, Diocletian's consort, mother of Maximian's consort, as is related in the Life of the same George, a fragment of which Godefridus Henschenius published in the third volume for April, p. 103. Nicephorus Callistus, book 7, chapter 15, relates that she, after her death, was called back from the dead by the prayer alone of the same George.

He compelled [them] to be polluted. From this passage the most learned man Henry Dodwell inferred, in his Cyprianic dissertations, that Prisca, Diocletian's wife, and her daughter Valeria were Christians; and he confirms this opinion by the authority of Eusebius, who in book 8, chapter 1 of the Ecclesiastical History, recounting the events that preceded Diocletian's persecution, says that the wives of the emperors were openly and publicly Christians, and had from them the power to carry out freely, in the presence of the emperors, the things that belonged to their religion, in words as much as in deeds. For although he does not name the emperors who gave this licence to their wives, these words of Lactantius nevertheless seem to hint that it ought to be understood of Diocletian and Galerius. But if they were truly Christians, how can it be thought that they were polluted with sacrifice, even under compulsion? For who would believe that women, princesses placed in an exalted station, did not dare to refuse, when children and weak women, as Lactantius says in the fifth book of the Divine Institutes, chapter 13, did not yield to tortures, and eunuchs chose to be killed rather than deny the faith of Christ, rather than be polluted with impious sacrifice? Moreover, wherever Prisca and Valeria are dealt with in this book, there is no trace there of their religion; yet Lactantius would have made mention of it, at least in chapter 2, where, describing their end, he says that their chastity and their rank were their ruin.

Eunuchs were killed. And among these Peter, whose martyrdom Eusebius describes, book 8, chapter 6. Likewise Indes, as the Acts of his martyrdom report.

Dragged off to burning. Eusebius confirms this in the same place, writing that by imperial command all the worshippers of God who were in Nicomedia perished in heaps with their households, some consumed by the sword, others by flames.

They were drowned in the sea. Eusebius in the same place: Others also

without number, bound and placed in boats, the executioners threw into the deep sea. The same author, in the book On the Martyrs of Palestine, ch. 6, narrating the martyrdom of Agapius, says that he was sunk in the middle of the sea with stones hung from his feet.

A man not so very merciful. The ancient writers relate that Herculius Maximian was a harsh, cruel and inhuman man. Eutropius, book 9: But Herculius was openly savage and of an uncivil disposition, showing his harshness even by the grimness of his face. Likewise book 10: A man inclined to every harshness and cruelty, faithless, disagreeable, wholly devoid of civility. Even Diocletian, who had shared the supreme power with him, used to reproach his harshness, as Flavius Vopiscus shows in the Deified Aurelian. See also the emperor Julian in the book on the Caesars.

He allowed the walls to be pulled down. Eusebius, on the contrary, book 8, ch. 13, writes plainly that Constantius neither overthrew the buildings of the churches, or meeting-places, as Lactantius calls them here, and likewise Rufinus in his version of this passage of Eusebius, nor undertook anything against our people.

The true temple of God. That is, the Christian man. Lactantius, Institutes book 5, ch. 8: Whose temple is not stones or clay, but man himself, who bears the likeness of God; a temple which is adorned not with gold and the corruptible gifts of gems, but with the eternal endowments of the virtues. The same, book 6, ch. 25: Temples are not to be built for Him from stones piled up to a height: He is to be consecrated by each man in his own breast. And below: Let him, in short, have God always consecrated in his heart, since he himself is the temple of God. The same, book 2, ch. 2, and book 6, ch. 10, says that man is the image of God.

Chapter XVI.

Except the Gauls. The petition presented by the Donatists to Constantine the Great, in Optatus of Milevis, book 1: We ask you, O Constantine, best of emperors, since you are of a just family, whose father, among the other emperors, did not carry out the persecution, and Gaul is free of this crime, we pray that your piety may order judges to be given to us from Gaul. The Gauls, therefore, were free of this persecution, because Constantius, a most kindly emperor, ruled there, who, as Eusebius relates, had no part at all in the persecution stirred up against us, and kept the worshippers of God living under his rule safe from all harm and injury, and neither overthrew the buildings of the churches nor enacted anything new against us. Indeed Eutropius too, at the beginning of the tenth book, seems to say that Gallic blood was not shed in this persecution. For, speaking of Constantius, he says thus: He was not only lovable but also venerable to the Gauls, especially because under his rule they had escaped the suspicious prudence of Diocletian and the bloodthirsty rashness of Maximian. But against this protest the histories of a number of cities and provinces of Gaul, which proclaim that their martyrs passed to God in this persecution, so that there was hardly any city within the Gauls which is not said to have been drenched at that time with the blood of Christians. These things can be reconciled thus: at the beginning the Gauls were indeed not wholly free of the persecution, since Constantius was occupied, that is, against the barbarians (as the most illustrious bishop of Montpellier, François Bosquet, says in the fourth book of the Histories of the Gallican Church, ch. 2), and that according to custom and the habitual fury of the Gentiles many Christians were slain in the Gauls. Eusebius confirms this at the end of the book on the martyrs of Palestine: For the regions which lie farther off, he says, namely the whole of Italy, and Sicily, Gaul also, and whatever stretch towards the setting of the sun, Spain, Mauretania and Africa, after they had experienced the fury of the war for scarcely the first two whole years of the persecution, soon obtained the most present help of the divine power, and peace. Yet the most learned Dodwell, in the Cyprianic Dissertations, would have this passage understood so that the year [read omnem, 'the whole']

that tract of the Western empire Eusebius designated by naming its principal provinces, and indicated that the persecution itself did not last beyond its second year in that whole tract, and yet that meanwhile the Gauls were exempt from it. And indeed his argument has much appearance of truth, and I would readily come over to this opinion, were it not established that Eusebius meant to mention the Gauls by name.

Three beasts. That is, Diocletian, Maximian Herculius and Galerius Maximian. Lactantius therefore holds to his opinion, and does not place Constantius, who ruled the Gauls, among the number of the persecutors.

Flaccinus the prefect. [Prefect] of Bithynia, in which Hierocles held the governorship before he administered the prefecture of Egypt, with which Henri de Valois shows in his notes on Eusebius, page 177, that he was invested. That Flaccinus was cruel, moreover, is gathered from this, that Lactantius calls him no petty murderer. At the same time lived Flavianus, prefect of Egypt, of whom mention is found in the Menologion of the Greeks at the eighth day of July, which was published by Heinrich Canisius in the second volume of his Lectio antiqua.

Hierocles. This passage confirms the conjecture of the most illustrious Cardinal Baronius, who had judged that the following words of Lactantius, which we shall copy out from the fifth book of the Divine Institutes, are to be understood of Hierocles. Hierocles was, moreover, governor of Bithynia, as has already been said, and carried out much butchery upon the Christians.

Author and counsellor. Lactantius, Institutes book 5, chapter 2: Another wrote on the same matter more bitingly, who was then of the number of the judges, and who was foremost among the authors of making the persecution.

Priscillianus. Governor of Bithynia, as is read in the Menologion of the Greeks at the 12th day of the month of June: On the same day, [the feast] of the holy martyr Antonina. At Nicaea in Bithynia, when Diocletian and Maximian were emperors and Priscillianus governor, Antonina, persevering steadfastly in the confession of the Christian faith, was at last struck with the sword and crowned with martyrdom. The same is found in the Roman Martyrology.

You have conquered the adversary. Cyprian, letter 7, to Rogatianus and the other confessors: As much as we grieve over those whom the hostile storm has laid low, so much do we rejoice over you, whom the devil could not overcome. We exhort you, however, by our common faith, by the true and simple charity of our heart towards you, that you who have conquered the adversary in this first encounter may hold fast your glory with strong and persevering virtue.

Zabulus. That is, the devil. So in Commodian, book 2, chapter 17: All things from the pomp of the Zabulus; and chapter 18: Or the whole pomp of the Zabulus; and book 1, chapter 35: All of you, shun altogether the Zabolic law. Again book 2, chapter 31: That you may act with Zabolic seed, prone to the crowd. We give these passages, however, according to the faith of the old manuscript, for the edition differs. Nothing is commoner than the word Zabulus in ancient books. By the same reckoning they wrote Zaritorum for Diaritorum, as in the first conference of Carthage, chapter 139. Because Papire Masson did not notice this, he wrote here Hyppensis Zaritorensis in place of Hipponensium Zaritorum, which is the true reading; and this reading Pierre Pithou also kept in his edition of the conference of Carthage. Therefore in the old Notitia of Africa, which Sirmond published, and Chifflet after him, in place of what is read there, Marianus Hippzaritensis, one should write Marianus Hipponensium Zaritorum, that is, Diaritorum, or Diarrhytorum, as in Pliny, Natural History book 5, chapter 4. So too in Commodian, Zacones for Diaconibus. I have also read Numizia for Numidia in an old manuscript codex of the Colbert library.

You have triumphed. Lactantius, Institutes book 4, chapter 26: Lastly He did not refuse even to undergo death, so that man, with Him as leader, might triumph over death subdued and chained, together with its terrors.

A delightful spectacle. Cyprian, letter 9: O what a spectacle that was for the Lord, how sublime, how

great, how acceptable in the eyes of God by the oath and devotion of His soldier!

Elephants. For the ancients also yoked elephants to the chariot, as is clear from Lampridius in the Life of Antoninus Heliogabalus, and from other passages. Flavius Vopiscus is the authority that in the triumph which the deified Aurelian celebrated over Zenobia and Tetricus twenty elephants went in front. John, abbot of Biclaro, under the ninth year of the emperor Justin, notes that Justinian, commander of the Roman †, sent 24 elephants to Constantinople for the triumph that was to be celebrated over the conquered Persians. See Sirmond in his notes on the panegyric of Anthemius in Sidonius, and Bulenger in the book On Triumphs, ch. †

The rulers are ruled. In a passive sense, as in Cicero, in the first book of the De officiis: O ancient house, alas, by how unlike a master you are ruled! Virgil in the second book of the Aeneid: ruled for many years.

He ceased to challenge. Donatus was released from prison in the last days of Galerius Maximianus, as is read below, ch. 35.

Chapter XVII.

Prosperity departed from him. That is, from Diocletian, who, as the ancient writers of histories record, was fortunate through all the twenty years of his reign. Nor is there any need to cite the testimonies of each of them. That of one author will suffice, the author of the panegyric spoken to Maximian and Constantine at the wedding of Fausta. Thus, then, he says: But surely the very changeableness and nature of fortune, which had been permitted to alter nothing while you held the empire, required this, that that continuous prosperity of twenty years should be broken off by some interval.

He went on to Rome. Diocletian went for two reasons: to celebrate the vicennalia, and to hold a triumph over Narses, king of the Persians, who had been defeated some years before. For it was in that year that the triumph was held, and not in the eighteenth year of his reign, as Henri de Valois thought, who for that reason joined with the triumph the cheapness of grain which, as the Idatian Fasti tell, the emperors ordered, as if this had been established by them after the triumph as a favour to the Roman people. Rightly, then, does Scaliger note in his Animadversions on the Chronicle of Eusebius that the triumph was held by Diocletian and Maximian in the twentieth year of their reign. But his further claim, that this was some months before they laid down the purple, is false. For they still kept the empire for about a year and a half, as we shall see later. Moreover, that the triumph was held at the time of the vicennalia, which it falls to us to prove, is clear from the tenth chapter of Lactantius, where, after recounting the victory over the Persians, he says that Diocletian set out for the East and spent there the year that preceded the persecution, then came into Bithynia to winter, and that it was then indeed that the plan of destroying the churches was taken, and the persecution was begun in the following February. It is therefore certain that Diocletian was not at Rome in the eighteenth year of his reign, the year in which Valois, following Eusebius, contends that he triumphed. Joseph Scaliger censures Eusebius on that account. Indeed, as cannot be denied, in the common editions of Eusebius's Chronicle and in most of the ancient copies, that triumph is noted under the eighteenth year of Diocletian. But in the very old and excellent Colbert codex, and in other old copies which Pontac saw, it is placed under the nineteenth year, though in reversed order, since it comes before the account of the persecution. This was what led the most distinguished Valois into error. It is probable, moreover, that the triumph over the Persians was put off for so long by Diocletian so that he might join it with the festivities of the vicennalia, and so make these more splendid and more renowned. Now the words of Eusebius must be quoted: The Augusti Diocletian and Maximian triumphed at Rome with splendid pomp. Before their chariot went the wife, sisters and children of Narses, and all the booty of which they had despoiled the Parthians. Eutropius has the same at the end of the ninth book, where he says that Diocletian and Herculius laid down the purple after the famous triumph which they had celebrated at Rome over numerous nations, with an illustrious procession of litters, in which the wives, sisters and children of Narses were led before the chariot.

But here Eutropius must be corrected, where he speaks of the wives of Narses led before the chariot. For Sextus Rufus in two places, and Eusebius in the Chronicle, who seems to have taken it from Eutropius, speak of only one wife of Narses. Diocletian, then, was in the East in the year 302, and at its close came to Nicomedia; at the beginning of the year 303, the persecution having been begun, he afterwards set out for Rome, to hold a triumph and celebrate the vicennalia.

The day of the vicennalia. These were to be held at the beginning of the twentieth year of the reign; and they were held not on one day only, but on successive days, as is clear also from what Eusebius relates of the martyr Romanus in his book on the martyrs of Palestine. As for those of Diocletian, it is certain that they were celebrated at Rome for a whole month, since Lactantius says that, those solemnities having been celebrated, impatient and sick at heart he burst out of the city, and could not endure thirteen days, so as to enter upon his consulship at Rome rather than at Ravenna. Further, that Diocletian celebrated the vicennalia in the very year in which the persecution against the Christians was begun, this passage alone proves; and they were celebrated in the year in which he was holding his eighth consulship. For he burst out of the city a few days before the Kalends of January, on which his ninth consulship was being conferred upon him.

The Kalends of December. Since the reign of Diocletian is the foundation of this history, the matter seems to require that we settle its beginnings in a brief discourse, so that an end may at last be put to the disagreements which have arisen on that account among learned men. And as to the year in which he came to administer the commonwealth, I do not think it can now be doubted, since Dionysius Petavius, a man most skilled in these and many other matters, has clearly proved in book 11 of his De doctrina temporum, chap. 30, that it was the year of Christ 284. Finally, if the persecution against the Church was set in motion in the year of Christ 303, as very many passages of this work of Lactantius, which we have cited above, make certain, and if it was set in motion in the 19th year of Diocletian's reign, as all agree, it cannot be denied that his rule begins from the end of the year 284. The greater difficulty, then, lies in determining the day on which he was made emperor. Before Petavius learned men were persuaded that he was saluted as emperor by the soldiers on the very Palilia, that is, on the 11th day before the Kalends of May; which opinion, as false, the same most learned man rightly refuted, and he adds: Let all chronologers therefore henceforth come to their senses, and unlearn this preconception concerning the first day of Diocletian's reign, resting on so slight, nay on no, argument, and exchange it for a better. Thanks indeed are owed to that Alexandrian Chronicle, whose author, from the public records, designates for us the day on which Diocletian was first called emperor at Chalcedon, namely the 15th day before the Kalends of October. If Petavius were alive now, I am certain that, being a most ardent lover of the truth, he would restore to Lactantius the glory of having determined that day, which he falsely attributed to the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle, and would change the 15th day before the Kalends of October into the 12th day before the Kalends of December, the day which Lactantius teaches was the birthday of Diocletian's reign, on which he was about to celebrate the vicennalia at Rome. And in this way is resolved the difficulty which Valesius pointed out in his annotations on Eusebius, p. 175, namely from the fact that Eusebius says that Romanus consummated his martyrdom on 17 November, while Diocletian's vicennalia were being held; since, if that is true, it would seem to follow that the first day of Diocletian's reign falls in the month of November, and not in September, as the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle reports. It falls, therefore, in the month of November, but later than the seventeenth day of that month. But against this the most distinguished man Antonius Pagius objects that the 12th day before the Kalends of December, assigned by Lactantius to Diocletian's vicennalia, is not his birthday [of reign] but that of Maximian Herculius: which he proves also from the fact that in the third book of the Justinianic Code there is recorded a law of Diocletian given on the Ides of October, Carinus for the second time and Numerian being consuls, that is, in the year in which we too have written that he was made emperor, and that it is therefore certain that he was raised to the summit of rule long before the 12th day before the Kalends of December.

I readily admit that this would be of great moment, if the reading were established as certain. But since in the Justinian Code only a single law of this kind is found, which therefore cannot borrow authority from others of the same time, and since in four old manuscripts of the royal library, in seven of the Colbert library, and also in three which belonged to Pierre Pithou, a most distinguished man, the time at which it was issued is not written, while in one royal manuscript, in one Colbert manuscript and in the three Pithou manuscripts it is said to be of Diocletian and Maximian, Augusti, and of the Caesars, it is clear that nothing good and firm can be taken from here for fixing the beginnings of Diocletian's reign; and so even after that observation of Pagi we are free to judge true the opinion which we formed from Lactantius about the day on which that same Augustus first came to power; especially since the Fasti of † Mattanus show that Maximian was raised to be emperor on the kalends of April, and not on the 12th before the kalends of December.

He could not bear the liberty of the Roman people. An immoderate liberty, that is, and all the sharper because it had been interrupted. Great indeed must have been the insolence and freedom of speech of the Roman people, which forced Diocletian, otherwise a fairly good prince if you except the persecution set in motion against our people, to leave the city so headlong. The same licence also moved Constantine to leave Rome and transfer the seat of empire elsewhere, as Zozimus relates in the second book of his histories. Although another reason for transferring the empire is given in the Donation of Constantine.

He burst out of the city. On the thirteenth day before the kalends of January, after the vicennalia had been completed. For the festivities of the vicennalia lasted for a whole month, as we have already said.

His ninth consulship. These words also prove that the persecution was stirred up in the year of Christ 303, since he says that the ninth consulship had been destined for Diocletian for the kalends of January which came next after the persecution had been set in motion. For Diocletian's ninth consulship falls in the year of Christ 304.

Was being conferred. By the senate, that is. But this needs explaining. For it is certain that the nomination of consuls was at that time entirely in the power of the emperors. And so the senate did not indeed designate the consuls, as formerly, but it proclaimed them, handed them the insignia of the consulship, and so in a certain manner appeared to confer and bestow the consulship. So we are taught by the Emperor Valerian in his speech to Aurelian, who was afterwards emperor, in Flavius Vopiscus: For I designate you consul today, and I shall write to the senate that it assign you the staff and assign you also the fasces. For these things the emperor is not accustomed to give, but to receive from the senate when he becomes consul. Diocletian, then, had destined the consulship for himself for the following year; and had he stayed at Rome, he would have received its insignia from the senate after the custom of consuls. But he could not bear thirteen days in order to take them up, on account of the excessive licence of the Roman people.

At Ravenna. Diocletian, then, departing from Rome, set out for Ravenna, by which lies the direct road into Illyricum and Bithynia.

That he should go forth in procession as consul. Aelius Lampridius in the Heliogabalus: Finally on the kalends of January, when they had then been designated consuls together, he refused to go forth in procession with his cousin. The Fasti of Idatius, under Diocletian for the second time and Aristobulus: In this consulship Carinus was killed at Margus, who in that very year had gone forth in procession as consul with Aristobulus. The Alexandrian Chronicle, page 641: Diocletian, proclaimed emperor at Chalcedon on the 15th before the kalends of October, entered Nicomedia clad in purple on the 5th before the kalends of October, and on the kalends of January went forth in procession as consul. The procession of the ancient consuls, as I at least judge, and as almost all beginnings are, was modest and simple. Afterwards vanity and ambition added much, which then exceeded all measure. Hence that complaint of Flavius Vopiscus in the Divine Aurelian: We lately saw the consulship of Furius Placidus put on in the Circus with such display that it seemed not prizes but patrimonies were being given to the charioteers, since there were given tunics of half-silk, linen paragaudae, and horses were given too, while sober men groaned. For it has come about that now it is of riches, not

of men, that the consulship is, since surely, if it is conferred for virtues, it ought not to strip the one who gives the shows. Those chaste times have perished, and they are bound to perish all the more through popular ambition. But the lavish liberality of very many in the shows given at the consulship wrung from the emperors various laws, by which they were to set a limit to the immensity of the gifts, as is gathered from Novel 105 of Justinian, who lists seven processions of the consuls in the year and laid down how they are to be celebrated. On the munificence of the same Justinian in the shows given at his first consulship, see Marcellinus Comes.

Having set out in winter. Henri de Valois, in his notes on Eusebius, p. 168, arguing against Joseph Scaliger, who maintains that Diocletian's triumph was held at Rome in the twentieth year of his reign, some months before he laid down the purple, arguing against him, I say, Valois states that this opinion cannot be tolerated, because it would follow from it that Diocletian held his triumph in the winter season and, with winter still at its height, set out from the city of Rome and came to Nicomedia. "Neither of which is probable," he says, "since triumphs were not customarily held by the Roman emperors in winter, nor could Diocletian's age and health have endured the toil of so long a journey in the winter months." Yet these things, which seemed absurd to that most distinguished man, are true, and he would himself have acknowledged them as true had he seen this work of Lactantius. For it is certain both that the triumph was held at the same time as the vicennalia, and that Diocletian set out from Rome in winter, while the cold was raging, and afterwards came to Nicomedia, not indeed in that winter itself, but after the following summer. Nor is what the same Valois adds a little later true, that the illness by which Diocletian was somewhat disturbed in the state of his mind first seized him at Nicomedia shortly after the persecution was set in motion by him. Nor does Constantine say this. That illness seized him after the triumph and the vicennalia, while he was on his journey, as Lactantius writes here.

Of the bank of the Striga. At the time when we published this book of Lactantius, we pointed out either that this passage lies in error, or that by the name of the bank of the Striga the shore of the Propontis around Nicomedia ought to be understood. The most distinguished Thomas Spark did not think our conjecture true, and therefore he published a dissertation, certainly learned and elegant, to show that by the name of the bank of the Striga anything at all should rather be understood than the shore of the Propontis; and, after long circuits on the meaning of the word Striga and on the bank of the Danube, he declared that what is understood there is the bank of the Danube, or Ister, along which he says the sick Diocletian was carried as far as the Euxine Sea. But Lactantius does not say that he made his journey by ship, but along the circuit of the bank: which clearly proves that it was accomplished by land, since according to Ulpian, book 68 On the Edict, what is done on the bank is not considered done on the river. Diocletian therefore made his journey by land, namely through those places which are described in the Itinerary of Antoninus along the bank from Viminacium to Nicomedia, which is the very bank of the Ister that Ovid also mentions, book 1 of the Letters from Pontus, elegy 9:

There stands an ancient city of a name neighbouring to the Ister's bank,

in which passage the poet means the Istrus of Antoninus, or the Istropolis of Pliny, of Ptolemy, of the Peutinger Table and of others. Indeed, the legions that were stationed on the bank of the Ister were also called riparienses, as is clear from the Notitia of the empire. Now the Ister is the same river which, rising from the ridge of Mount Abnoba, is called the Danube until it reaches Axiopolis, where, Ptolemy relates, the Danube takes the name Ister. Further, that Axiopolis was situated between Sucidava and Capidava may be seen in the same Ptolemy, in the Itinerary of Antoninus, and in the Peutinger Table. And so Diocletian, having left Ravenna and begun his journey after the winter, came by the public road, which is described in the same Itinerary and in the Peutinger Table, to Nicomedia towards the end of the month of November, that is, through Verona, Altinum, Concordia, Aquileia, Sirmium, Taurunum, Viminacium,

and from there along the bank of the Striga, or Istrica, through Cappae and the other places, as far as Dorostolum, Sucidava, Axiopolis, Capidava, Istrus, Develtus, Burtudizus, Drisipara, Heraclea, Byzantium, Panichium, Libyssa, and from there straight to Nicomedia. I have named these places because among those which lie on the bank of the Istrica they have the greater renown, and because a great part of them is noted in certain constitutions of Diocletian contained in the Justinian Code, which seem to show the progress of his journey. For from the one which was given at Ravenna on the 15th day before the Kalends of April in the year 304 it is gathered that he did not leave Ravenna before the month of March, and another law issued there on that day shows that he was at Verona on the 14th day before the Kalends of June. From there he set out for Aquileia, Sirmium, Taurunum, Viminacium, where it seems possible to gather that he stayed for some time, from the laws given or subscribed in that same place from the end of the month of August up to the Kalends of October. Next it is clear that he was at Dorostolum on the 12th and 11th days before the Kalends of November. Then on the third day before the Kalends he was at Develtus, on the 3rd day before the Nones at Burtudizus, on the 6th day before the Ides at Heraclea, on the 5th day before the Kalends of December at Nicomedia. These things can be gathered, as I have said, from the laws of Diocletian which are extant in the Justinian Code. I would not, however, wish to contend that these things are true in every respect, since I know that he could have been in the same places on the same days of other years. I offer only my conjecture, which seems to me sufficiently probable. If, however, anyone does not approve it, he may reject it as false and enjoy his own judgement, especially if he has reasons for dissenting that are not obscure.

He was dedicating a circus. At Nicomedia, which, being a man most eager for building, he was striving to make equal to the city of Rome.

When the year p. v. had been completed. That is, as I judge, the 12th day before the Kalends of December. For the sense requires this. Indeed, Lactantius afterwards, after some interval, mentions the Ides of the same month. Diocletian therefore did not lay down the purple in the year of Christ 304, as it pleased very learned men, but in the second year after the triumph had been held and the vicennalia celebrated, that is, in the year of Christ three hundred and five. Scaliger therefore does better, who says in his animadversions on the Chronicle of Eusebius that Diocletian laid down the purple somewhat later than learned men commonly hold, with this argument among others, that it is certain that Diocletian held a tenth consulship, and it cannot be said that he was consul after laying down the purple. For Cassiodorus says that Diocletian and Maximian laid down the purple in the year in which Diocletian was holding his tenth and Maximian his seventh consulship. This is also read in a very old manuscript codex of the royal library written in uncial letters, which is entitled Chronicle of George, Bishop of Amiens. Although, to confess the truth, that tenth consulship of Diocletian is very suspect to me, and I strongly incline to this view, that I think it was produced by error from those words of the Fasti: Likewise for the tenth time, and to Maximian for the seventh, which are to be referred to Maximian Herculius and Galerius Maximian. These things, however, do not prevent the abdication from being said to have taken place in the year three hundred and five, especially since the same thing is proved by yet other testimonies. For since Zozimus writes that from the consulship of Chilo and Libo, in which Severus held the secular games, one hundred and one years elapsed up to that in which Diocletian and Maximian abdicated, which he wrongly notes as falling in the ninth consulship of Diocletian and the eighth of Maximian, and since by the consensus of all writers those secular games were celebrated in the year of Christ 204, it is clearer than daylight that the event which took place in the hundred and first year after happened in the year of Christ 305. This is so true that when Joannes Fridericus Herwardus, in chapter 230 of his chronology, had quoted this passage of Zozimus, and was of the opinion that Diocletian abdicated in the year 304, he was forced to interpret the hundred and one years which had elapsed from the games of Severus to the year of the abdication in such a way as to assert that both extremes were included in that number, namely 204 and 304. For he saw that if he began from the year 205

as was fitting, the number of one hundred and one years would not agree with the year of the abdication of the empire, which, as I have said, he thought took place in the year 304. But if he had known that it was carried out only in the following year, he would not have been driven into these straits. Moreover, that the abdication occurred in the year we have stated is proved also from chapter 44 of Lactantius, in which he writes that the eighth year of the nomination of Maximinus, surnamed Daza, was completed on the Kalends of May of the year in which he joined battle with Licinius: since this battle was fought in the year 313, it follows that Diocletian abdicated, and that Maximianus was named Caesar, in the year 305 on the Kalends of May.

That the death was concealed. As used to be done of old after the death of princes. For Tacitus relates this of Augustus in the first book of the Annals, and Rufinus of Constantine, book 1, chapter 11 of the Ecclesiastical History. Other examples too can be found. But these are not of such importance.

On the Kalends of March. Of the following year, that is, of the three hundred and fifth year. For, since it is certain that Diocletian celebrated his vicennalia at Rome in the year 303, departed thence in mid-December, reached Nicomedia after the summer of the year 304, and dedicated the Circus when the year after the vicennalia had been completed, that is, in the month of November, and then fell so ill that he was believed dead on the Ides of December, it is plain that the Kalends of March, which followed those Ides, fell in the year 305, and therefore that Diocletian was still emperor at that time. But a little later we shall see him deliberating with Galerius about abdicating the empire.

He became mad. Eusebius, book 8, chapter 13, rightly says that this illness of Diocletian, by whose force he was dislodged from the state of his mind, occurred after the vicennalia had been held and after the persecution against our people had been set in motion. Rightly indeed. But the same writer must nevertheless be corrected in this, that he says the vicennalia were completed by him before he made war on the Christians, since it is established from Lactantius, an eyewitness, that the persecution was set in motion first and the vicennalia held afterwards, as the year was ending. Chrysostom too mentions the madness of Diocletian, in his oration on the holy martyr Babylas.

Chapter XVIII.

The example of Nerva. He, burdened with old age and therefore seeing himself despised, adopted Trajan, and on the same day designated him Caesar in the senate, as Xiphilinus reports from Dio. Pliny gives the same reason for the adoption in the panegyric: O new and unheard-of road to the principate! Not your own desire, not your own fear, but another's advantage, another's fear made you prince. And below: That an emperor who had lost respect might be able to give the empire was brought about by the authority of him to whom it was being given. At once son, at once Caesar, soon emperor and sharer of the tribunician power.

That it was unseemly. Here begins the dialogue between Diocletian and Galerius, the latter urging his father-in-law to lay down the empire, the other resisting. This is to be very carefully noted. For until now we had thought that Diocletian's abdication was voluntary and long premeditated: which was certainly gathered most clearly from the ancient authors, who wrote only the common histories and did not know the secrets of affairs. But Lactantius, who had been summoned to Nicomedia by Diocletian and was often in the palace, could know this whole story better than those who afterwards applied their minds to writing histories.

Had seized or Had gaped after. In the old manuscript one reads had found.

Disposition. The form of constituting or governing the commonwealth. That word was then in accepted use. The letter of the deified Aurelian to Flavius Arabianus, in Flavius Vopiscus: Now it is your duty, most delightful Arabianus, to work so that my dispositions may not come to nothing. The letter of Valerian to Ragonius Clarus, in Trebellius Pollio, in the Thirty Tyrants, chapter 17: Follow out the disposition of Balista. In this form you see the commonwealth. See Lactantius, book 2 of the Institutes, chapter 16

book 3, chapters 7 and 10, and Jacobus Gothofredus, on the title of the Theodosian Code De proximis.

Disposit. conservari ("the arrangement ... to be preserved"). That is: since he himself had been the first to divide the Roman world into four parts, of which he had arranged that two should be held by two Augusti and the remaining two by two Caesars chosen in hope of the empire, he should now also, himself not altering this arrangement but guarding it, withdraw from the empire together with the old Maximian, and should name [Galerius] himself and Constantius, who were then Caesars, Augusti, and in their place should make two new Caesars. He would give an example to posterity of how the immense body of the commonwealth ought to be preserved.

Inter duos concordiam ("concord between two"). Galerius was tacitly putting forward the example of Diocletian and Maximian Herculius, who had held the empire in wonderful concord for so many years, in order to show that the thing was not difficult. But in very truth concord is a most difficult thing, especially where there is supreme power; and Tacitus rightly writes in the fourth book of the Annals that power and concord can scarcely exist in the same place. The same author in book 13, speaking of Seneca and Burrhus, the guides of the youth of the emperor Nero, remarks, as of something difficult and extraordinary, that they were in concord in an equal partnership of power. Finally, the discord which afterwards arose between Constantine and Licinius, who held the Roman empire with equal power, proved that concord is with difficulty preserved between two emperors.

Minor et extremus ("lesser and last"). Below, chapter 20: For Constantius, although it was necessary that he be named first, he despised. These passages show that the first place in the adoption was given to Constantius, no doubt on account of the nobility of his lineage, which he traced back to the emperor Claudius. But of this later.

Illyrico vel ("Illyricum or"). The old manuscript has Illyricum. In this place, however, the word vel has the same force as id est ("that is"). For the observation of Cuper is not true, who holds that Illyricum was not on the bank of the Danube but on the Adriatic Sea. For both Moesias, which lie on the bank of the Danube, belonged to Illyricum, as is well enough known. The Carpi and Bastarnae, whom the same most distinguished man says were afterwards conquered by Galerius, were peoples beyond the Danube.

Ita plane ("just so"). A phrase familiar to Lactantius. Book 1 of the Divine Institutes, chapter 11: Just so. For since the same one had never spared either virgins or married women. And book 2, chapter 11: Just so: as the common people think that the souls of the dead wander about their tombs and the remains of their bodies.

Illor. filios nuncupari ("that their sons be named"). What Diocletian proposed was certainly fair and consonant with reason, that Maxentius, the son of Herculius, and Constantine, the son of Constantius, should be made Caesars, so that the sons of princes should not live as private men. But the obstinate Galerius prevailed against it, and made other men Caesars, even with Constantine present.

Neque patrem ("nor his father"). The same things are related of Maxentius in the Epitome of Victor. This Maximianus (read Maxentius, as is clear also from book 11 of the Historia miscella) was never dear to anyone, not even to his father or to his father-in-law Galerius. He was, as is commonly written, the son of Herculius Maximian. But nevertheless a little before, in the same Epitome, these words are read: He begot by Eutropia, a Syrian woman, Maxentius and Fausta, the wife of Constantine, to whose father Constantius he had given his stepdaughter Theodora. But they say that Maxentius was a supposititious child, contrived by a woman's art to hold the mind of her troubled husband by the auspice of a most welcome offspring beginning with a boy. For this reading I prefer to the others, rightly, as I think. This story is confirmed by the panegyric of an unknown author spoken to Constantine after the defeat of Maxentius, whose author the most learned Pierre Pithou thought to be Nazarius: For, to pass over those things which it is not fitting to compare, that he was a supposititious son of Maximian, you the son of the pious Constantius; he of most despised depravity (read: smallness), with twisted and loosened limbs, his very name mutilated by an abusive appellation, you, which is enough to say, so great and such as you are. The author of the fragment on Constantius Chlorus and Constantine: His mother, when she was asked about his origin, confessed and answered that he had been begotten by a certain Syrian.

Drunken, a drunkard. The same author: Severus Caesar, ignoble both in morals and in birth, a drunkard, and for this reason a friend to Galerius. For the author of this fragment held that Galerius was a drunkard, though you would not easily find him accused of drunkenness elsewhere. This, then, is what he says: Galerius was so much a drunkard that, since when drunk he would order things that ought not to be done, on being admonished by the Prefect he decreed that no one should carry out his orders after dinner. Without doubt the author of the fragment confused Galerius Maximianus with Galerius Maximinus, who, as Eusebius relates in book 8, chapter 14, was so given to drunkenness and surfeit that in his drinking-bouts he would rave and run mad, and when drunk would give orders which he regretted the next day when sober. And so indeed Christophorson and Valesius translated the Greek words of Eusebius. But Rufinus gave them another sense, saying that Maximinus was so drunken that he was thought insane and out of his mind through the frenzy of wine, and that when drunk he would order things to be done which on the following day he did not know he had ordered. Concerning the same man the following is found in the Epitome of Victor, which agrees better with the interpretation of those most distinguished men. More greedy for wine, he says: when drunk on it, he would order certain harsh things with disordered mind, and since he regretted what had been done, he decreed that what he had commanded should be deferred to a sober time in the morning. Finally, defeated by Licinius, when he had set out for Tarsus and had no hope of any refuge, in anguish and fear he took refuge in death, as in a remedy for his ills, and first he stuffed himself with food and gorged himself with wine, as Lactantius will say below in chapter 49.

I have sent him to Maximian. Galerius was indeed exceedingly bold, having sent Severus to Maximian, without yet consulting Diocletian, so that he might be made Caesar by him. This passage also shows how headlong and mad Galerius was, and how little free and voluntary was the abdication of Diocletian.

That he may be invested by him. That is, with the purple, which was the badge of imperial eminence. And so the same Severus, afterwards defeated by Herculius at Ravenna, gave back the robe and the purple to the very man from whom he had received them, as Lactantius says below in chapter 24.

Pointing out Daia. Or Daza, the son of Galerius's sister, for this very reason called Galerius Maximinus upon his adoption. The Epitome of Victor: Galerius Maximinus, born of the sister of Armentarius, and called by his true name, before his rule, Daza.

Let him insert Maximinus. In the old manuscript, both here and almost always, Maximianum is read, by an error customary among Greek and Latin copyists, so that they very often confuse the names of Maximian and Maximinus. But since it is certain that this man was called not Maximian but Maximinus, we have corrected it everywhere, so that no difficulty might hold up the reader.

Of the man. Cuper and Sparke advise that ominis [of the omen] should be read, which I strongly approve.

Chapter XIX.

The procession is made on the kalends of May. In the year of Christ 305, as we have said. There is therefore an error in Zosimus and in the Idatian Fasti, where these things are said to have happened in the consulship of Diocletian for the ninth time and Maximian for the eighth, on the day of the kalends of April. Others place the abdication of the Emperors on the eleventh day before the kalends of May, on the Palilia itself; Labbe on the kalends of August, on what authority I do not know. But now it is not right to dispute either about the year or about the day, after so clear and accurate an account of that abdication as Lactantius presents to us.

All were looking at Constantine. From this passage and from many other testimonies of ancient writers it can be proved that Constantine was with Diocletian at the time when these things were being done. Therefore there must be an error in the fragment on Constantius Chlorus and Constantine, page 472, where it is written that Severus and Maximinus were made Caesars, Constantine knowing nothing of it. There one should read Constantius, without whom both the abdication was made and the Caesars were appointed in succession, as Lactantius teaches.

Maximian himself. Galerius, surnamed Armentarius.

He had assumed the purple. These words are of great moment, and are not to be passed over lightly. For they indicate the place where Galerius Maximianus was adopted by Diocletian, namely near Nicomedia. For there is deep silence about this matter among the ancient writers of histories, except that in the Alexandrian Chronicle it is written that Maximian Jovius and Constantius were taken into partnership of the empire at Nicomedia. Sigonius, in the first book On the Western Empire, thinks that this was done in Illyricum. But this passage of Lactantius proves that he is mistaken. Again, it is to be noted here: just as Diocletian and Maximian laid down the empire on one and the same day, the former at Nicomedia, the other at Milan, so the Caesars were adopted by them on one and the same day, Galerius by Diocletian at Nicomedia, and Constantius by Herculius in Italy, and perhaps at Milan.

To seek rest. Hence without doubt arose the common opinion that Diocletian, once and for all, willingly and of his own accord, put off the empire on account of old age and infirm health, and that this was done by him after long deliberation, as learned men gather, and rightly, from the old panegyric which was delivered to Maximian Herculius and Constantine after the marriage of Constantine and Fausta. But Lactantius has disclosed the secret of this story, which Eusebius confessed that he did not know, in the first book of the Life of Constantine, chap. 18, where he says that the senior Augusti abdicated the empire in some way or other. Rufinus, book 8, chap. 15, says that Diocletian Augustus reached such a pitch of folly and madness that, having laid aside the insignia of royalty together with his colleague, likewise Augustus, they lived as private men and commoners after their rule. But Constantine in the Oration to the Assembly of the Saints, chap. 25, with whom Eusebius, book 8, chap. 13, seems to agree, expressly affirms that Diocletian abdicated the empire of his own accord on account of derangement of mind: whom Valesius refuted in his annotations, and deservedly. But the same Valesius was [in error] in this, that he says that Diocletian formed the plan of abdicating the empire long before the persecution, namely at the time when he triumphed at Rome over the Persians and other barbarous nations. For from the sequence of this treatise of Lactantius it is clear that the plan of abdicating the empire was formed after the persecution had been set in motion, after Diocletian's return from the City, after the vicennalia had been completed, and therefore after that grievous illness, by the force of which Eusebius relates that Diocletian appeared to have been moved from his right state of mind. Moreover, the triumph was not held before the persecution, as was shown above.

Severus and Maximin. The Fasti of Idatius, in the consulship of Diocletian for the ninth time and Maximian for the eighth: In this consulship Diocletian and Maximian laid down the purple, being made private men, and invested Severus and Maximin; Severus indeed Herculius at Milan, Maximin Diocletian at Nicomedia. But it is wrongly given in Eusebius in the Chronicle, where it is written that Galerius alone held the imperial rule as Augustus for two years, and that in the year after the abdication of the senior Augusti Maximin and Severus were made Caesars by Galerius Maximianus. So indeed in most editions. But in the Venetian edition of the year 1483, and in the ancient manuscript codices cited by Pontacus, and also in the very old and excellent Colbertine codex, those things are lacking which are said there of Galerius holding the empire alone for two years, and the appointment of Severus and Maximin as Caesars is placed in the same year in which the abdication took place. Petavius, however, defends the common reading of Eusebius's Chronicle in the eleventh book of On the Doctrine of Times, chap. 34, and interprets those words about Galerius's two years thus, that he is said to have ruled alone for two years, that is, before the Caesars had been created, and that the Caesars were chosen in that year in which Constantius departed from the living. Accordingly in the thirteenth book, which is chronological, he says that he gathers from the fragment of the anonymous Writer which was published by Valesius after Ammianus Marcellinus, that Severus had commanded forces in Italy some time before he became Caesar, and did not obtain that dignity so quickly, but at about the same time as Constantine the son of Constantius. All of which would surely be recognized as false

by Petavius, if he were to see this book of Lactantius.

Severus and Maximinus. It is certain that these things were done at Nicomedia, where Diocletian and Galerius Maximian then were. And yet Socrates at the beginning of his history, at least as Musculus, Christophorson and Valesius have translated him, says that Galerius, having set out for Italy after the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian Herculius, appointed two Caesars, Maximinus in the East and Severus in Italy. Epiphanius Scholasticus translated it otherwise, and indeed more in keeping with the truth of history: When Diocletian and Maximian Herculius had chosen a private life, and Maximinus Galerius, who had ruled with them, holding Italy, had made two Caesars, Maximinus in the East and Severus in Italy, then Constantine, his father having died, is appointed emperor in Britain. However the matter stands, it is clear that Socrates thought that Maximinus and Severus were made Caesars after Italy passed into the dominion of Galerius, which at the time of the abdication had fallen to Constantius. And Eutropius too seems to have been of the same opinion at the beginning of his tenth book, where he writes that Galerius, when he perceived that Italy also, with Constantius's leave, had come under his administration, created two Caesars. Both therefore are in error, since it appears from Lactantius that the Caesars were made at Nicomedia at the same time as the senior Augusti laid down their rule... The occasion of their error, as I judge, was this: that, since Maximian Herculius had abdicated at Milan in the presence of Severus, who was made Caesar by him and received the purple from him, they doubtless believed that both Caesars had been made in Italy by Maximian, not distinguishing between Maximian Herculius and Galerius Maximian, whereas this could not have been done except after the abdication. See Sigonius in the second book on the Western Empire.

Susum. In the upper part, in a marked place, as Papias says. The ancients said susum for sursum, as that most distinguished man Charles Dufresne has shown at length in his Glossary. And Rigault, on the second book of the Testimonies of Saint Cyprian to Quirinus, chap. 28, where we read, he called the heaven above (sursum), notes that in the Benevento and Verona manuscripts susum is read.

To inquire or to hesitate. In the old book stare is written, and in the margin haesitare, by way of emendation. I think both readings are false, and that the word sciscitari better suits this passage.

Constantine having been rebuffed. This one passage alone, although other arguments are not lacking, shows that Constantine was not made Caesar together with Severus and Maximinus. That very thing is proved also from the silence of the writers of that age, and from certain ancient inscriptions cut after the abdication of Diocletian and before the death of Constantius, in which, after Constantius and Galerius as Augusti, the names of Severus and Maximinus as Caesars are inscribed, the name of Constantine being omitted. One of these Onofrio Panvinio gives in the second book of the Fasti, the other Gruter, p. 178. Moreover, this was the arrangement introduced by Diocletian into the administration of the state, which Galerius maintained ought to be preserved in perpetuity: that there should be only four princes, two greater, who should hold the supreme power, and likewise two lesser, who should be their help, as Lactantius teaches, c. 17 of this work. Accordingly, when Galerius afterwards had received news of the death of Constantius, and that Constantine had been put in his place, since he greatly desired to hold the empire alone, and yet did not wish to change the order established in the state, he preferred to take on a colleague as Augustus rather than to name a third Caesar outside the number, as Lactantius says in chapter 25 of the same history. From what has been said so far it is plainly gathered that Constantine was not made Caesar with Severus and Maximinus. And yet in the Epitome of Victor these words are read: Constantius, the father of Constantine, and Armentarius, the Caesars, are named Augusti, Caesars having been created, Severus for Italy, Maximinus, the son of Galerius's sister, for the East; and at the same time Constantine is made Caesar. It certainly cannot be denied that Constantine

was Caesar, since several coins show this, on which his image is seen wreathed with laurel, with this inscription: CONSTANTINUS NOB. CAES. On one, moreover, the forenames of Constantine too are read, in this manner: FL. VAL. CONSTANTINUS NOB. C. A most learned man believed, relying on the authority of Aurelius Victor, that Constantine obtained the dignity of Caesar from Maximian, Augustus and his father-in-law, in the same month in which Constantius his father was proclaimed Augustus. Joseph Scaliger, on the other hand, in his observations on Eusebius, p. 247, contends that he was Caesar not under his father but under Galerius, although he afterwards notes that no history reports that he was named Caesar by Galerius. If this History of Lactantius had been known to these most learned men, they would without doubt have refrained from writing these things, which are not consistent with the truth. For first, it is certain, as we have said, that Constantine was not made Caesar together with Severus and Maximinus. Next, he could not at that same time have been made Caesar by Maximian Herculius, since he was not with him but with Diocletian. Nor was Herculius then his father-in-law, inasmuch as Constantine married Fausta, the daughter of Herculius, only after the death of Constantius, as we shall say in its place. Finally, we shall see below that Lactantius teaches that Constantine was named Caesar by Galerius: something which was not found in any historian in Scaliger's time.

He threw the purple on [him]. So as to clothe and invest with the imperial garment the man whom Galerius had stripped of his private garment. For "to invest" is the word by which at that time the insignia of supreme power were signified. The Idatian Fasti: They invested Severus and Maximinus. And Lactantius in this chapter, speaking of Severus: I have sent [him] to Maximian, that he may be invested by him.

The veteran king. He elegantly calls Diocletian a veteran king, because he had reigned for twenty full years, as if on that account he had earned privileges like those which were granted to soldiers who had served for twenty years in a legion or a vexillation.

He is dismissed to his native land. That is, to Dioclea, near Salonae, a town of Dalmatia, where he grew old in illustrious leisure.

A shield-bearer. There were various kinds of shield-bearers in the palace of the Roman emperors, which Henri de Valois treats in his annotations on Ammianus Marcellinus, p. 33.

A protector, soon a tribune. By the same steps, but not so quickly, Constantius had come to the empire. The fragment edited by Henri de Valois, p. 471: Constantius, nephew through his brother of the deified Claudius, an excellent prince, was first a protector, then a tribune, afterwards governor of the Dalmatias. Protectors, moreover, were so called from the fact that they protected the prince's side, and they had been chosen to guard his person. Of these some remained in the retinue, others were sent into the provinces with the counts and the masters of the soldiers; some too from that corps were assigned to the guarding of the frontier. Henri de Valois treats these matters more fully in his annotations on Ammianus Marcellinus, pp. 33, 46, 152.

Chapter XX.

The old men having been driven out. That is, Diocletian and Herculius, of whom the first withdrew into Dalmatia, the other into Lucania, as most report.

The sole Lord of the world. Not that he was in fact sole emperor, since he had Constantius as colleague, but because, since he despised him, he held him as nothing. In Socrates too, book 1 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 11, it is written that Galerius Maximian held the helm of the whole empire. Which words Henri de Valois says are to be understood generously: For Galerius, he says, did not in fact hold the helm of the whole empire, since at the same time there were two other Augusti, Constantine in the Gauls and Maxentius at Rome. But he is nevertheless said to have administered the supreme power of the empire, because he himself was the senior Augustus and was honoured by the junior Augusti as a father. This observation of a most learned man has something of truth, but not everything. For, although I should grant that Galerius was honoured as a father by Constantine, a man of great courtesy as he was, it is certain that he was not so honoured

by Maxentius, although he was his father-in-law; indeed, that there was never good agreement between them, even while Diocletian was living, and that there was a very grievous war between them from the time when Maxentius assumed the purple until the reign of Licinius.

That [he] was named first. Above, ch. 18, Galerius Maximianus, addressing Diocletian, says: If he himself would not yield, he would look to his own interests, so as to be no longer the lesser and the last. Eusebius, in the first book of the Life of Constantine, ch. 18, says that Constantius, when the senior Augusti had abdicated from the empire, was proclaimed first Augustus, and was called first Augustus among the four who were afterwards designated. He is likewise always named in the first place in the Idatian Fasti, by Zosimus, by Eutropius, in the Code of Justinian, in the ancient inscription on the consecration of the Baths of Diocletian, and in some other inscriptions which are read in Gruter, pp. 58, 159, 161, 164, 279, 1063. And yet Aelius Spartianus in his Aelius Verus, and Flavius Vopiscus in his Carinus, name Galerius Maximianus before Constantius, and that indeed in the time of Diocletian. It certainly seemed fair that he who was adopted by Diocletian, and who had his daughter Valeria as wife, should have the prior place above him who was adopted by Maximian, the prince of the second rank. On the other hand, it was consonant with reason that a man of great nobility, such as Constantius was, should not be placed after a rustic, a herdsman of cattle, but should have him after himself in the administration of the state. I should think that the testimonies of Spartianus and Vopiscus are to be placed after the authority of the ancient inscriptions and of those authors who say expressly that the first place was given to Constantius; especially since those who assign it to Galerius did not treat this history professedly, but in passing and while engaged on something else. The same must also be said of the author of the life of the holy martyr Procopius, which is found in the fourth volume of Surius, where Galerius is named in the first place before Constantius.

By the three. That is, by Galerius, Severus and Maximinus.

Licinius, an old companion and friend. Socrates reports the same, bk. 1, ch. 2, where he says that Galerius Maximianus departed from life after he had first created as emperor Licinius, his old friend and comrade-in-arms, who was a native of Dacia.

So as not to name him son. I judge this to be the sense of these and the following words. Since Galerius had Licinius as an old friend and comrade-in-arms, good in military service, to use the word of Tacitus, and a partner in victory, whose counsels he used for governing everything, he nevertheless would not make him Caesar, lest he should name as son one with whom he had lived his whole life as a brother; but, laying plans far ahead, he was thinking of substituting him in the place of Constantius, who was either soon to die or at any rate to be thrust out by force, so that he might thus name him Augustus and brother. For those who were made Caesars came into the number of sons, and were called sons of the Augusti; but those who were named Augusti were called brothers of the emperors, as we saw above concerning Maximianus Herculius.

That he might celebrate his vicennalia. After the example of Diocletian, who, having completed nineteen years of rule, came to Rome and celebrated the beginning of the twentieth with such great pomp that Sextus Rufus said on that account that the triumphal procession for the victory over the Persians won under the emperor Diocletian is well known. But at that time Galerius was far distant from his vicennalia. For from chapter 35 of this book it is gathered that they were to have been celebrated on the Kalends of March which followed his death. Therefore he died at the beginning of the nineteenth year from that in which he was made Caesar, since he died in the month of May, which was the nearest before the day of the vicennalia. Moreover, he died while he was holding his eighth consulship, as is written in this history and in the Idatian Fasti. But if these things are true, how can it be that Galerius reigned for twenty-one years? For so many are counted from the consulship of Tiberianus and Dio, in which Galerius is said to have been made Caesar, up to his eighth consulship. Then he himself in

this book of Lactantius, ch. 18, states that at the time when he was pressing Diocletian to abdicate, he had already for fifteen years been struggling with barbarian nations in Illyricum on the bank of the Danube, while in the meantime others ruled in luxury within more spacious and more peaceful lands. Assuredly, if you add the six years during which he administered the commonwealth after the retirement of Diocletian to the fifteen which had elapsed when these things were being said by Maximian, it will be plain that he died in the twenty-first year of his reign, as is read in the common editions of Eusebius's Chronicle. Although in the very old and excellent manuscript codex of the Colbert library, and in various ancient copies which Pontac testifies that he saw, only this is read: Galerius Maximianus dies. But since the authority of Lactantius is such that he cannot be contradicted, and Aurelius Victor writes that Galerius held the power of a Caesar for thirteen years and the imperial power for five, and moreover Eutropius at the beginning of the ninth book and the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle, p. 651, teach that Constantius, who was made Caesar together with Galerius, died at York in Britain in the thirteenth year of his principate, and furthermore in the fragment on Constantius Chlorus, p. 472, it is read that Galerius ruled for nineteen years, we must necessarily come round to the opinion which confines his power within nineteen years, and interpret those fifteen years during which he struggled with barbarian nations partly of the wars which he waged there while he was still a private man, partly of those after he was made Caesar, and carry back the beginnings of his principate to the Kalends of March of the year 293, so that he may thus be said to have been Caesar for 135 years in the year 315, in which Diocletian laid down the imperial power.

With his son as Caesar. Galerius's son, as I think; below, ch. 35: having commended his wife and son to Licinius. Nowhere else do we read that Galerius had a son. Certainly, if he had had one, he would have had him by an earlier wife. In that case he would not have sought two Caesars outside his own family, but would have named his own son, at least in the first place. By Valeria he had none. For she was barren, as Lactantius teaches below in the fiftieth chapter. These words are therefore to be understood of Candidianus, who is named a little later, and whom Lactantius below, in the same fiftieth chapter, notes was born of a concubine, adopted by Valeria the wife of Galerius on account of her barrenness, and betrothed to the seven-year-old daughter of Maximinus Augustus. It was he, then, whom his father intended to make Caesar after the celebration of the vicennalia. Candidianus, however, was killed by Licinius in the year of Christ 313, in the sixteenth year of his age.

He himself would lay down. The imperial power. Galerius was therefore planning a retirement from public affairs after the celebration of the vicennalia, in order to imitate the fortune of Diocletian. But God brought all his designs to nothing. For he neither celebrated the vicennalia, nor made Candidianus Caesar, nor was able to attain the sweetness of leisure.

Chapter XXI.

Decurions were tortured. Lactantius noted this matter as something done against law and custom. For under the civil law of the Romans it was not lawful to torture decurions, as is plain from the letter of Constantine to Probianus, proconsul of Africa. Therefore Baronius, at the year 314, points out that the Acts of the purgation of Felix, bishop of Aptunga, are corrupt in the place where Aelianus the proconsul says to Ingentius: Do not therefore flatter yourself that, since you tell me that you are a worshipper of God, you cannot on that account be tortured; and that decurion is to be read here instead of worshipper of God. Afterwards, however, as Baronius observes in that place, Constantine passed a law that it should be lawful to torture decurions on a charge of forgery.

Men of perfectissimus rank. Lactantius, Institutes book 5, ch. 15: No one is perfectissimus unless he has passed through all the grades. The dignity of the perfectissimate, as Valesius says on book 21 of Ammianus Marcellinus, was lower than the clarissimate; and as the Clarissimi were summoned before the prefect of the city, so the perfectissimi were summoned before the vicar of the prefecture. See also the notes of Baudouin on Eumenius's oration on restoring the schools, and Juret, in the notes on letter 40 of book

ten of Symmachus, and Jacques Godefroy on the Theodosian Code, vol. III, p. 418.

Gynaeceum. Gynaecea, as the word itself says, were places set aside for women's work, into which both men and women were sometimes thrown by way of punishment. The most distinguished Charles du Fresne has observed more about gynaecea of this kind in his Glossary, and so have we in the notes on Regino, p. 568, and on the Capitularies, p. 1009. See also the annotations of Valesius on Eusebius, p. 211.

Lusorium. A theatre or amphitheatre where public games were put on, as the same du Fresne shows at length. Salvian, book VI, p. 122 of our second edition: Indeed, since it would be long to speak now of all of them, namely amphitheatres, odea, places of games, processions, athletes, etc. The Acts of St Seraphia, virgin and martyr, ch. 3: But the governor after the third day prepared a place of games across the bridge above the arch of Albinus, where the themela used to be held. The lusoriae in Vopiscus are something else, namely ships which the Romans kept on the rivers that bounded the Roman empire off from the barbarians, always equipped and ready to check their crossings and incursions, as Salmasius explains in his notes on the same Vopiscus, p. 475. Jacques Godefroy also treats of these at length on the title of the Theodosian Code De lusoriis Danubii. Elsewhere lusorius means the same as derisorius, as in book XLIII of the Digest, last law of the title Ne quid in loco publico fiat, where it reads thus: Whoever has built contrary to the praetor's edict must remove the building. Otherwise the praetor's command will be empty and a mockery. Likewise Seneca, book V On Benefits, ch. 8: Like a name given in jest, it passes away at once. In the same author, letter 80: A spectacle not to be trusted and made for show. And in the letter of Pope Gelasius to Euphemius, bishop of Constantinople, where it is commonly read: Aut ad veniam luxuriae de me cognosceris ista jactare [Or you are known to boast these things of me for the pardon of luxury]. In place of which, in the very old and excellent manuscripts of the church of Beauvais and of the monastery of Corbie, I have seen written: Aut da veniam, lusorie de me cognosceris ista jactare [Or grant pardon, you are known to boast these things of me in jest]. Nor is this error unusual. For Salmasius observes in the place cited a little above that, where he himself edited in Vopiscus Romanas lusorias barbari incendissent [the barbarians had burned the Roman patrol boats], Romanas luxurias used commonly to be printed. And Jacques Godefroy, in the place cited a little above, mentions three places in the Theodosian Code where luxuriis is written for lusoriis.

Spiritus redderetur. Lactantius, Institutes book V, ch. 11: So they strive to win, and they inflict exquisite pains upon bodies, and they avoid nothing else than that the tortured should die. And a little after: But they, with obstinate folly, order that care be diligently given to the tortured, so that their limbs may be renewed for other torments, and new blood be restored for punishment.

Chapter XXII.

Nulla poena penes. In the old copy is read, Nulla poenis eum levis. A very bad reading pointed the good one out to us.

In causa capitis. This emendation too is ours. For the old codex has: In causa poena capitis et animadversio gladii admodum paucis, etc. Evidently the word poena crept into this place from the one above.

Bonam mortem. That is, a death not forced by the violence of torments, but easy and without tortures: of which kind are the cutting of the veins, strangling and poison. Below, ch. 26, on Severus: By doing this he obtained nothing else but a good death. For his veins were cut, and he was forced to die gently. And ch. 30, on Maximian Herculius: At last he is given the power of a death of his own choosing, and he ties from a high beam the knot of an unsightly death. But in this Lactantius has Tacitus against him, in that he says that Severus was forced to die gently by having his veins cut. For Tacitus, in book XVI of the Annals, treating at the end of Petronius, who was put to death by that kind of death, says: Soon, as the slowness of the end brought on heavy torments.

Chapter XXIII.

Census in provincias. The census declaration contained two things,

the measure of the fields and the number of heads, both free and servile, as Henri de Valois explains at greater length and learnedly, after his manner, on Ammianus Marcellinus, p. 167. Moreover, this passage of Lactantius confirms the conjecture of that most learned man Jacques Godefroy, who gathered from law 2 of the Theodosian Code, On the census, that some change was made by Galerius Maximianus throughout Lycia and Pamphylia after the abdication of Diocletian, namely that the urban populace was made subject to the poll-tax. That law certainly receives great light from this chapter of Lactantius.

Slaves against their masters. It is a rule of law, as Casaubon says on Flavius Vopiscus, that a slave cannot be interrogated against the life of his master. But by a constitution of Severus certain crimes were excepted: those of adultery, of fraud on the census, and of treason. This constitution, then, the emperor Tacitus abolished by a law of his own. Galerius revived it, whether by enacting a law I do not know, but certainly in practice. Paulus, Sententiae book 1, title 13: Neither a slave nor a freedman can be interrogated against the life of his master or patron.

Which the victors. At first, following the old copy, we had printed: Which the ancients. Afterwards the emendation suggested itself to our mind. Then we also restored ea in place of et.

Trajan on the Dacians. For Galerius Maximianus was born in Dacia Ripensis, in a place which he himself called Romulianum after the name of his mother Romula, not far from Sardica, as Eutropius and Eusebius in the Chronicle teach. Moreover, there were two expeditions of Trajan against the Dacians, the first in his fourth consulship, the other in his fifth, when he was already in the sixth year of his reign, as Casaubon observed on Spartianus. And Xiphilinus, drawing on Dio, does indeed record both of Trajan's expeditions against the Dacians, but nowhere mentions a tribute imposed on them. He says only that Dacia was made a province, which Flavius Vopiscus also relates in the Life of the Divine Aurelian. But since it was a fixed and constant rule among the Romans that every nation that had been reduced to the form of a province should be tributary and obey the magistrate of the Roman people, as Sigonius observes in the first book On the Law of the Provinces, it cannot be doubted that Dacia was tributary, especially since Lactantius affirms it in express words.

Safe from injury. In the old book it is faultily written injurietatis, and so we printed it at first. But on the last page we gave notice that injuriae tutos should be read; this emendation, because it is certain, we have now carried over into the text.

Chapter XXIV.

That he should send Constantine back. Zozimus, who was hostile to Constantine, treats this story differently from Lactantius, referring his departure from Galerius's side not to the orders of Constantius but to the ambition and greed of Constantine, who had long been turning over the thought of empire in his mind, and who, from the time he saw Severus and Maximinus made Caesars, resolved to leave the places where he was living and to set out for his father Constantius, who was among the nations beyond the Alps and lived for the most part in Britain. Aurelius Victor has the same in his book On the Caesars, writing that Constantine, whose great and powerful spirit was already from boyhood stirred by a passion for ruling, since he could not bear that Severus and Maximinus had been made Caesars while he himself had evidently been passed over, by the contrivance of flight (which is also read in Eusebius, in the first book of the Life of Constantine, ch. 20) reached Britain and his father Constantius, who was then at the end of his life, and that on his death, with all who were present exerting themselves for it, he took the empire. But in the Epitome of Victor, where the same things are repeated, it is wrongly written that Constantine as a youth was held by Galerius in the city of Rome as a hostage under the pretext of religion; and after that Epitome Baronius, Camden and Morin also wrote this. But Galerius had not at that time seen Rome, as is gathered with certainty from chapter 27 of this work, and he never set foot in the city. Moreover, it is the constant opinion of all writers that he, as a hostage with Diocletian and Maximian,

was [held], namely in Bithynia, where Diocletian lived. And this Praxagoras certainly teaches in Photius, codex 62, and it is gathered also from the life of the saints Metrophanes and Alexander in the same Photius, codex 264, and from Eusebius in the first book on the Life of Constantine, chapter 19. If what Nicephorus Callistus, book 7, chapter 18, relates about Constantine were true, this discrepancy could easily be reconciled. For he says that Constantius, whom he names Constans, had the boy Constantine brought to Rome together with his mother, but, fearing that something untoward might befall him from Theodora, his lawful wife, who was Constantine's stepmother, through jealousy and conjugal rivalry, sent him to Nicomedia to Diocletian, who was there with Galerius Maximian his son-in-law, and that he lived there in the palace with the Emperor. But before I leave this point, the reader must be warned that this passage from the Epitome of Victor has been turned by Baronius into a foreign sense, since what is said there of Constantine, held as a hostage by Galerius under the pretext of religion, Baronius interprets of the Christian religion: either because the young man, born of Helena, a Christian mother, and of his father Constantius, who was rather well disposed towards the Christians, had given some sign by which he seemed to favour that religion; or because, since Constantius was very favourable to our people, he had fallen under suspicion with Galerius of having betrayed the ancestral superstition. For which reason he judges that Constantine was held in custody at Rome by Galerius in place of a hostage, so that, having seized on the pretext of religion, he might prevent the young man of excellent character from succeeding his father. But there was no need of this roundabout way to explain this passage of the Epitome, whose narrative is simple and plain. The author meant only this, that Constantine was a hostage with Galerius under the pretext of religion, that is, under the pretext of special affection and duty, as though he had asked him from his father to be trained in military affairs and in the art of administering the State. For neither was Helena a Christian at that time, nor did Galerius, a superstitious man, charge Constantine with Christianity when Diocletian judged that the sons of Herculius and of Constantius should be made Caesars. By other arts Galerius tried to remove the young man from the highest eminence, namely by snares, by exposing him to various dangers.

He had long been asking back in vain. These words are not found in the old manuscript. But since the sense was mutilated, and it was clear that something was missing here, we have added these two words on the authority of the Fragment on Constantius Chlorus, in which it reads thus: Constantine, a hostage with Diocletian and Galerius, served bravely under them in Asia; whom, after Diocletian and Herculius had laid down their rule, Constantius asked back from Galerius: but Galerius had previously exposed him to many dangers. Nevertheless, if anyone thinks that that gap cannot be filled with these words, he may substitute for them "he had not seen", or something similar.

He had attacked him with snares. The same Fragment: But Galerius had previously exposed him to many dangers. For indeed, as a young man serving in the cavalry against the Sarmatians, he had seized a fierce barbarian by the hair and brought him as a suppliant before the feet of the emperor Galerius. Then, when Galerius sent him through a marsh, he went in on his horse and made a way for the rest to the Sarmatians, and, having laid very many of them low, he brought back the victory to Galerius. Then Galerius sent him back to his father. See also Eusebius, book 1, on the Life of Constantine, chapter 20, and the Annals of Zonaras.

He had exposed him to wild beasts. Praxagoras, in the book on the Deeds of Constantine, says that Galerius Maximian laid snares for the youth and matched him to enter a fight with a wild lion, but that he overcame the beast and killed it. Zonaras also has the same in the reign of Diocletian.

Seal. That is, a letter of dispatch secured with a seal. See the Glossary of Du Fresne.

He might be held by Severus. For one going from Nicomedia into Gaul had to travel through Italy, where Severus ruled. The Fragment on Constantius Chlorus, page 471: He, in order to avoid Severus while passing through Italy, with the utmost haste, the post-horses behind him maimed and the Alps

crossed, came to his father Constantius at Bononia.

The public horses having been removed. Zosimus in his second book relates that Constantine, fearing that he might perhaps be caught as he fled, maimed the post-horses which the state maintained as soon as he reached any posting-station, and left them useless; and that, since he did this as he went from place to place, he shut off his pursuers from going any further. Nearly the same things are read in the Epitome of Victor.

The public post. See Casaubon in his notes on Spartianus, where he discusses at length, learnedly and eruditely, the public and fiscal post.

He reached his father. On the twelfth day before the kalends of August, as I at least judge. For in the old calendar published by Herwart these words are written against that day: The Arrival of the Divine One, that is, of Constantine, as is evident. For that calendar was written while he was reigning. Those who think that he reached his father on the eighth day before the kalends of August have been misled by this: that Aurelius Victor in his book on the Caesars, and other ancient writers, write that he reached his father Constantius in Britain when the latter was in the last moments of his life; and they interpret these words as if it must be that he who was at his end died immediately after Constantine's arrival. Further, on his arrival to his father Constantius, and on the things that were then done concerning Constantine, see Eusebius in the first book of his Life, ch. 21, and the Polity of Saints Metrophanes and Alexander in Photius. Moreover, he came to his father from Nicomedia, and not from Rome, as Camden falsely wrote in his Britannia, p. 52, misled by the author of the Epitome of Victor.

He handed on the empire by hand. Lactantius, Institutes book 11, ch. 4: For he lived until old age, and handed on the kingdom by hand to his son.

He handed on the empire. Eusebius writes the same in the first book of the Life of Constantine, ch. 25. Wherefore Joseph Scaliger, in his animadversions on the Chronicle of Eusebius, refutes in vain the author of the Polity of Saints Metrophanes and Alexander for having written that Constantine was designated successor in the empire by Constantius as he was dying. Nor does that consent of the soldiers, to which Scaliger assigns the beginnings of Constantine's reign, prejudice anything against what the author of the Polity writes. Eumenius proves this in his panegyric of Constantine, where, after saying that Constantine had been chosen emperor by the manifest decision of his father, he presently adds: Good gods, with what great happiness you endowed the pious Constantius even in his departure! The emperor, about to make his passage into heaven, saw the heir whom he was leaving. For as soon as he had been taken from the earth, the whole army agreed upon you, the minds and eyes of all marked you out. Likewise the emperor Julian in his first oration to Constantius: Therefore, how your father after the death of his parent obtained the empire not only by his judgement but also by the vote of all the armies, why should we go through more carefully? Orosius, book 7, ch. 26: But Constantius Augustus, a man of the greatest gentleness and courtesy, met his death in Britain, and left as emperor of the Gauls Constantine, his son born of the concubine Helena.

He received rest from life. The Fasti of Idatius, in the consulship of Constantius for the sixth time and Maximian for the sixth time: In this consulship Constantius died, and afterwards Constantine was raised up on the eighth day before the kalends of August. The Chronicle of Eusebius: Constantius died in the sixteenth year of his reign in Britain at York; and he was buried there, if the things related about his tomb by that most learned man William Camden on page 572 of the Britannia are true. This happened in the year of Christ 306, as Valesius rightly contends against Petavius in his annotations on Eusebius. Then, as Socrates says, Constantine was created emperor in the place of his father Constantius, who had departed from the living on the eighth day before the kalends of August. This therefore is the first year of Constantine's reign. Hence in a very ancient calendar, in Herwart and Bucherius, it reads thus: 8th day before the kalends of August, birthday of the divine Constantine. Wrongly therefore in the book

first of the Tripartite History, and in the eleventh book of the Miscellaneous History, it is written that Constantine was made emperor on the sixth day before the Kalends of August. Eumenius, in the panegyric cited above: O fortunate Britain, and now happier than all lands, you who first saw Constantine as Caesar!

To restore the Christians to their worship. Lactantius, in the preface of the first book of the Divine Institutes, addressed to Constantine: For when that most happy day had dawned upon the world, on which God most high raised you to the blessed summit of power, you began a reign wholesome and desirable for all with a most glorious beginning, when, bringing back justice that had been overthrown and taken away, you expiated the most foul crime of others.

Restored. I think restitutio should be put back, so that it reads: This was his first enactment, the restoration of holy religion. Columbus puts back restitutae.

Chapter XXV.

His image having been brought. Eumenius in the panegyric of Constantine: And although you had referred to the senior princes what they wished to be done concerning the supreme affairs of state, they [the soldiers] nevertheless anticipated with their zeal what those men soon approved with their judgement. That most distinguished man Hadrien de Valois, in the first book of his Frankish Affairs, p. 20, understands here by the senior princes Diocletian, Maximian Herculius and Galerius Maximian, who he says approved the deed of the soldiers who had cast the purple upon Constantine. The most learned man will allow me to depart from that opinion, since it is certain that Diocletian and Herculius then had no part in the state, and so it would have been of no use for Constantine to refer to them concerning the power conferred on him. I therefore interpret the senior princes as Galerius Maximian the Augustus, and Severus and Maximin the Caesars. Although I strongly incline to this, that I think the reference was made to Galerius alone, who alone was then master of affairs: but that Eumenius, after the manner of orators, spoke according to a formula, and referred to all the princes what ought to have been said of one only. Lactantius, moreover, spoke of a laurelled image because those who announced joyful and successful affairs brought laurelled dispatches, as Saumaise explains at greater length in his notes on Lampridius, p. 235.

He sent the purple. The badge of royal dignity, as Lactantius says in book 4 of the Institutes, chapter 7: Now among the Romans the garment of purple is the badge of royal dignity assumed. Constantine had no need of a purple which Galerius should send to him, since he had received it at the beginning of his reign from the soldiers. Eumenius in the passage cited a little before: As soon as you first made your going forth, the soldiers, serving the public advantage rather than your feelings, cast the purple upon you as you wept. Thus Probus received the purple. The author is Flavius Vopiscus in the book on his Life: Adorned also with a purple cloak, which was brought to him from the statue of a temple. Likewise the same author in the Saturninus: There, however, when he had begun to reflect that it was not safe for him to live as a private man, the purple having been taken from a statue of Venus, he was clothed in his wife's robe and adored by the soldiers standing around. On this matter see Casaubon's notes on Capitolinus. But this was done more fittingly when the purple was bestowed by a prince. Thus Severus received it from Herculius, Maximin from Diocletian, and Herculius again from his son Maxentius when he was reigning at Rome. For from this was shown consent towards the new prince.

Beyond the number. That is, besides the four, so that he might not change the arrangement of Diocletian, which he himself had said so emphatically ought to be preserved.

That he should name Severus Augustus. It is certain that this Severus was named Augustus, since coins show it, which are found in Adolf Occo. Concerning the time at which he took the title of Augustus, it is not so clear. There are those who write, says Panvinio in the second book of the Fasti, that he, when he was coming against Maxentius with an army, called himself Augustus. This opinion is embraced by Tristan de Saint-Amant. It cannot be doubted that this happened a little before he set out for Rome against Maxentius. But

this was not done on the occasion of the empire's being seized by Maxentius, but at the time when Constantine was proclaimed Caesar by Galerius after the death of Constantius, that is, at the end of the year of Christ 306, as I judge. On this matter, more later. Further, it can also be gathered from this that Severus had been invested with the dignity of Augustus: when Galerius gave the empire to Licinius, that is, created him Augustus, Lactantius, ch. 24, writes that he was substituted in the place of Severus. That would plainly not be true if Severus had not been Augustus. Occo records that he was named Caesar and Augustus by Galerius, but does not note the time.

But Caesar. We have already shown above that Constantine was not made Caesar together with Severus and Maximinus. Since, however, it is established from coins that he was Caesar, and learned men have hitherto sought in vain the time at which he was raised to that dignity, it seems worth the effort to linger here a little, so that we may fix the beginnings of that appointment. For since the author of the panegyric delivered to Maximian and Constantine after the marriage of Fausta teaches that Constantine, when his father had left the empire to him, was nevertheless content with the title of Caesar and preferred to wait until the same man who had honoured his father Constantius with that title should declare him Augustus, yet does not say at what time this was done, the matter is open to us, just as if we lacked the authority of that ancient writer. We must therefore settle it thus. Constantius died in the year of Christ 306, on the 8th day before the kalends of August. Constantine at once succeeded him; and when his laurelled image had been brought to Galerius, Galerius named Constantine Caesar, in order to throw him down from the second place, which he held as substitute in his father's place, to the fourth, and so make him last. That Constantine was then named Caesar by Galerius is also clear from the following chapter, where it is written that Galerius, when news had been brought to him of Maxentius having been made emperor at Rome, summoned Severus, and, because he could not make three Caesars, urged him to cast back the empire. From this it is gathered by a most certain conjecture that there were already at that time two Caesars in the empire, namely Maximinus and Constantine. For Severus had been named Augustus after the death of Constantius, and therefore is not counted there in the number of the Caesars. The words which immediately follow confirm this interpretation: It seemed enough, he says, to have done once what he did not wish, that is, to have named Constantine Caesar. For otherwise up to that day he had done nothing that he did not wish; on the contrary, he had done everything that he wished. I think, therefore, that Constantine was declared Caesar by Galerius at the end of that same year 306. For in the old calendar, which was written while he was reigning and was published first by Herwart and then by others also, these words are read: 8th day before the kalends of January. Birthday of the Unconquered. This passage does not seem able to be referred to any other day than that on which Constantine was proclaimed Caesar. For as to the fact that the most distinguished Peter Lambeck, in the fourth book of his Commentaries on the Vienna library, p. 298, refers this birthday to Constantius on the authority of the Idatian Fasti, he is refuted from the very words of those same Fasti, where Vetranio is indeed said to have been deposed on the 8th day before the kalends of January, but Constantius was raised Caesar only on the following ides of March, which is the birthday of Constantius. Moreover, whenever the name of the Divine or the Unconquered is read simply in this calendar, with no other name added, it is certain that Constantine the Great must every time be understood. However, quite new is the opinion of the most distinguished Pierre-François Chifflet, who in his notes on Vigilius of Thapsus, p. 134, holds that Constantine was created Caesar by Galerius Maximianus on the 8th day before the kalends of August in the year of Christ 305, while he was living at his court as a hostage given, as it were, by his father, and was then declared Caesar again at York in Britain in the following year after the death of his father Constantius. But this opinion does not stand with the truth. Afterwards Constantine was named emperor by Maximianus Herculius, twice Augustus, in the year 307, when he was about to take to wife Fausta, the daughter of Herculius. Thus we

are taught by the author of the panegyric praised a little before: Granted that very many, he says, have said, and many will say, those things by which all your deeds and the merits of your highest virtues are praised, most sacred princes, Maximian, Augustus for ever whether you will or not, and Constantine, rising emperor; yet for me it is settled to embrace in this speech chiefly those things which are proper to this joy, in which the name of empire is added to you, Caesar, and the festival of these heavenly nuptials is celebrated. And a little after: For what could you either give more dearly, or you receive more dearly, since by this alliance of yours both for you, Maximian, youth has been renewed through a son-in-law, and for you, Constantine, the name of emperor has accrued through a father-in-law? These things indeed are certain and manifest. But Labbe, in the first part of his Historical Chronology, p. 223, cites Eusebius and Zosimus as witnesses of the same matter, in whom I have been able to find nothing of the kind. Four, then, as is noted in the old Calendar, were the birthdays of Constantine: the 3rd day before the Kalends of March, the 8th day before the Kalends of August, the 8th day before the Kalends of January, and the day before the Kalends of April. The first, as that most learned man Charles du Fresne rightly observed, belongs to Constantine's genuine birthday, namely that on which he was brought forth into the light; the second to the day on which he succeeded his father Constantius; the third to that on which he was named Caesar by Galerius; the fourth, finally, to that on which he obtained the title of emperor and Augustus. A fifth, which the calendar of Philocalus places on the 3rd day before the Kalends of April, I do not think is different from that which other editions put on the 3rd day before the Kalends of March; and hence I judge that the edition of Philocalus must be emended.

Chapter XXVI.

They made Maxentius emperor. The Fragment on Constantius Chlorus, p. 472: Suddenly in the city of Rome the praetorian soldiers created Maxentius, the son of Herculius, emperor. Eutropius, book 10: Meanwhile at Rome the praetorians, having stirred up a tumult, proclaimed Augustus Maxentius, the son of Herculius, who was staying not far from the city in a public villa. Eusebius writes the same in the Chronicle. He was the son of Maximian Herculius, but the son-in-law of Galerius Maximian, as Lactantius teaches here and above in ch. 18 and a little below in ch. 17. This is also handed down thus in the Epitome of Victor: This Maximian (read Maxentius) was never dear to anyone, not even to his father or to his father-in-law Galerius. And the Fragment on Constantius Chlorus, p. 472: The son-in-law with the father-in-law, that is, Maxentius with Galerius. Therefore I wonder that that most learned man Joseph Scaliger, in his Animadversions on the Chronicle of Eusebius, wonders that, although Maxentius was the son of Herculius Maximian, yet on his coins one reads thus: THE EMPEROR MAXENTIUS TO THE DEIFIED MAXIMIAN, FATHER, FATHER-IN-LAW, IN ETERNAL MEMORY. This coin was not struck in memory of Maximian the father, but of Galerius Maximian the father-in-law.

He had abolished the praetorian camp. Not entirely, but he had diminished it. For otherwise how could the Praetorians, if there had been none, have proclaimed Maxentius emperor? Aurelius Victor rightly says in his book on the Caesars: Hence also the strength of the city was, as it were, cut short, the number of the praetorian cohorts and of the populace in arms being reduced. Where perhaps one should read: and of the unarmed populace.

The judges having been killed. Abellius having first been slain, says Zosimus, because, holding the place of prefect of the city, he seemed to oppose their undertakings.

He was disturbed. Galerius Maximian.

He could not make three Caesars. Because the arrangement of Diocletian stood in the way, who had established that there must be two Augusti [and] two Caesars; and Galerius had kept this arrangement when he received the title of Augustus. Afterwards, however, three Caesars were made by Constantine and Licinius in the year of Christ 317: namely Crispus, Constantius the son of Constantine, and Licinianus the son of Licinius. Then, Licinius having been defeated and killed, and Crispus and Licinianus also having been put to death, Constantius and Constans, the younger sons of Constantine, were made Caesars at various times. To these times must be referred that observation of Eutropius from the tenth book: At that time the Roman state was under one Augustus and three Caesars (which was never so at any other time),

when the children of Constantine were in charge of Gaul, the East and Italy.

Maxentius. In the old book Maximianus is read, plainly in error, just as we saw a little earlier that the same error had been committed in the Epitome of Victor.

His father's soldiers. Those who were in the army of Severus, as is said a little above.

In Campania. All the others agree that Maximianus Herculius was at that time in Lucania, where he had betaken himself after his abdication, as Eutropius, Zosimus and Suidas do. So the matter must be settled thus: that Herculius did indeed withdraw into Lucania when he had laid down the imperial power, but that at the time when these things were going on he came into Campania, so that from there, as from close at hand, he might test and stir up the minds of the praetorian soldiers who were quartered at Rome, and, if the chance were given, either take back the imperial power which he had laid down unwillingly, or secure it for his son Maxentius. For Aurelius Victor, in his book on the Caesars, shows that these matters were worked at by Herculius over a long space of time: Meanwhile at Rome the populace and the praetorian squadrons confirm Maxentius as Emperor, his father Herculius having long handled the matter. I am surprised, however, that Santamantius, a man most celebrated for his knowledge of coinage, turned this passage into an entirely contrary sense, as though Maxentius had been made emperor with his father retractante, that is, resisting; which I see also found favour with that most learned man Hadrianus Valesius. But they were without doubt deceived by a false remark of Andreas Schottus, who writes that here the word retractante means the same as detrectante. Retractare means the same as tractare. Lactantius, book 4 of the Institutes, chapter 28: Those who would go over again, and as it were read over again, all things which pertain to the worship of the gods were called religious. And a little after: That the religious were so called from rereading, they who carefully go over again the things that pertain to the worship of the gods. Hence the books of the Retractations of Saint Augustine. These examples are indeed sufficient. So, after Maxentius had been made emperor, Maximianus, summoned by him, at once set out for Rome, a little later put Severus to death, and soon [went] into Gaul, and there celebrated the marriage of his daughter Fausta with Constantine in that summer in which Galerius led an army into Italy against Maxentius, as we shall see later. Therefore Petavius was deceived in a remarkable way by the authority of the anonymous Writer, who does not relate the deeds of Constantius Chlorus in the order in which they were done. For Petavius writes, in book 13 of the Doctrina temporum, p. 715, that Galerius Maximianus flew to Rome with huge forces in the year of Christ 307, and, being despised and deserted by most of his own men, went off into Illyricum, made Licinius Caesar and returned to Sardica; that then Maximianus Herculius, roused to the hope of resuming the highest rank, flew to Rome from Lucania and urged Diocletian to do the same; that afterwards he handed Severus, deceived by perjury, over to custody and cut his throat; that then, when he was laying plots against Maxentius, he was driven from Rome and came into Gaul to Constantine, gave him his daughter Fausta in marriage and presented him with the title of Augustus. There is no room for doubt that all these things were written, not indeed against the truth of History, but with the order of times and events thoroughly confused. Sethus Calvisius strayed more shamefully, writing that Maxentius seized the imperial power only after Constantine had been created Augustus by Maximianus Herculius, and that Maximianus, persuaded by the Romans, resumed the imperial power the following year. But how could he declare Constantine Augustus who was neither Emperor nor Augustus?

Eager for revolution. The Emperor Julian, in the Caesars, relates the same of Herculius.

He had laid it down unwillingly. The opinion of all Writers is consistent, if you except the unknown panegyrist who set forth the praises of Herculius Maximianus and of Constantine. At the marriage of Constantine and Fausta, it is, I say, the opinion of all writers that this Maximianus laid down the imperial power unwillingly. But they relate this history otherwise than Lactantius. For he, in chapter 18, teaches that Herculius was compelled to abdicate by Galerius, and by him

terrified by the fear of civil war that had been thrust upon him. Others, on the contrary, write that Diocletian, since he felt himself, as age grew heavy upon him, little fit for governing the empire, was the one who advised Herculius that they should withdraw into private life, and that his colleague complied reluctantly, but nevertheless complied.

He gladly seized. The purple which he had laid aside. The panegyric of the anonymous author cited a little earlier: For Rome herself brought it about, in keeping with the majesty of her name, so as to show that she could command even emperors. She led away her armies and restored them to you; and when you had brought the authority of a private prince to calm their spirits, stretching out suppliant hands to you, or rather complaining, she cried out: How long, Maximian, shall I endure this, etc. And a little after: Formerly you ruled at the request of your brother; rule again at the command of your mother. Herculius readily resumed the purple, since he is found to have taken it up three times. And this most evil example was the cause of the death of Licinius; for when Constantine had defeated him and granted him his life, afterwards, moved by the example of Herculius Maximian, his father-in-law, lest he should again take up the purple he had laid down, to the ruin of the State, he ordered him to be killed at Thessalonica, the soldiers demanding it in a military tumult; as is read in the Fragment on Constantius Chlorus, p. 475. Boniface VIII, fearing that, if Celestine V led a free life, he would resume the pontificate which he had abdicated, ordered him to be held in custody. In this the example of Callistus II towards Burdinus had gone before him.

He fled to Ravenna. Zosimus writes in his second book that Herculius, having ensnared Severus with oaths, persuaded him to leave Ravenna, where he had taken refuge, and come to Rome; and that as he was going there, when he had come to a certain place which they call the Three Taverns, he was seized by an ambush which Maxentius had laid in that place, and was killed with his neck put into a noose. The anonymous panegyric delivered to Constantine after the victory won over Maxentius: Severus had led a great army, and, deserted through treachery, had armed his enemy. The author of the Fragment on Constantius Chlorus, p. 472: Severus, deserted by his own men, fled to Ravenna. Summoned by his son Maxentius (for so it should be read), Herculius came there, who, having deceived Severus by perjury, handed him over to custody, brought him into the city in the garb of a captive, and had him kept under guard in the public villa at the thirtieth milestone of the Appian Way. Afterwards, when Galerius was making for Italy, he was put to death, and then carried back to the eighth milestone and buried in the tomb of Gallienus. From this passage Henri de Valois concluded that Eutropius and Aurelius Victor, who write that Severus was killed at Ravenna, are mistaken. The place, therefore, where Severus ended his life is disputed among the learned. For Scaliger, in his notes on Eusebius, says that he does not doubt that those Three Taverns were in the territory of Ravenna, and that nothing else can be gathered from the words of Zosimus. Valois, on the contrary, contends that those Three Taverns were on the Appian Way near Rome. But what Sigonius gathered from Zosimus in the second book of his On the Western Empire is hardly probable: that Severus, trusting Maximian's word, left Ravenna and betook himself to the Three Taverns, led by the confident hope that through Maximian's help he would recover the City. This opinion of Sigonius was followed by Girolamo Rossi in the second book of his History of the Ravennates.

With his veins cut. On the contrary, Zosimus, book 2, and the author of the Fragment on Constantius Chlorus write, as we saw a little earlier, that Severus died with his neck broken by a noose.

Chapter XXVII.

Maximinus having been joined [with him]. Surnamed Daia or Daza, who governed the East.

He set out for Gaul. Zosimus too lends credit to this account, although he errs in the order of the events to be narrated, saying that Herculius, foiled in the attempt by which he had striven to draw Diocletian into resuming the empire, made his way again towards the Alps in order to meet Constantine, who was staying there, and promised him his daughter Fausta, and, that promise having been fulfilled, tried to deceive the man. Zosimus errs, I say. For from chapters 27 and 29 of Lactantius

it is clear that he went twice into Gaul before he made for Carnuntum, and that he did not see Diocletian except after the marriage of Constantine and Fausta. But as for what Lactantius and Zosimus say, that Herculius promised his daughter to Constantine, it reads otherwise in the panegyric by an unknown author delivered at the marriage of Constantine and Fausta, where it is written that Constantine asked Maximian for her: But truly, just as your divinity, Constantine, was endeared to your father-in-law before you asked of him the pledge dearest to him, so now also in this congratulation those things must be said first which that great man, the author both of your father's imperial power and of your own, considered in you when he rejoiced that you had asked. Here meanwhile one must note what the writer of this panegyric says, that Herculius is the author of Constantine's imperial power. On this matter see what was said above on chapter 25.

Of his younger daughter. Here it is fitting to point out that in the old manuscript it is wrongly written sic minoris familiae. He means Fausta. But inquiry must be made into the time at which the marriage of Constantine and Fausta was celebrated. It is certain that Severus Augustus was put to death at the beginning of the year of Christ 307, although the month is not established. Afterwards Maximian Herculius, Fausta's father, set out into Gaul in order to win Constantine over to his side, having promised him marriage with Fausta, his younger daughter; and when that promise had been fulfilled, as Zosimus says, he tried to persuade Constantine to pursue Galerius Maximian as he withdrew from Italy. From these words it is inferred that the marriage was celebrated at the time when Galerius was in Italy, or at least when he was in readiness for the Italian expedition. And since he returned from Italy into Illyricum in the same year 307, before the month of September, as I think, and since it is established from chapter 27 of this book of Lactantius that Herculius set out for Rome again after the flight of Galerius, and that, having returned into Gaul again in the same year, he stayed there a little while, and afterwards came into Illyricum to Carnuntum, a city of Pannonia, and was there on the third day before the Ides of November, the day on which Licinius was made emperor by Galerius, it is plain that the marriage of Constantine and Fausta was contracted some time before the month of September of the year 307. If what is said about Constantine's beginnings by the Reverend Father Pierre-François Chifflet in his notes on Vigilius of Thapsus were certain, there would be no need of the inquiry with which we have so far been occupied. For he contends that the marriage of Constantine with Fausta, and the beginning of the Augustal dignity conferred on him by Maximian his father-in-law, took place on the eighth day before the Kalends of August in the year 307, on the same authority, no doubt, by which he writes that Constantine was first made Caesar by Galerius in the year 305, on the eighth day before the Kalends of August, and again declared Caesar on the eighth day before the Kalends of August in the year 306, after the death of his father. But since these things are not proved by that most distinguished man, the care which we have applied in investigating the date of this marriage was necessary.

He meanwhile. Galerius Maximian. For the rest, Zosimus touches briefly on this whole preparation of Galerius thus: But when Maximian Galerius had taken ill what had been contrived against Severus Caesar, he resolved that he must go from the East to Rome, and that deserved penalties must be inflicted on Maxentius on account of the crimes committed. When he had arrived in Italy, perceiving the minds of the soldiers to be little loyal towards him, he returned to the East without joining battle.

Intending to slaughter the people. The fragment on Constantius Chlorus, p. 472: Next Galerius came to Rome with huge forces, threatening the destruction of the city, and pitched camp at Interamna on the Tiber. Then he sent Licinius and Probus as envoys to the city, seeking through a conference that, as son-in-law with father-in-law, that is, Maxentius with Galerius, he might obtain what he wished by entreaties rather than by arms. Being scorned, he recognized that through the promises of Maxentius's men his own side had deserted. Disturbed by this he turned back; and, in order to bestow some booty or other on his soldiers, he ordered the flamminia to be carried off. What the word flamminia means in this place Henri de Valois confesses he does not know, and he thinks that something is missing here which concerned Maximian Herculius. I would rather judge,

that these last words belong with those to which they are joined, so that the sense is that Galerius, in order to grant his soldiers whatever plunder there might be, that is, to give them the fullest licence for plundering, restrained by no laws, ordered that even those things which could not be carried off be given to the flames; so that if anyone wished to pursue, he would not have utensils, that is, the things necessary for subsistence, as Lactantius will presently say. I therefore judge that one should write flammis omnia in place of flamminia, on account of the common error of copyists, who frequently omit the first syllables of words. And perhaps the error was committed by someone who, having seen flammonia or flammomnia written here, and not sufficiently understanding what sort of word this was, but knowing moreover that the ancients said flamonium for flaminium, thought this word should be emended and brought back to its origin. For both the old glossaries of Isidore and others, and also Sidonius, and two old inscriptions, which Jacques Godefroy transcribes from Gruter's thesaurus on law 21 of the Theodosian Code, On decurions, and Savaron one of them, and Sirmond on Sidonius, say flamonium for flaminium. I know that it is an altogether inelegant expression, and that one is not accustomed to say that anything is carried off by flames. But in the author of excerpts we do not require elegance of speech. But that this conjecture of mine is not true I readily gather from the one which, in keeping with our friendship, was communicated to me by that man most skilled in these and very many other branches of learning, Charles Dufresne du Cange, who thinks that here, in place of flamminia, one should read flammula, that is, military standards; while these are raised, the soldiers must stand in battle line; but when they fall, they are easily scattered. See the Latin Glossary of the same Dufresne.

Flexit animos quor[um] ("he turned the minds of those"). We formerly advised that it should be so emended, when we first published felix animus quorum.

Fugam capessivit ("he took to flight"). Adrien de Valois, in the first book of his Frankish History, writes that Licinius was created Caesar by Galerius in the year 308 and that the protection of Illyricum was delegated to him, that Galerius, having entered Italy with very great forces, besieged his son-in-law Maxentius at Rome, and was driven back from the city by the craft of Maximian Herculius. We shall show later that Licinius was made emperor after the return of Galerius from Italy. For now, however, this alone is to be observed, that what that most distinguished man says seems scarcely probable, namely that Galerius was driven back from the city by the craft of Maximian Herculius, since it is certain from chapters 27 and 28 of Lactantius that he was in Gaul with Constantine during the whole of that time in which Galerius was in Italy: which can also easily be gathered from the words of Zosimus.

Opprimi potuit ("he could have been crushed"). In Zosimus, Herculius is said to have wished to persuade Constantine to pursue Galerius as he withdrew from Italy. But since he was by nature restless and untrustworthy, it is no wonder if Constantine spurned his counsels.

Vexasset ("he had harassed"). I think vastasset ("he had laid waste") should be read.

Titulum immutari ("that the title be changed"). These things are not read elsewhere. And it is surprising that they were passed over by other historians.

Daciscum ("Dacian"). Because he himself had been born in Dacia.

Chapter XXVIII.

Maximianus alter ("the other Maximian"). Surnamed Herculius, who had resumed imperial power, and held it in common with his son Maxentius.

Prior filii potestas ("the son's power came first"). Account being taken, that is, of the new reign. For the father had earlier laid down imperial power and withdrawn into private life. Afterwards he had been taken into partnership in the empire by Maxentius, who sent him the purple and named him Augustus a second time.

Milites e. q. Sever. reliq. ("the soldiers who had deserted Severus"). That is, the soldiers from the old army of Maximian Herculius, sent by Galerius with Severus to overcome Maxentius, who, carrying their standards over and deserting Severus, had given themselves up to Maximian. Maximian supposed that these, because they had once been his own, would cleave to him.

Diripuit purpuram ("he tore off the purple"). Eutropius, book 10: Yet Maximian Herculius, after these things, having tried in an assembly of the army to strip his son Maxentius, met with mutiny and the abuse of the soldiers. The panegyric of an unknown author delivered to Constantine

after Maxentius had been defeated: Finally he himself, who was believed to be his father, tried to drag off the purple, torn from his shoulders, etc. In Socrates, book 1, chapter 2, we read that Herculius, carried away by desire to recover the empire, attempted to kill, or to remove from the scene, his own son Maxentius. So indeed the versions of Christopherson and Valesius, on account of the word apolesai, which has various meanings. Better, in my judgement, Epiphanius Scholasticus: Hence his father, from desire of ruling, wished to deprive his son of the kingdom. For that interpretation agrees better with the account of Lactantius and of others.

A second Proud one. That is, Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of the Romans; Lactantius, Institutes book 4, chapter 14: Tarquinius Superbus was driven out.

Chapter XXIX.

Maximian. Galerius.

Diocles there worships. Aurelius Victor, speaking of the flight and death of Severus: Galerius, made the fiercer by this, having called Jovius into counsel, creates Licinius, known to him by long-standing friendship, Caesar and Augustus; and, leaving him behind as a bulwark for Illyricum and Thrace, he hastens to Rome. But Victor is shown to have erred in this, that he says Licinius was created Augustus after the death of Severus and before Galerius led his army into Italy against Maxentius: whereas, on the contrary, by the testimony of Lactantius and others it is certain that Licinius was made emperor in the place of Severus after Galerius' return from Italy, and that Galerius' intention, when he conferred the imperial power on Licinius, was to use him in the war which he had undertaken against Maxentius. Zosimus: Maximianus Galerius creates as emperor Licinius, a friend of his from their association in earlier times, because he intended by his help to pursue Maxentius in war. The author of the Fragment on Constantius Chlorus, page 473: Licinius, therefore, from New Dacia, of rather humble origin, was made emperor by Galerius, as one who would fight against Maxentius. And yet Victor says he was left in Illyricum at the very time when Galerius was most intent on the Italian war. But that too must be false, since the author of the same Fragment, page 472, writes that Licinius was in the army of Galerius when it was besieging Rome, and was sent by him into the city with Probus, so that they might find some way to concord between father-in-law and son-in-law. This also proves that he was still a private man, and so not yet emperor. So that it is very surprising that that most learned man Hadrianus Valesius, in writing this history, followed Victor rather than the other authors who agree with the author of that fragment.

Which he had not done before. Namely, to make Licinius emperor. This he could already have done at the time when he made Severus and Maximian Caesars; but he had not wished to, for the reasons given above in the twentieth chapter.

That he might give the imperial power to Licinius. Learned men contend fiercely among themselves in determining the year in which Licinius was made emperor, some holding that it happened in the year of Christ 307, others in the following year. I shall set out the reasons of both. Those who maintain the former opinion either use, or can use, these arguments. In the year of Christ 307 arms were taken up against Maxentius, who at the end of the preceding year had seized the imperial power; and Severus, Caesar and Augustus, who, sent by Galerius Maximianus, had come to Rome to overpower him, was repulsed, and at last perished by a miserable kind of death in the second year of his reign, as we read in the Chronicle of Eusebius, that is, in the year of Christ 307, before the Kalends of May, on which two years earlier he had been made Caesar by Herculius Maximianus. So Onofrio Panvinio in his commentary on the second book of the Fasti, at the year of the City 1059, which corresponds to the year of Christ 307: In this year, about the Kalends of May, Severus, who had been created Caesar by Galerius for Italy and Africa, having come to Rome with an army against the rising of the praetorians and of Maxentius, deserted through the crime of his own soldiers and himself fleeing, was killed at Ravenna in the second year of his reign. Galerius, inflamed by this disgrace, which recoiled upon him as the author of the war, flies with incredible speed from Illyricum to Rome with an immense army, and from

Italy flies back into Illyricum without glory, having traversed that whole stretch of lands twice within five or six months at most, thinking all the more keenly about chastising and driving out Maxentius because, though accustomed to conquer, he had now been forced with great disgrace to turn his back. For that reason, after his return from Italy, he creates Licinius emperor, destining him for Italy against Maxentius. These things were done on the third day before the Ides of November, as is read in the Idatian Fasti and in the Alexandrian Chronicle. But although these two books agree about the day, they nevertheless do not agree about the year. For the Alexandrian Chronicle refers the beginnings of Licinius's reign to the year in which Fl. Constantinus Augustus was sole consul; the Fasti to the following year, which is noted thus: Likewise for the tenth time, and Maximian for the seventh. In this way too, to note this in passing, those Greek words, παλινδεκατον, which are read in the Alexandrian Chronicle, are to be translated, instead of what Rader rendered as Palindecato, he being forced to warn in the margin that these words are to be understood of the tenth consulship of Diocletian. In this the most learned man has certainly slipped. For if Diocletian was consul ten times, his tenth consulship falls in the year of Christ 305, as we saw above. Therefore this passage is to be understood of the tenth consulship of Maximian Herculius, who had then resumed power. But leaving aside these matters, to which we have turned our attention only in passing and as if while doing something else, let us pursue the arguments by which it can be proved that Licinius was made emperor in the three hundred and seventh year of Christ. It is certain that Constantine was made emperor after the death of his father in the year of Christ 306, at the end of the month of July. Therefore the first year of his reign ended in the same month of July of the following year. Since, moreover, Eusebius in the Chronicle places the imperial dignity of Licinius in the second year of the reign of Constantine, there is no doubt that, according to the testimony of Eusebius, its beginnings are to be referred to the end of the year 307. Finally, if the tribunician power of the emperors of that age was counted from the day on which they had obtained power, as most learned men hold, it is also confirmed from this that Licinius was made emperor in the year of Christ 307, since in the edict which Galerius, when about to die, issued in the year 311 in favour of the Christians, and which was posted up at Nicomedia on the day before the Kalends of May, the fourth year of the tribunician power of Licinius is noted, in Eusebius in the edition of Valois, and in Nicephorus. Now if you count up the years of Licinius and begin them from the month of November of the year 307, you will find without any trouble that the year 311 was the fourth of his tribunician power, and so also of his reign. And these are the things that can be said for confirming the opinion of those who think that Licinius was raised to the imperial dignity in the year 307. But against these things it can be replied that the authority of the Idatian Fasti is great, in which that event is referred to the following year, and rightly. For first, that Galerius Maximian could not have set out so hastily and precipitately into Italy with huge forces, besieged Rome and led his army back into Illyricum, in such a way that everything could be said to have been done within the space of five or six months; and so it seems more probable that Galerius's departure from Italy took place in the three hundred and eighth year. Moreover, that it is not credible that Maximian Herculius, an old man, who was at Carnuntum with Diocletian at the time when Licinius was made emperor, within the space of six months traversed Italy and the Gauls, celebrated the marriage of Constantine and Fausta, returned again into Italy after the flight of Galerius, then went again into Gaul as well, and from there set out into Pannonia to Diocletian. Finally, that in the Epitome of Victor one reads that Maximinus Daza was Caesar for four years and Augustus for three. Since, moreover, he was made Caesar in the year 305 on the Kalends of May, it follows that he was content with the name of Caesar up to the end of the year 308. Otherwise he would have been Caesar not for four years but for three, if Licinius had been made emperor in the preceding year. These things indeed seem at first sight to carry great weight. But surely, if we consider the state of the commonwealth of that time, the fierce character of Galerius,

irascible, headlong and proud, the instability and faithlessness and changeableness of Herculius, which vices indeed always drive headlong those in whom they inhere, because in the minds of men they are more powerful than the virtues, as Lactantius says in the first book of the Divine Institutes, we shall easily understand that the things which at first sight seem almost impossible could nevertheless have been done by restless men eager to retain the supreme power. For, by way of example, Illyricum, where Galerius dwelt, lies next to Italy: and so it was easy for him to come into Italy, and then to withdraw, even with an army, within that space of six months which we have mentioned: especially since we understand from Zosimus and from the author of the Fragment on Constantius Chlorus that he departed from Italy without any battle having been fought, that is, that his stay in Italy was short. As for Herculius, greedy for the empire which he had laid down unwillingly, who would wonder that he made so many journeys with such speed, when there is no doubt that he made them having cast aside all delay and slowness? He set sail from Rome, and crossing the sea, when he had reached Massilia, [went] quickly to Augusta Trevirorum, where the seat of Constantine was. All these journeys can certainly be accomplished within a month by a diligent man. Afterwards he was with Constantine for some time on the occasion of the marriage. Then he needed a second month for returning into Italy, from which he was shortly driven out. Add another month for the second setting out into the Gauls, where he did not stay long, and a month for the journey from Augusta Trevirorum as far as Carnuntum in Pannonia. It is now plain that this whole number of months agrees well enough with the space of time which elapsed from the death of Severus (for it was then that Herculius first set out into Gaul) up to the third day before the Ides of November, on which day Licinius was made emperor. Indeed I suspect that Severus was killed long before the Kalends of May, namely in the month of February. For in the old calendar which Herwart published, the birthday of Constantine is noted on the day before the Kalends of April. Whereas that most learned man thought this ought to be interpreted of the day on which he was made Caesar, I should believe it is to be understood of that day on which Maximianus Herculius proclaimed him Augustus; and that this happened in the year 307 there can, in my opinion, be no room for doubting. Therefore if Maximianus named Constantine Augustus at the end of March, then instead of the six months which we were counting from the end of Severus up to the accession of Licinius, we have nearly nine, within which it was easy for both Maximians to accomplish these courses and these travels of which we spoke earlier. Further, that the birthday of Constantine on the day before the Kalends of April cannot be referred to the day on which he was made Caesar, I think is gathered from this, that either he was made Caesar together with Severus and Maximinus, or when he had reached his father, or at any rate when he was proclaimed Caesar by Galerius. But we have already shown that he was not made Caesar together with Severus and Maximinus. Yet even if that had been done, that birthday still could not agree, since it is established that Severus and Maximinus were made Caesars not on the day before the Kalends of April but on the Kalends of May. Nor can it agree with the time at which he succeeded his father, since that took place at the end of the month of July. It would therefore agree only with that time at which Constantine was made Caesar by Galerius. But not even that will fall on the day before the Kalends of April. For it cannot be doubted that the laurelled image of Constantine was brought to Maximianus as soon as he had succeeded to the place of his father Constantius, that is, at the end of July, just as his image was immediately brought to Rome; which indeed was the occasion for Maxentius to seize the empire, as Zosimus teaches in the second book. But if at the end of July the news of the empire received by Constantine was brought to Galerius, since Lactantius does not tell us that there was any delay in sending the purple to Constantine, it is fair to believe both that he was made Caesar and that the purple was sent within the same year in which the image was brought, and so long before the month of March. And certainly it is consonant with reason that the day of his attaining the highest rank should be noted in the calendar: and if you do not refer it to the day before the Kalends of April, nowhere will a day be found noted on which

Constantine was called emperor and Augustus. As regards the authority adduced from the Epitome of Victor, it does not stand in the way of what has been said so far. For there are many things in this epitome that do not hang together, and in particular in this passage, where it assigns only seven years of rule to Maximinus, who, it is certain, reigned for eight full years and some months. Finally we must return to the tribunician power, which carries great weight in this matter. Since the most distinguished Henri de Valois understood this, he, who contends that Licinius was made emperor only in the year 308, goes so far in his annotations on Eusebius, p. 171, as to admit that the observation about the tribunician power is inconvenient for his view on the beginnings of Licinius, being forced also to push that edict, in which the fourth year of Licinius's tribunician power is recorded, back to the end of the year 311, so that he might thus find that fourth year of Licinius's tribunician power. But that conjecture collapses, since it is established from Lactantius that the edict was posted at Nicomedia on the day before the Kalends of May, and that Galerius died shortly afterwards. Therefore from that very observation of the most learned man we gather that the opinion of those who think that Licinius was created emperor in the year of Christ 307 is entirely true. From this also I think it can be confirmed that Licinius was made emperor in the year 307, because Maximian Herculius and Galerius Maximian are found to have held the consulship together in the following year, and because thereafter no war was waged against Maxentius, the son of Herculius. For the concord that afterwards existed between them must have been established at the time when Herculius and Galerius were together at Carnuntum, since we see that Galerius was then above all pondering plans for waging war against Maxentius, when he was intending to advance Licinius to the imperial summit, and that this ardour cooled at once after his promotion. But if the consulship was undertaken by Herculius and Galerius by common consent, which cannot be denied, after the friendship cemented between them at Carnuntum, since it fell in the year of Christ 308, it is plain that Licinius was made emperor at the close of the year 307. These points being thus settled, it remains for us to say something about another difficulty that arises here, namely whether Licinius was first made Caesar and afterwards Augustus, as some have held, or rather Caesar and Augustus at one and the same time, as others maintain. It is a matter that can easily be decided even by the single testimony of Lactantius, who writes that the empire and the first place after Galerius were given to Licinius, even above Maximinus, which is also confirmed by the authority of Eusebius, as we shall show shortly. Therefore that difficulty needs no fuller examination. It arose, moreover, from a misunderstood passage of Aurelius Victor, where he treats of Licinius being made Caesar and Augustus. See Scaliger in his animadversions on the Chronicle of Eusebius.

Both being present. That is, Diocletian and Maximian Herculius, as we shall say shortly. Herculius had come to Diocletian, as Zosimus says, who was staying at Carnuntum at that time, in order to urge him to resume the empire: but he had come from Gaul, as Lactantius teaches, and not from Italy, as Cluverius supposed, who in his book on Vindelicia and Noricum, chap. 5, writes, on the authority, as he himself says, of Zosimus, that Herculius set out from Lucania, a region of Italy, to Diocletian at Carnuntum, and passed through Ravenna in going and returning. Both of which claims are without doubt false. For, as I have said, Herculius set out from Gaul to Carnuntum, where he found Diocletian; and on leaving him he returned to Gaul, as can also be gathered from the panegyric which Eumenius delivered to Constantine, where he recounts the various wanderings of Herculius in their proper order in this way: The necessity of fate brought it about that he should make this return for your dutifulness, he whom, driven from the City, put to flight from Italy, rejected by Illyricum, you received into your provinces, among your forces, into your palace. Rightly so, I say. For when he wished to strip his son Maxentius and deprive him of his kingdom, he was driven out of the City, expelled from Italy, and took refuge with Constantine. Then

set out for Pannonia, a province of Illyricum, to lay a plot against Galerius; and there, having urged Diocletian, whom, as can be gathered from Eutropius, he had earlier tried in vain by letter, to take up the empire again, when he had achieved nothing by his persuasions, his plans being thwarted, as Lactantius says, he contrived a third flight and returned to Gaul. Lactantius proves that these things were done as they are read in the panegyric. Especially memorable, moreover, is the saying of Diocletian as he rejected the empire, when Herculius and Galerius were urging him to take it up again. The Epitome of Victor: When he was asked by Herculius and Galerius to take back the empire, loathing it as though it were some plague, he answered in this fashion: Would that you could see at Salona the vegetables planted by our own hands. Surely you would never judge that this should be attempted. And so from this passage of Lactantius we have what we did not know before, the year in which Herculius set out to Diocletian, namely the one in which Licinius was made emperor. For the rest, it should be observed here that Arnaud de Pontac, Bishop of Bazas, in his notes on the Chronicle of Eusebius, p. 678, and Joseph Scaliger in the fifth book of De emendatione temporum, p. 497 of the latest edition, were mistaken where, refuting Zosimus, who had said that Diocletian was met by Herculius at Carnuntum, a town of the Celts, they say that this is false, since Diocletian after abdicating the empire never set foot in Gaul, nay, did not set foot outside Salona in Dalmatia. The first part of the observation is true, namely that Diocletian never set foot in Gaul after abdicating the empire. But nevertheless he was at Carnuntum in Pannonia, where Herculius met him. And that he set foot outside Salona is clear from his reply, which we reported a little earlier: Would that you could see at Salona the vegetables. For if he had been at Salona at the time when he was saying this, there was no place for this exclamation. He was therefore far away from Salona. Even more gravely errs that most learned man Jean Morin in the second part of his book De Ecclesia per Constantinum liberata, ch. 1, pp. 126, 129, and ch. 3, p. 153, where he writes that Maximian Herculius wrote to Diocletian things which, as we have already seen, were spoken, not written, and he invents a long letter written to him, of which no trace exists among the ancients, and says that Diocletian, after receiving that letter, deigned to answer it briefly with the reply which we reported from the Epitome of Victor. These things being thus established, we must see whether what was said by that most distinguished man Adrien de Valois in the first book of his Res Francicae, p. 22, about the departure of Maximian Herculius into Illyricum and about his leaving can be true. He says, then, that Herculius, when he saw that all the provinces of the Roman Empire were held by Galerius, Maximinus, Maxentius and Constantine, and that there was thus nowhere for him to take his stand, and that without provinces and without an army he could not maintain the imperial dignity any longer, gave up the empire a second time, after he had retained the insignia of rule for about two years; and, since he knew that he was hated by Maxentius and his soldiers, he asked Galerius that he, having been driven by his son out of the City and Italy, might be allowed to spend the rest of his life as a private man in Illyricum; and that, being refused by Galerius, in the second year after his own tenth consulship and Galerius's seventh, under the pretext of a courtesy, as if for the sake of visiting Constantine his son-in-law, he set out for Gaul, pretending that he had been driven out by Maxentius. For these are entirely the words of that most distinguished man. First, what he says cannot stand, that Herculius gave up the empire before he set out for Illyricum, since Lactantius teaches that this was done by him after he had returned from Illyricum to Constantine. Next, it is certain that he set out to Galerius within the first year of his resumed rule, and not after he had retained the insignia of rule for about two years. For he took up the purple again at the end of the year of Christ 306, and set out for Illyricum in the following year, in the month of October at the latest. As for his saying that he asked Galerius to be allowed to spend the rest of his life as a private man in Illyricum, since I find this in no one else, I think that Valois drew it by paraphrase from those words of Eumenius,

where it is read that Herculius was rejected by Illyricum, as if he could not have been rejected in any other way than by being denied a dwelling in Illyricum. But the true sense of the words of Eumenius, as I at least judge, must be this: that he is said to have been rejected by Illyricum because there, as we have said, he could not by his persuasions bring it about that Diocletian should resume the imperial power. Nor indeed did that rejection take place in the second year after the tenth consulship of Herculius, that is, in the year of Christ 310, as Valesius supposes, but immediately after the imperial dignity was conferred on Licinius. For Lactantius writes of his departure from Illyricum as of a desperate flight, and so of a departure by sudden and headlong setting-out. Lastly, Valesius narrates the return of Herculius to Constantine as though he had not yet seen Constantine after his expulsion from the city of Rome, and so had not complained to him of his son's cruelty towards him; whereas we know for certain from Lactantius that Herculius, a fugitive from Rome, came first into Gaul to Constantine, and from there into Illyricum to Galerius and Diocletian, and, rejected by the latter, returned into Gaul to Constantine.

Both being present. That is, Diocletian and Maximian Herculius. One thing here presents itself for examination: whether the presence of these men is to be taken as consent, especially since these things were being done by Galerius, a man exceedingly obstinate and proud, and one accustomed to make his requests as it were with drawn sword; and whether that consent is in turn to be extended to the others in whose hands the power of the state lay. For Eusebius seems to say this, book 8, chapter 13: "And Licinius, in addition to these, was proclaimed emperor and Augustus by the common vote of those in power." Interpreters have rendered this passage in various senses. Rufinus indeed translates it thus: "But Licinius too, admitted to the empire by the common judgement of all, is proclaimed Augustus." Musculus: "But Licinius also is created emperor and Augustus by the common judgement of the potentates." Christophorson: "Licinius next is declared emperor and Augustus by the common vote and consent of those in whose hands the supreme power lay." Finally Valesius: "Licinius was declared emperor and Augustus by the common vote of the emperors." Rufinus, then, leaves it ambiguous whom he wishes to be understood. Nor does Musculus explain himself more clearly, leaving it uncertain what he means by the word "potentates". But Christophorson and Valesius openly declare that it was done by the common vote of the emperors, or of those in whose hands the supreme power lay. Yet this interpretation involves a great deal of difficulty. For since that council was undertaken hastily by Galerius, as is evident, the shortness of time did not allow the consent of the Caesars who were in the provinces to be sought; and this was not Galerius's way. Moreover, it can be gathered with certainty from Eusebius and Lactantius, as we shall say later, that neither Maximinus nor Constantine was consulted. Nor likewise is it probable that the consent of Maxentius was sought, against whom war was being prepared. It remains, therefore, that this passage of Eusebius be understood of the Emperors, namely of Diocletian, the veteran king, of Maximian Herculius, who had then resumed the imperial power, and of Galerius Maximian. For these three were then at Carnuntum when Licinius was made Augustus. Therefore what Eusebius says here is not true in every respect, that Licinius was made emperor and Augustus by the common consent of those who then held the state.

There were six. Namely Maximian Herculius, Galerius Maximian, Maximinus surnamed Daia or Daza, Constantine, Maxentius and Licinius.

His son-in-law. Constantine, who a little before had married Fausta, the younger daughter of the elder Maximian; namely in the same year in which Severus was killed and Licinius was made emperor. The panegyric of an unknown author delivered to Maximian and Constantine at the wedding of Fausta: "O that divine judgement of yours, Maximian, who willed that this man, by right of adoption your grandson, by rank of majesty your son, should also be your son-in-law!"

The son of his son-in-law. For Constantius, the father of Constantine, having put away Helena as he had been ordered, married Theodora, whom some report to have been the daughter of Herculius, others his stepdaughter.

He lays down the royal garment. That is, the purple; and so he returned once again to private life. Hadrianus Valesius, in the first book of his Frankish History, p. 21, writes that this was done by Herculius before he set out for Illyricum, that is, at the end of the year 307. But Lactantius is against this opinion, for he expressly assigns Herculius's second abdication to a later time; yet he does not state the year. It is probable, however, that it was done not very long after he had returned to Constantine from Illyricum, that is, at the beginning of the year 308, when he himself was consul for the tenth time and Maximian for the seventh. For thereafter no mention of his misdeeds is made until the year 310, in which he perished; and, though he was a man most eager to mark the years by his consulships, he is not found to have been consul thereafter.

A part of the soldiers having been left behind. In the power of his father-in-law Maximian. But the faithless man incited them to revolt. A witness, besides Lactantius, is Eumenius, in the panegyric which he later delivered to Constantine, where, after saying that Maximian had perjured himself towards his son-in-law, he at once adds: "This is the faith, this the piety devoted to the inner chambers of the palace sanctuary: that slowly and hesitantly, already, of course, with those plans of war, once the march was completed and the stores of the halting-stations used up, so that no army could follow, he should suddenly sit down within the walls clad in purple, and for a third time usurp the imperial power twice laid down, send letters to incite the armies, try to unsettle the soldiers' loyalty by the display of rewards, intending, of course, to make free use of an army which he had taught to have hands for sale." Livineius says the sense of this passage is that Maximianus Herculius is to be understood to have resumed the purple at Arles, when, driven from the City, put to flight from Italy and rejected by Illyricum, he was taken in by Constantine. Rightly indeed, as far as the history is concerned. But I do not know where he found that these things were done at Arles. For Eumenius does not say this, but only that he shut himself up in the city of Arles, to which Constantine's army pursued him, and that from there he afterwards fled to Marseilles. To me it seems certain that Herculius resumed the purple, which he had twice laid down, in the very city of Trier, or not far from it. This I think I gather from these words of Lactantius, where he says that a few days after Constantine had set out against the Franks, having seized the public treasury, he suddenly assumed the purple, supposing that Constantine had entered the territory of the barbarians. For the frontier of the Franks was about the Danube. And the public treasury, which Herculius then seized, could not have been anywhere but in the Emperor's palace, that is, in the city of Trier. Therefore Herculius could not have resumed the purple within a few days at Arles, which lies at a great distance from Trier.

Which did not befit him. Eumenius in the panegyric of Constantine: "While you were intent on such matters for the public advantage and dignity, the new disturbances of that man turned you aside against himself, whom it would have most befitted to favour your successes."

Chapter XXX.

She reports it to her husband. Eutropius, book 10: "So, the plot having been uncovered through his daughter Fausta, who had disclosed the treachery to her husband, Herculius fled to Marseilles; and, overpowered there, he paid the penalty by a most just end." Eutropius is mistaken. For Herculius had fled to Marseilles before he contrived this treachery, as is clear from Lactantius. Zosimus erred still more gravely, saying that Herculius, because Fausta had forestalled his attempt and had disclosed the whole matter to Constantine, was brought to despair of everything and died of disease at Tarsus. Here, evidently, he confused Maximian with Maximin, who held the East and who, driven out by Licinius, at last died at Tarsus in Cilicia, as will be noted below. But neither of them explained the treachery, which they seem to have referred to the seizure of the imperial power. Eucherius alone, bishop of Lyons, in the history of the Martyrs of Agaunum, noted that Maximianus Herculius laid a plot against Constantine,

so as to take his life. "When, having laid an ambush," he says, "he was plotting death for his son-in-law Constantine, who then held the kingdom, his deceit was detected; he was captured at Massilia, and not long afterwards strangled, and, having suffered this most foul punishment, he ended an impious life with a fitting death." Quite rightly, and in agreement with Lactantius. Eusebius, moreover, mentions this treachery of Herculius, and then his death, in the first book of the Life of Constantine, chapter 47, writing that one of those who had abdicated the empire, when he was preparing an ambush for the killing of Constantine, was detected and perished by a most shameful kind of death. Thus Eusebius, plainly indicating Maximian Herculius. But since Eusebius immediately relates that the images and statues of the man who he writes perished in this way were thrown down everywhere in the world, and since he describes this death a long interval after the chapter in which he dealt with the overthrow of Maxentius, Valesius in his Annotations went so far as to think that the passage of Eusebius is corrupt, and ought to be emended so that Maximinus is understood here, who was made Caesar together with Severus. For Maximinus perished after the victory which Constantine won over Maxentius, and indeed by a most shameful kind of death, as he says can be gathered from Eusebius, books eight and nine. And this the most learned man noted on this passage; but I think it conflicts with the truth of history. For, first, it is certain that Eusebius is speaking of one of those who had abdicated the empire. This cannot be understood of anyone other than Maximian Herculius, who held the second place in the empire and abdicated together with Diocletian. It can by no means be said of Maximinus, who is nowhere read to have abdicated. Next, the man of whom Eusebius speaks was put to death when he had been caught preparing an ambush for the killing of Constantine. That this story must be referred to Herculius is no less certain than it is certain that Constantine was attacked by the plots of Herculius; which both Lactantius in this book and the rest of the historians report with one consent. Indeed, the images of both were thrown down after their death, as is evident from Eusebius. Further, the account of the slaughter of Maxentius, which precedes the history of the death of Herculius, does not stand in the way of this opinion at all. For Eusebius (as Socrates observes at the beginning of his history), in the books which he composed on the imperial life of Constantine, touched on most things only in passing: since, as is usual in encomia, he was more concerned to weave together the praises of the emperor and a panegyrical oration than to record his deeds accurately. But in the eighth book of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 13, where he follows the order of time, and where he relates these same things about Maximian which are read also in the Life of Constantine, he shows that they cannot and should not be taken of anyone other than Herculius, since at the very beginning of the following chapter he says that Maxentius, of whom he had spoken earlier, was his son.

A stage-play is composed. In the manuscript is read "schena". The emendation was easy. In Tacitus, Annals book 13, Agrippina, the mother of Nero, speaks thus: "Now through the concubine Atimetus and the actor Paris he composes fables as if for the stage." The Acts of the purgation of Felix, bishop of Aptunga: "Always thus has falsehood been worked through terror, through stage-play, through an irreligious mind, by those who refused to agree with the catholic religion."

The vows of twenty years. That is, the vicennalia, which he celebrated with Diocletian at Rome.

With his throat crushed. The Epitome of Victor: "Maximian Herculius, besieged by Constantine at Massilia, then captured, paid the penalty by the lowest kind of death, his neck broken by a noose." Orosius, book 7, chapter 28: "Herculius Maximian set out for Gaul, in order to take the empire from his son-in-law Constantine, being joined to him likewise by guile; but he was detected and betrayed through his daughter, then put to flight, and was overpowered and killed at Massilia." All the historians, however, go astray at this point, and are brought back onto the road by Lactantius. Worst of all Suidas, who writes that Diocletian was slain by the Senate, but that Maximian hanged himself. This death of Maximian Herculius, moreover, is said in the Idatian Fasti to have occurred in the second year after the seventeenth consulship, which corresponds with the year of Christ

310. But Maximian was not killed by Constantine on account of the purple assumed a third time, as that most learned man Hadrianus Valesius thought, but because, after violating his oath, after stirring up civil war, after tampering with the soldiers, he had at last wished to kill Constantine, and would have killed him, had he had Fausta consenting with him.

Chapter XXXI.

The other Maximian. Galerius, surnamed Armentarius.

The author of the persecution. So too Eusebius in the first book of the Life of Constantine, ch. 58; Rufinus, book 8, ch. 15: 'But he who was second to him in honour, and afterwards also his successor among the foremost, who had also been the instigator and standard-bearer of our persecution.' And ch. 28: 'For divine vengeance seized the very author of the crime.' The fragment on Constantius Chlorus, p. 472: 'Then Galerius made Licinius Caesar in Illyricum. Then, leaving him in Pannonia, he himself returned to Serdica and, seized by a great disease, so wasted away that he died with his bowels laid open and putrefying, the most just penalty coming back upon the author of the wicked command in punishment for a most unjust persecution.' See Lactantius above, ch. 1 and following. In vain therefore does Scaliger, in his Animadversions on the Chronicle of Eusebius, say that Galerius Maximian never persecuted the Christians, since he was a good and praiseworthy prince, an outstanding and brave warrior. And here Petavius rightly rebukes him in book 11 of the Doctrine of Times, ch. 34, and book 13, p. 714.

Even the might of majesty. In this place some letters are missing in the old copy, in which it reads thus: ut in eo et... im majestatis ostenderet. From the traces of the letters that have perished we have conjectured that it should be read as this edition has it. And Lactantius himself confirms our conjecture, whose words in the first book of the Divine Institutes, ch. 3, are these: 'What of the fact that that supreme power over things and divine might cannot be divided even once?' And book 3, ch. 17: 'They did not understand the might and majesty of the true God.' Elsewhere he said virtus ('power') for vis ('might'); as in book 4, ch. 26: 'to interpret the power and majesty of the one God.' And book 6, ch. 9: 'recounts the power and majesty of the one God.'

On celebrating the vicennalia. After the example of Diocletian, whose imitation he so affected that he even thought at one time of laying down the empire. But nevertheless he did not celebrate the vicennalia, being cut off before the time for celebrating them arrived.

Not having leave. At first we had published: Veniam non habentibus nullas abstinendi multiplicis cruciatus. But although it is written exactly so in the archetype, I do not doubt that the reading which we now establish is the true one.

How tolerable these things. This passage reads thus in the old codex: Quae quam tolerabilia sint, eripi a labore hominum cibos labore questos. The last part we have restored correctly, I think. The former we have not dared to disturb, although we once thought that one could substitute: Quanquam intolerabile sit ('although it be intolerable'). Sparke says it should be written thus: Quae cum intolerabilia sint ('since these things are intolerable'). Columbus preferred our conjecture.

Vow. So they called the festivals in which vows were undertaken for the safety and long life of the princes, that, just as they were celebrating the vicennalia, for example, so the gods might grant that they should celebrate the tricennalia. But there is no need for me to say more on this subject, since two most learned men, Charles du Fresne and Henry Noris, have recently treated this matter abundantly; the former in the dissertation on the coins of the lower age, which was published after the third volume of the Glossary; the latter in the chronological dissertation on the decennial vows, which was published together with the dissertation on the coins of Diocletian and Licinius. See also Casaubon's notes on Spartianus.

Which he was not going to celebrate. This passage is of great moment, since from it it is certainly gathered that Galerius Maximian did not reach the twentieth year of his reign.

Chapter XXXII.

Maximinus angered. Eusebius, book 8, chapter 13, after saying that Licinius had been made both emperor and Augustus, adds: Which indeed Maximinus bore very ill, who until then had been called by all only Caesar. This man, therefore, endowed beyond the rest with a tyrannical disposition, was proclaimed Augustus by himself.

He sends therefore. Galerius [sends] to Maximinus, to appease him.

Let him keep his arrangement. Because he had made Licinius, his old comrade and partner in victory, Emperor of the second rank.

Let him defer to grey hairs. This is said on account of Galerius, who was an old man. For that it cannot be understood of Licinius is clear from this, that when he died he was not yet sixty. The Epitome of Victor: This Licinius, in about the fifteenth year of his rule, close to the sixtieth of his life, is killed. In the Idatian Fasti he is said to have been killed under the consulship of Paulinus and Julianus, which falls in the year 325. He died, moreover, towards the end of the year. In the fragment on Constantius Chlorus he is said to have reigned 19 years, leaving a son and a wife surviving him. Which is not true in every respect. For from the end of the year 307 up to the year 324, in which, defeated by Constantine, he returned to private life in the month of October, only 17 years are counted. But if in the year 324, when he was in the seventeenth year of his rule, he had not yet reached the sixtieth year of his age, it is then established that he was made emperor at about the fortieth year of his age. Therefore what is said here about grey hairs cannot be referred to him.

He removes the name of the Caesars. Not indeed so as to abolish the name of the Caesars, which the emperors always retained, but so that those who were adopted in hope of the empire should thenceforth abstain from it, and thus Maximinus would be excluded. This I think to be the sense of this passage. On the other hand Antoine Pagi, a man distinguished by the praise of religion and learning, in his consular dissertation, p. 138, thinks the sense of Lactantius's words to be otherwise, and that they are to be referred to Galerius Maximinus surnamed Daia, and not to Galerius Maximianus. But Johannes Columbus, in his annotations on this passage, says he is surprised that Antoine Pagi takes these things of Maximianus Daia, since the sequence of the words and the matter itself show that they are to be understood of Galerius Maximianus: for he, who was already a veteran, could not be called insubordinate towards the novice emperor Maximinus, since insubordination is that of an inferior towards a superior. I, for my part, judge that in this place Pagi has rightly been censured by Columbus.

Maxentius. Either I am much mistaken, or the name of Maxentius has been wrongly put here, as in the Alexandrian Chronicle, in place of Maximinus. For amid these events there is no mention of Maxentius, whom Galerius Maximianus his father-in-law hated, and whom a little before he had attacked in war as a public enemy. But the most distinguished Johannes Columbus retains the name of Maxentius in this place, but adds the name of Maximinus Daia, which he thinks was omitted by a drowsy copyist, and says that the four emperors named a little later are Licinius, Maximinus, Maxentius and Constantine. To me it seems much more likely that this passage should be understood thus, that we should say those four whom Galerius ordered to be named emperors are these: namely, first Galerius himself, as was fitting, then Licinius, next Maximinus, lastly Constantine. For, as I said before, there was then no mention of Maxentius; and it is certain that Maximinus could not have been passed over. For he had a strong army.

Constantine son of Aug. From this passage especially I gather that Constantine's consent was not sought when Licinius was made emperor. For it is not probable that he who had been called emperor and Augustus by Herculius, who was son and son-in-law of Augusti, a man moreover proven in warfare, commander of the bravest armies, and distinguished by many victories, would have suffered a new man to be preferred to himself. And indeed I do not know whether these things turned out so in every respect. For in the edict of the year 311, where three emperors are named,

the name of Galerius, indeed, as the senior emperor, is put in the first place, then that of Constantine, and finally, last of all, that of Licinius. This indicates that his dignity met with some opposition from Constantine, and that this was settled in no other way than by relegating Licinius to the third place.

That he had been named Augustus. Remarkable, and wholly in accord with this writing of Lactantius, is a passage of Rufinus from book 9, chapter 5, where, speaking of the same Maximinus, he says: And although he was free to do everything according to his own will, since he had already arrogated to himself even the conceded dignity of Augustus, he nevertheless wishes to seem to do these things for some just reasons. Eusebius confirms it, in book 8, chapter 13, where, having said that Licinius had been declared emperor and Augustus, he adds: This indeed Maximinus bore very ill, who until then was called only Caesar by all. He therefore, endowed beyond the rest with a tyrannical character, was proclaimed Augustus by himself.

Chapter XXXIII.

The eighteenth year. This is the year of Christ 310, as the time of the death of Galerius shows. For since he began to be ill in the 18th year of his reign, and was ill for a whole year without interruption, and died in the year 311, in the month of May, it is plain that the eighteenth year of his reign coincides with the year of Christ 310.

With an incurable plague. Lactantius, Institutes book 7, chapter 15: God struck Egypt with an incurable plague.

In the lower part of the genitals. See Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History book 8, chapter 16, and book 1 of the Life of Constantine, chapter 57; Rufinus, book 8, chapter 18; the Fragment on Constantine Chlorus, page 472, and Orosius, book 7, chapter 28.

The scar already formed (inductam jam cic.). In the manuscript codex is read: But, the scar being already formed, he tears open the wound (Sed inducta jam cicatrice, scindit vulnus). From this we had at first conjectured: But the wound tears open the scar already formed (Sed inductam jam cicatricem scindit vulnus). Now, however, we see that the reading of the old book should be retained; but for scindit, scinditur should be substituted. Our author, Institutes book 6, chapter 24: To pour ruin upon wounds torn open again. A little after, the lacuna, as we formerly noted, may perhaps be filled thus: Wounded again by a slight movement of the body. Where Columbus says that vulnerato ought to be read.

Asclepius. So also in Institutes book 3, chapter 19: He feared, namely, that before Rhadamanthus as judge he would be held liable for his vow by Asclepius. For this is the reading of the most ancient copies of Lactantius, whereas in the common editions is read, by Aesculapius (ab Aesculapio). A little above, in the same place, it was printed pro se sacrarent. Better, as I think, the royal codex 3735, prosecrarent. So too the codex 3736 of the same library had at first. But afterwards the syllable sa was added above the line. And so the common edition was established. Below, book 4, chapter 27: The same demons instigating, to whom they sacrifice (prosecrant).

Worms are bred within. See Eusebius, book 8, chapter 16, and Orosius, book 7, chapter 28. An altogether similar story about Julian, who was the uncle of the Apostate, is told by St John Chrysostom in the oration on Saint Babylas, by Sozomen, book 5, chapter 8, and by Theodoret, book 3, chapter 13.

Odoritatem. It is certain that this passage is corrupt. Therefore I had conjectured that it could be restored thus: Odor teter non modo per palatium (a foul smell not only through the palace). Sparke then, by an easier emendation, as he himself says, thinks it should be read: Odor autem (but the smell). Cuper: Odoritas tetra (a foul smelliness). Columbus: Odor ita teter (a smell so foul). What if one were to restore: Odoris diritas (the dreadfulness of the smell)?

He was compelled to confess God. Memorable is what Rufinus relates at this point, book 8, chapter 18. I shall give his words: Finally, he says, he orders most of the physicians to be killed, because they could neither bring any cure to the disease nor endure the force of the stench. Among these, when one stood by rather to have his throat cut than to heal, he, inspired by God, said: Why, emperor, do you err, and think that what God inflicts can be revoked by men? This disease is not human, nor is it cured by physicians. But remember how much you have done against the servants of God, and how impious and profane you have shown yourself towards the divine religion, and you will understand

whence the remedies are to be sought for you. For I too shall be able to die with the rest; but you will not be cured by the physicians. Then for the first time Maximian understood that he was a man, etc. Orosius summarized the same story briefly, book 8, chapter 28, and from him the author of the Historia miscella, book 11. But Eutychius in his Annals relates that Maximian of his own accord perceived and said that he was suffering these things because he had killed Christians, and that he sent letters into all his provinces that the Christians who were in prison should be released. Yet the same writer errs gravely in this, that he writes that he recovered from this disease through the prayers of the Christians, and afterwards, having fallen to a greater degree of impiety than before, ordered the Christians everywhere to be killed and utterly extirpated. This error befell him from confusing the names of Maximian and Maximin, while he attributes to one what is established to have been done by two. Sethus Calvisius is also mistaken, who thinks that the ten years' persecution came to rest at that time, after that edict and the death of Galerius, when it was only the eighth year of the persecution, as we said above.

He sent an edict. It survives in Eusebius, book 8, chapter 17, translated by him from the Latin tongue into Greek speech, and then turned from the Greek into Latin by Rufinus, as he himself informs us: These things, turned from Latin into Greek, we have poured back again into Latin. That therefore we read today the original Latin is owed to Lactantius.

Chapter XXXIV.

To bring back to good minds. Lactantius, book 5, chapter 19, perhaps with an eye to this edict: But this very ignorance brings it about that they are so wicked in persecuting the wise, and pretend that they are looking to their interests, that they wish to bring them back to a good mind. The Acts of Saints Saturninus, Dativus and Felix, chapter 7: You ought to have brought the others back to a good mind, and not to act against the commands of the emperors and Caesars.

That they did not follow the old institutions. He reproaches the Christians for having fallen away from that ancient simplicity of their forefathers. Eusebius indeed, book 8, chapter 1, describing the calamitous state of the Church of that age (the envies, the detractions, as it were civil wars among Christians, the contests of bishops against bishops, and the other things which roused the wrath of God against them), says that from this arose the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian against the Church. See also Rufinus, the same book, chapter 1, and Lactantius at the beginning of the book On the Workmanship of God.

We are going to signify. Rufinus wrongly has we have indicated, narrating the matter as though already accomplished, whereas it refers to the future. Nor is this to be ascribed to an error of the printers, since three old manuscript codices of the Colbert library show this reading. Christophorson and Valesius rightly translated we shall signify.

And their own. Rufinus omitted these words, which others have rightly restored.

In their dwellings. Rufinus translated in their homes, as is read in one Colbert codex. But the others and the editions have in their labours. Christophorson translated in their households; Valesius, in their domiciles.

Chapter XXXV.

It is posted up at Nicomedia. Galerius Augustus being absent, that is, who lay sick at Sardica. Therefore what the most learned Henri Valois says in his annotations on Eusebius, page 171, cannot be true, that this edict was issued after the beginning of the year 311, before the month of March. For the years of the emperor Galerius began from the Kalends of March.

He himself consul for the eighth time and Maximin for the second. In the Fasti Maximian is called consul for the eighth time, alone. This is also reported by the unknown author on the consuls, and also by the author on the Roman pontiffs, cited by Cuspinian. But here Maximin is added, for the second time. This is very surprising, especially since no mention is anywhere made of his first consulship. Yet it is not permissible to doubt that he was consul for the second time, since there survives a most clear testimony of Lactantius about it.

The prisons having been opened. Rufinus, book 9, chapter 1: Judges

moreover, sending edicts through the individual cities and putting forward the law, order that all who were held in prison be released, and that those who were kept in the mines or in any bonds whatever should all depart free.

His wife. Valeria, the daughter of Diocletian. She, however, did not remain at the court of Licinius, because of his ferocity, but fled to Maximinus, where she was treated very badly, as we shall see below, ch. 39.

His son. Candidianus, of whom mention was made above, ch. 20.

Consumed by a horrible wasting. Rufinus, book 8, ch. 15, says that Galerius was afflicted with so many and such various diseases, and with wasting of the body and madness of the mind, that after long and inextricable sufferings, driven by the furies of his crimes, he of his own accord gave up his wicked life, that is, as Orosius explains in chapter 28 of the seventh book, he laid violent hands on his own life. But these things are not true. He died, moreover, in the year of Christ 311, in which he had entered upon the nineteenth year of his reign. For so it is gathered first of all from Lactantius, a most illustrious witness. For since it is established from chapter 33 that Galerius began to be ill in the eighteenth year of his reign, and that his disease lasted for a whole year, and that afterwards, failing, he sent an edict in the following year that Christians should be permitted to worship God publicly, and that he died when the vicennalia were already about to take place, the Kalends of March being at hand, it is clear that he did not reach the twentieth year of his reign, but died in the nineteenth year. Aurelius Victor agrees with Lactantius in the book On the Caesars, where he says that Galerius held the power of a Caesar for thirteen years and held the empire for five years. "To him," he says, "the empire was of five years, to Constantius of one year, since indeed each had held the power of the Caesars for thirteen years." This is confirmed by the authority of Eutropius at the beginning of the ninth book, and from the Alexandrian Chronicle, p. 651, where it is written that Constantius, who was made Caesar together with Galerius and was named Augustus on the same day as Galerius, died at York in Britain in the thirteenth year of his principate, that is, when it was completed, since he had entered upon the fourteenth some months before. But above, ch. 17, we proved that Diocletian and Maximian laid down the empire in the year of Christ 305, on the Kalends of May. Therefore he who was then a Caesar of thirteen years' standing had been adopted in the year of Christ 293, on the Kalends of March. If you add five years, or rather six years, of reign, you will easily find that the number of nineteen years results, during which it is gathered from Lactantius that he reigned. For the author of the fragment on Constantius Chlorus too, p. 492, records that the same Galerius reigned nineteen years. When the most distinguished Henri de Valois saw this, and was persuaded that he had reigned for twenty-one years, he interpreted the passage of the fragment in such a way as to say that Galerius reigned nineteen whole and full years, but in addition two half-full or hollow ones. Indeed in the constitution which Lactantius has transcribed above, which was issued shortly before his death, he calls himself "imperator for the 19th time" in Eusebius and Rufinus. I know that the same most learned man, whom I named a little before, interprets these things so that in this place the word Imperator does not signify the Augustan dignity; for it signifies one thing in the titles of emperors when it is put in the first place, and another when it is appended to the other titles. For the word imperator, when it is put in the second place, designates the victory of the emperors, and shows how many times, after a victory won, the emperors were acclaimed by the army, as Dio teaches. Nor indeed would I wish to dispute here against this interpretation of the most distinguished man. I wished only to point out that Galerius is named "imperator for the 19th time" in the title of that edict. Galerius died, moreover, as can be gathered from Lactantius, in the month of May at Sardica. But Onofrio Panvinio, in his commentary on the second book of the Fasti, records that he died about the month of September. Sigonius does better in the second book On the Western Empire, where he writes that Galerius departed this life not long after the 11th day before the Kalends of May. In this, however, he errs, that Licinius at that time, in the empire,

[was made] a partner and named Augustus at Carnuntum by Galerius, he supposes, when Galerius saw himself unfit for carrying on the government. For that was not the reason for taking Licinius into partnership in the empire; rather it was so that he might rest upon more supports, and that he might make use of him in the war against Maxentius. Next, that event did not take place in the last days of Galerius, but four years earlier, as has been shown above. The occasion for committing this error was that most of the ancients write that the death of Galerius followed after the imperial dignity had been conferred on Licinius. Eutropius, book 10: About this time Licinius was made emperor by Galerius; a native of Dacia, known to him through long-standing familiarity, and in the war which he had waged against Narseus well regarded for his vigorous labours and services. The death of Galerius followed immediately. Zosimus, book 2: Maximianus Galerius creates Licinius emperor, his intimate from their fellowship in earlier times, because he intended by his help to pursue Maxentius in war. After Galerius, while turning over these plans, had exchanged life for death from an incurable wound, Licinius too claimed the empire for himself. Orosius too, book 7, chapter 28, and the author of the Fragment on Constantius Chlorus, page 472, describe this history in such a way that the death of Galerius follows immediately after the elevation of Licinius. And Aurelius Victor, who says that Licinius was made emperor before Galerius went into Italy, writes that he was consumed by a pestilent wound shortly after he had departed from Italy. And in the Epitome of Victor: This Licinius is slain after about the fifteenth year of his rule; reckoning, that is, from the death of Galerius. And Socrates, book 1, chapter 2, says that Maximianus departed this life after he had first created Licinius emperor. Following these guides, then, Sigonius erred, and Morinus followed him.

Of the same month. That is, of May.

On the Kalends of March. For on that day Galerius Maximianus had been made Caesar together with Constantius, and so the years of his reign always began on the Kalends of March, and the vicennalia were due to be celebrated on the Kalends of March of the coming year, which was to be the twentieth of his reign. The Idatian Fasti, under the consuls Tiberianus and Dio: In that year Constantius and Maximianus were raised as Caesars on the day of the Kalends of March. The panegyric of Eumenius addressed to Constantius: O Kalends of March, as once you were the auspices of the vowing years, so now of the eternal emperors! But here again a difficulty arises concerning the years of the reign. For if it is true that Galerius was made Caesar under the consulship of Tiberianus and Dio, and that their consulship coincides with the year of Christ 311, as is commonly supposed, it will be established that he died at the beginning of the 21st year of his reign. But since the arguments drawn from Lactantius cannot be contradicted, some way must be sought by which we may extricate ourselves from these difficulties. And indeed it is certain that those excellent Idatian Fasti are not free from blemishes and errors, as could easily be proved.

Chapter XXXVI.

While Licinius delayed. He was then in Dacia Mediterranea at Sardica, or not far off. For Galerius had died there.

The strait of Chalcedon. Maximinus therefore wished to establish this as the boundary of the Eastern empire, so that Bithynia too, as far as Chalcedon, would lie within it, while the provinces beyond the strait of Chalcedon would belong to the Western empire, so that the seat of the empire, which was then at Nicomedia, would belong to him, who had been made Caesar first, and not to Licinius.

Bithynia. In the old manuscript one reads Bhyaniam. That the emendation is certain is proved, first, by the journey of Maximinus, who was hastening from the East to Chalcedon; and next by Maximinus himself, who in the letter written the following year to Sabinus, which Eusebius quotes, shows that he had been at Nicomedia the previous year. When the previous year, he says, I had happily entered Nicomedia, the citizens of that city approached me while I was staying there. Hence it has rightly been observed by Henri Valois in his Annotations on Eusebius, page 185 and following, that Maximinus, on the death of Galerius,

occupied Asia and Bithynia, which Galerius had kept for himself together with Illyricum and Thrace.

Opposite banks. That is, Maximinus, as is evident, held the bank of Bithynia, Licinius the opposite one, on which Byzantium stands.

A treaty on the strait itself. Without doubt in the narrows of the Thracian Bosporus, between Byzantium and Chalcedon. And that Bithynia indeed passed into the jurisdiction and dominion of Maximinus is gathered from the martyrdom of Saint Lucian of Antioch, which Eusebius relates, book 9, chapter 6.

Indulgence. That is, peace, a cessation of persecution. Above, chapter 34, in the edict: We have thought that our indulgence should be extended: a word which Rufinus and Valesius rightly kept in their versions, and Christopherson wrongly omitted. Lactantius in the book On the Anger of God, chapter 20: If indulgence should come to us from heaven. The Acts of the saints Saturninus, Dativus and Felix, chapter 13: Whoever among you wishes to attain indulgence, so that he may be saved, let him confess. Optatus of Milevis in the first book: The storm of persecution was spent and ended. At God's command, Maxentius sending indulgence, liberty was restored to the Christians. St Augustine frequently uses this word against the Donatists, when he speaks of the rescripts of the princes by which they had granted freedom for their doctrine to those same Donatists.

Communi tutelo. It is certain that the matter here is the edict which was issued at the very end of Galerius's time in favour of the Christians. He said communi tutelo for "by common consent". I have not found this word elsewhere. Perhaps it is corrupt. That most learned man and my very great friend Jean-Baptiste Cotelier, whom we lately lost to the great loss of letters and of the Church, in volume 3 of the Monuments of the Greek Church, page 662, judges that titulo should be restored. The same is the opinion of Cuper and of Columbus. Sparke, however, writes tutela instead, noting meanwhile that a certain learned man of his acquaintance thinks titulo should be read. That most learned man Charles du Fresne du Cange thinks that titulo should by all means be read: rightly. For Lactantius is referring to the constitution issued in chapter 34, which, according to the custom then accepted, was headed with the names of Galerius Maximianus and Maximinus Daza, that is, under a common title.

Suborned embassies. Eusebius explains these things at greater length, book 9, chapter 2, saying that the beginning was made by the people of Antioch: But others too, says Rufinus, the worst citizens in every city, he likewise drives to a similar crime, and arranges that an embassy of this kind be sent from all the provinces. I have quoted these words because they are plainer than Eusebius's Greek.

High priests. These things are confirmed by Eusebius, book 8, chapter 14, and book 9, chapter 4. See Valesius's annotations on the same Eusebius, page 169.

Adorned with white cloaks. Eusebius, in the passages just mentioned, does note that ornaments were added for the priests appointed throughout the provinces by Maximinus, which he restricts to a military escort, that is, to lictors and attendants: on which matter see Valesius's annotations. But Lactantius adds that he ordered those pontiffs who were over the provinces to go about adorned with white cloaks. Now I take the chlamys here for the paludamentum, as in Nonius, or that kind of white tunic, sometimes bordered with gold, which only the ministers of the emperors used; on which Salmasius says more in his Notes on Lampridius, page 241. So Maximinus shared the garments of the palace ministers with the high pontiffs whom he appointed throughout the provinces. And from this, perhaps, will be explained that passage of Trebellius Pollio in the Divine Claudius, Two cloaks bordered with true light, where Salmasius interprets "true light" of the purple colour.

He ordered them to be maimed. See Eusebius, book 8, chapter 12, and in the first book On the Life of Constantine, chapter 58, where in Valesius's translation the name of Licinius has crept in instead of the name of Maximinus.

Eyes were gouged out. I would not have noted these things, which are also recorded by Eusebius, had I not, to point out,

wished that this cruelty is referred by Suidas to Diocletian and Maximian, and that he has slipped in this place, as he often does in historical matters.

Chapter XXXVII.

By the letter of Constantine. Constantine, after the victory he had won over Maxentius, when he had met with Licinius at Milan, had issued a constitution very favourable to the Christians, and had sent it into the East to Maximinus, so that he might see to its being published in his provinces. Eusebius, book 9, chapter 9, is our authority that he at first indeed groaned heavily at this; but afterwards, since he neither wished to seem to have yielded to Constantine and Licinius, nor on the other hand to suppress what had been ordered, for fear of those who had ordered it, he wrote a letter to Sabinus the prefect, as if of his own motion and on his own authority, in which he decreed concerning the Christians almost the same things as are contained in that constitution of Constantine and Licinius. Constantine, moreover, had added a letter to Maximinus, of which Eusebius makes mention in the last part of the same chapter.

To be sacrificed by priests. What Lactantius says here of Maximinus feeding daily on sacrificial foods, Eusebius, in the book on the Martyrs of Palestine, chapter 9, says was established by him by a public edict, so that all, men as well as women, together with their slaves and infants, were compelled to sacrifice and pour libations to the immortal gods, and to eat the sacrificed flesh of victims, and that all things for sale in the market were defiled with the libations of sacrifices. This very thing the Acts of the passion of Saint Lucian, martyr of Antioch, whom the same Maximinus put to death, also teach: Nay more, he went on to such savagery that he did not spare even infants, but killed them too, since he could not persuade them to taste the things that were sacrificed to demons. That Maximinus followed in this the footsteps of his master Galerius is taught by the Acts of the holy martyrs Agape, Chionia and Irene, who completed their martyrdom at Thessalonica in the second year of the persecution, Diocletian being consul for the ninth time and Maximian for the eighth. For in those Acts it is read that Cassander the beneficiarius wrote thus to Dulcetius the governor: Know, my lord, that Agatho, Agape, Chionia, Irene, Casia, Philippa and Eutychia refuse to eat these things which have been sacrificed to the gods. The same things are found in the Acts of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, who suffered under the same Maximinus; likewise in the Acts of the holy martyr Varus and his companions, and in the Acts of Theodore of Amasea, surnamed Tyro. Indeed, I find that this superstition was practised long before, in the Acts of Saints Terentius, Africanus and their companions, where it is written that the emperor Decius sent an edict into all the provinces of the Roman empire, that all Christians should be dragged to sacrifice and to eat the things that had been sacrificed to idols. Therefore what Lactantius says, that Maximinus first devised this, that all the animals on which he fed should be slaughtered not by cooks but by priests at the altars, is not to be understood of an edict or general law, since this had been established many years before by Decius and Galerius Maximian, but of the private custom of the palace foods. Moreover, that this custom penetrated also into regions situated beyond the Roman frontier is taught by the Acts of Saint Saba the Goth, who completed his martyrdom in Cappadocia on the day before the Ides of April, in the consulship of Modestus and Arintheus, that is, in the year of Christ 372. For the rest, that the Church always abhorred sacrificial foods of this kind, which they called idolothyta, is too well known to need proving by the testimonies of the ancients.

Drenched with unmixed wine. Lactantius, Institutes book 6, chapter 1: But men, having neglected justice, though they are defiled with every shameful deed and crime, think themselves religious if they have bloodied temples and altars with the blood of victims, if they have soaked the hearths with the pouring out of fragrant and aged wine. Nay more, they prepare sacred feasts and exquisite banquets, as though offering them to beings who will taste something of them. And in the following chapter:

They therefore sacrifice the finest and fattest victims to God as though He were hungry, and pour out wines as though He were thirsty.

Hence famine. Eusebius describes the cruelty of this famine in book 9, chapter 8. Ruffinus too should be consulted, who has some things that are not read in Eusebius. Eutychius of Alexandria also mentions this famine in his Annals.

He gave as a gift to his own men. Ruffinus, book 8, chapter 16: Whence he also lavished mountains of gold, so to speak, once gathered together, on his intimates and his attendants.

In the manner of merciful robbers. Salvian at the end of the eighth book On the Governance of God, page 191: Robbers indeed are accustomed to use this proverb, saying that to those from whom they do not take life they have given it.

Chapter XXXVIII.

It surpasses duty. Exactly the same words are found in the sixth book of the Divine Institutes, chapter 23.

With noble women. Ruffinus, book 8, chapter 17: He also had, among other things, this singular zeal, that he would pass by no city, I do not say, but not even a small town, without the adultery of noble matrons who had been found in those places, or the corruption of virgins.

Foretaster. A metaphor drawn from food and drink, which Cicero also used in the speech on his house: To be sure, you [gave it] to that most filthy glutton, the foretaster of your lusts, that most needy and most criminal man Sextus Roscius, etc. A foretaster, then, is one who tests foods and drinks by tasting, chiefly among princes, lest they should by chance swallow poison with their food and drink. For that reason Antony, fearing the wicked cunning of Cleopatra, took no food unless it had been tasted beforehand, as Pliny teaches, book 21, chapter 3, of the Natural History. Suetonius, in the Claudius, chapter 44: And it is agreed that he was killed by poison; but where, and by whom it was given, accounts differ. Some relate that it was while he was feasting in the citadel with the priests, through the eunuch Halotus, his foretaster. Tacitus, book 13 of the Annals: There, while Britannicus was feasting, since a servant chosen from among the attendants tested his food and drink by tasting. Pope Gregory XI, in a letter written to Charles V, king of the French, and Joanna his wife, published in the fourth volume of d'Achery's Spicilegium, page 300: And moreover, that those who will prepare such eggs, milk, butter and cheese, or dishes made from them, and also those who will serve you with them, may taste of them solely for the purpose of making a trial, we grant by these presents. What Gregory here calls pro proba facienda, we today call pour faire l'essai. Evodius of Upsala, in the second book On the Miracles of Saint Stephen, chapter 3: He orders that foretaster of his wine.

Diminished. I once thought that this passage was corrupt, and had conjectured that invitas should be written instead. Afterwards the most distinguished men Spark and Columbus pointed out that the reading found in the old manuscript should be kept, because the word imminutas means nothing other than foretasted, or deflowered beforehand; which Columbus likewise showed by several examples, and especially by this one of Lactantius, Institutes book 1, chapter 10: I pass over the virgins whom he diminished.

They violated bedchambers with impunity. Ruffinus, book 8, chapter 17: Drifting in delights, luxury and every kind of dissipation, he offered the basest examples to his soldiers. In short, whatever had been done lewdly, whatever wantonly, whatever luxuriously by the governors either of the soldiers or of the provinces went unpunished because of the emperor's example.

Driven out by the Goths. When Diocletian had gone to Italy to celebrate his vicennalia, the Goths, or the peoples dwelling on the bank of the river Ister, taking advantage of that occasion, invaded some part of the neighbouring province and drove out the inhabitants. These, driven from their homes, fled for refuge to Galerius Maximianus Caesar, and afterwards attached themselves to Maximin, whom Galerius had adopted, and were enrolled among the number of his attendants and guards.

Chapter XXXIX.

Not even from the Augusta. Valeria, the widow of Galerius, who after her husband's death had withdrawn to the court of Maximin,

Licinius being spurned, to whom Galerius had commended her.

Her father's. Galerius's, who had adopted Maximinus and had made him Caesar.

Herself with her mother. Diocletian's wife, of whom there has been fuller treatment at chapter 15. Octavius Strada says that she died some years before her husband. But that Strada is mistaken is proved by the authority of Lactantius, who will say below that she was beheaded in the year 313, when Diocletian had already departed this life in the year before.

Chapter XL.

Eratinco. A corrupt passage. It is the name of a governor. What if the name of Flaccinus were restored here, whom our author in chapter 16 calls no petty murderer?

Non minus. That emendation is not mine but Columbus's. For the old manuscript has nimis. It is certain, moreover, that those words were often wont to be interchanged in ancient books.

A certain Jew. This was not first devised by Maximinus. For the divine Nero, a man of good example, had gone before him, when he wished to repudiate his wife Octavia to please Poppaea. On which matter Tacitus is to be consulted in book 14 of the Annals.

Light-armed troops drawn up. In the old manuscript is written instructibile mens essagitari. A certain corruption; but a sure emendation did not at once present itself, and it was at length found after the edition had been completed. Columbus, however, prefers vigiles to velites.

Chapter XLI.

But the Augusta. Valeria. Where it is to be noted that nothing is now said of her mother, nor that she was asked back by Diocletian when Valeria was asked back. And yet she was still living, as is evident from chapter 31.

Chapter XLII.

The statues of the old Maximian. Rufinus, book 8, chapter 16, says that Maximian Herculius, shamefully caught in the plot which he was contriving against Constantine, perished more shamefully still, so that after his death his statues and images were removed, and in the public buildings the designations bearing his name were changed. In Eusebius, book 8, chapter 13, this history is so described as though Herculius had been the first whose statues and images were thrown down. Since Christophorson saw that this was false, he so translated Eusebius as to have him say that this insult was inflicted on him while living. That this is not true is evident from the following words of Lactantius, where he says that it had befallen none of the emperors before Diocletian that the images of a living man were cast down. Henry Valesius therefore turned in another direction: not that Herculius was the first of all the emperors who have been from the beginning of the empire on whom this disgrace was branded, but the first of those who had governed the commonwealth in that age. Thus Trebellius Pollio in the Thirty Tyrants, chapter 28, says that the image of Celsus was raised upon a cross by a new kind of outrage; although, as Casaubon notes here, the Greeks and Latins were accustomed to throw down the images of the condemned, to befoul them with mud, to break them, to carry them to the Gemonian steps, and in short to visit them with every kind of insult; which he proves also by the authority of Plutarch.

When he saw while living. Diocletian, whose images were taken down while he was living, because they were joined with the images of Herculius.

Sighs. Cuspinianus on Diocletian: Some say that, worn out by stupor of mind and long sickness, he breathed out his soul amid sighs; which I think he took from Cedrenus.

Worn out by hunger and anguish. Others relate that Diocletian was carried off by another kind of death: some by dropsy, others by poison, Suidas by hanging. See also what is said below at the fiftieth chapter. He died, moreover, not far from Salona in Dalmatia, in his villa of Aspalatum, where he was also buried. See Henry Valesius's notes on Ammianus Marcellinus, p. 112. Further, the opinions of learned men vary about the year in which Diocletian died, some holding that it happened

in the year 313, by others three years later. These were driven to this opinion by the authority of the Idatian Fasti, in which it is written that Diocletian died at Salona on the 3rd day before the Nones of December, in the consulship of Sabinus and Rufinus. But it is now established that the author of these Fasti wrote those things falsely, since Lactantius teaches that Diocletian died before the marriage of Licinius and Constantia, and before Maximinus Daza. Since therefore he died after Galerius and before Maximinus, at the end of a year, it is plain that he died at the end of the year 312. For Maximinus perished in the following year, as I shall show. Accordingly what is read in the Epitome of Victor is not true, that Diocletian spent nearly nine years in private life. For from the Kalends of May of the year 305 to the 3rd day before the Nones of December of the year 312 there are only seven years and seven months with some days. But against this there can be said what I see has pleased certain people: that Diocletian could not be said to have died in the year 312, since in law 2 of the Theodosian Code, On the census, which was given in the year 313 on the Kalends of June, Constantine calls him lord and parent, whereas he would have called him divine had he been dead. But that this argument is false is proved by the letter of Maximinus Augustus to Sabinus in Eusebius, book 9, chapter 9, where he nevertheless calls Galerius Maximianus, who is established to have died the year before, his lord and parent; and yet in the edict which is extant in the same place in Eusebius he calls the same Maximianus and Diocletian his divine parents. Moreover, since it is established from this passage of Lactantius that Diocletian died before the marriage of Licinius and Constantia, it follows that what is read in the Epitome of Victor is false, namely that he was carried off by a death, as was evident enough, brought on voluntarily through fear: For when, having been invited by Constantine and Licinius to the wedding festivities, he had excused himself on account of old age from being able to attend, on receiving threatening rescripts in which he was rebuked for having favoured Maxentius and for favouring Maximinus, suspecting a shameful death, he is said to have drunk poison. But it is hardly probable that one who had refused to approach the government of the commonwealth again, and who preferred private life to empire in the memorable and most wise apophthegm which we reported above, p. 73, from the same Epitome, was held suspect of favouring Maxentius and Maximinus, and above all Maximinus, by whom he knew that the gravest insults had been inflicted on his daughter Valeria and his wife Prisca, and by whom the slight he had suffered, when he asked for Valeria back, was too recent for him to have been able to forget it so soon.

Chapter XLIII.

One remained. Namely Maximinus, surnamed Daza. Lactantius calls Diocletian, Herculius, Galerius and Maximinus adversaries of God. He does not put Maxentius in the same number because, although he was cruel and savage, he nevertheless seemed to favour the Christians. Likewise he does not count Licinius among them, because at the time when Lactantius was writing these things he seemed to be a friend of the Christians. Afterwards he betrayed himself.

Recently friendship. That is, at the time when peace was established between Licinius and Maximinus on the Thracian Bosporus, shortly after the death of Galerius.

The sister of Constantine. Constantia, who afterwards so favoured Arius that she even drove her brother to defend him.

He sent secretly. Eusebius, book 8, chapter 14, records this very thing, namely that Maximinus secretly entered into an alliance with Maxentius.

He had declared war on Constantine. From this passage and from the second book of Zosimus it appears that the plans for waging war did not proceed from Constantine but from Maxentius; and indeed that Constantine sprang to arms as if unwillingly, and moreover was afterwards invited by the Romans, who bore the tyranny of Maxentius with resentment. And yet the most distinguished Hadrianus Valesius, in the first book of his Res Francicae, p. 23, imputes that war to the arrogance

of Constantine, who took the overthrow of his statues at Rome by order of Maxentius so ill that he thought that injury had to be avenged by arms; and he assails his memory sharply and insultingly, because, although he had ordered the statues of his father-in-law Maximian to be overturned in Gaul, he could not bear a like injury done to him by Maxentius, Maximian's son. Love of the truth and the memory of a great prince demand that we observe here that there is an immense difference between these two deeds. Constantine had overturned the statues of his enemy, but of a dead one, who for that reason could not avenge the insult inflicted on him. But Maxentius had thrown down the venerable images, as Nazarius says, of a living prince and the leader of most valiant armies, who therefore both could and ought to chastise the man by whom he had been injured with such great ignominy. Indeed Diocletian, as Lactantius writes below, was so moved when he saw his statues overturned, which were joined with the statues of Herculius, even though these things were done against him not by design but by necessity, that he conceived from it a great and incredible grief, and therefore resolved that he must die. But Constantine, with the greatness of soul that he possessed, was ready to forgive Maxentius that injury, if he had been willing to come down to fair terms of peace. But he spurned Constantine: he fled from his overtures (the words are Nazarius's), turned away from them, shuddered at them; and since his will for making peace was estranged, he went so far in madness, says the same Nazarius, that he even provoked of his own accord the man whom he ought to have courted. Hence it is clear that Constantine is undeservedly charged with arrogance in this passage: for if he had not avenged his injury against a fierce enemy who mocked his kindness, he would surely have carried away from that forgetting of the injury a greater ignominy than could be expressed in any words.

The murder of his father. Of Maximian Herculius, whom Constantine had ordered to be strangled at Massilia. Zosimus, book 2: Maxentius was seeking occasions for waging war against Constantine, and pretended that he grieved over the death of his father, for whose death Constantine had furnished the cause.

Intestabilem or exitiabilem. In this place some letters are missing in the old copy, where only this is read: xtabilem. From this we have gathered that intestabilem should be restored. Intestabilis, moreover, means the same as detestable and hated.

To have feigned a quarrel. Eutropius, book 10: Then he set out for Gaul, having contrived a stratagem, as if he had been driven out by his son.

Chapter XLIV.

Between them. Maxentius and Constantine.

He had received an answer. The panegyric of an unknown author delivered to Constantine after the defeat of Maxentius: The stupid and worthless creature dared not go anywhere outside the walls. For thus was he moved either by portents or by the forebodings of his own fear.

The sixth day before the Kalends of November. This day, therefore, first saw Maxentius as emperor; contrary to what others write, who write that he seized power on the eighth day before the Kalends of October, and was killed on the day before it: neither of which is true. For he was slain on his own birthday, as Lactantius and the author of the panegyric cited a little above teach. But the latter is nevertheless mistaken in this, that he says Maxentius marked his birthday with his own slaughter, so as not to violate that sacred and religious number seven even by beginning it. For if he was slain on his very birthday, it is clear that he was slain on the day on which he had entered upon his rule. For the ancients called this day the birthday of emperors. Maxentius was therefore killed in the year of Christ 312, on the sixth day before the Kalends of November, the sixth year of his rule having been completed, at the very beginning of the seventh. And so Aurelius Victor and the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle are to be understood, when they say that he perished in the sixth year of his tyranny. But Eutropius says that Constantine stirred up war against Maxentius in the fifth year of his own rule. He stirred it up indeed, but did not complete it. Therefore those words of the old calendar edited by Bucherius: On the fifth day before the Kalends of November:

expulsion of the tyrant, 6th kalends: entry of the Divus, are indeed to be understood of Maxentius and Constantine, as those most learned men Pierre-François Chifflet and Enrico Noris rightly judged; yet in such a way that the day 5th kalends is not referred to the day on which Maxentius perished, as they supposed, but to the following day, on which his body was found, as the author of the fragment on Constantius Chlorus teaches, by which the victory was made certain; and the 6th kalends to the day on which Constantine as victor entered the city of Rome. And these things indeed seem to be certain and placed altogether beyond all controversy. And yet the most distinguished man Peter Lambeck, in the fourth book of the Commentaries on the Vienna library, p. 298, refers that expulsion of the tyrant to the time at which Licinius, driven by Constantine from Byzantium and Chalcedon, withdrew to Nicomedia, and, besieged there too, his affairs being desperate, as Zosimus says, because he knew that no proper and sufficiently ample forces remained to him for fighting, went out of the city, made himself a suppliant to Constantine, and, having brought the purple, hailed him emperor and Lord, and asked pardon for what was past. All of which happened in the year of Christ 324, Crispus for the third time and Constantine for the third time being consuls, as stands in the Idatian Fasti. But this opinion of Lambeck cannot be true, since it is established that those words of the old calendar are to be understood of Maxentius routed. Moreover it is nowhere noted that the surrender of Licinius fell on the fifth day of the kalends of November, which it would above all be necessary to demonstrate. Indeed, that it took place somewhat earlier seems able to be gathered from what Zosimus says, that Licinius, his army routed and surrendered, withdrew to Nicomedia with the remaining cavalry and a few thousand foot after the capture of Chalcedon, that is, on the 14th kalends of October, as is read in the Fasti. And in how short an interval of time the victorious army could have reached Nicomedia, there is no one even slightly versed in geography who does not sufficiently understand. Wherefore I strongly suspect that the departure of the Divus, which is noted in the old calendar on the 5th kalends of October, ought to be understood of Constantine's setting out from the city of Chalcedon to proceed to Nicomedia. Therefore, since the road from there is sure and not long, it will be no absurd conjecture if we say that the surrender of Licinius took place a few days afterwards, that is, about the beginning of the month of October; since it is clear from Zosimus that he did not long endure the siege of Nicomedia, and from the fragment on Constantius Chlorus which Henri de Valois published it may be gathered that Constantia, the wife of Licinius, came into the camp of Constantine her brother on the day following his arrival. Nor does it carry great weight that the same most distinguished man notes here that, as in the Theodosian Code, Licinius is called the tyrant κατ' ἐξοχήν, that is, par excellence. For we read that Maxentius too was called tyrant in the panegyric which Nazarius delivered to Constantine; where, treating of the things done at Rome by Constantine after Maxentius was vanquished, he adds: By the wonder of these things all were so bound that they did not so much all grieve that they had endured that tyrant so long, as that they enjoyed such a prince so late. And above, of the same Maxentius: That very tyrant was betrayed not by a manly death but by a shameful flight. Likewise: This escort of his was followed by the most foul head of the tyrant himself. The fragment on Constantius Chlorus, p. 475: Meanwhile Constantine, having defeated the tyrant's generals near Verona, made for Rome. An old inscription set up to the memory of Constantine after the victory over Maxentius: Because, by the prompting of the divinity and by greatness of mind, with his army he avenged the commonwealth with just arms at one stroke both on the tyrant and on all his faction. Prudentius in the first book against Symmachus: The Mulvian, having received the tyrant, hurling him headlong into the Tiber's pools. Indeed in the Theodosian Code too Maxentius is meant by "the tyrant", in the single law De ingenuis, qui tempore tyranni servierunt, and in law 1 De cohortalibus.

The quinquennalia were coming to an end. It is certain that Maxentius celebrated quinquennalia, for the authority of Lactantius is plain. But besides, there is extant in Occo,

p. 541, a coin of Maxentius, on whose reverse these words are written: VICTORY OF OUR LORDS THE AUGUSTUS AND CAESAR. VOWS FOR FIVE YEARS, MANY FOR TEN. That the quinquennalia were therefore celebrated by Maxentius, and indeed after the fifth year was completed, cannot be doubted. I ask only this: how could it come about that what was performed according to custom on the first day of the sixth year was brought to an end at the close of the same year? I know that those vows were celebrated with great pomp, that these festivities lasted for many days, and that they were observed not only in the royal city but also in the provinces. But these things do not resolve the difficulty. Unless we say that a pleasure-loving man and a lover of idleness, such as Maxentius is described as having been, wished to make his quinquennalia notable by a new custom, and for that reason continued them through an entire year: which seems hardly probable. Or perhaps, just as the first day of the year, on which the quinquennalia were celebrated, was spent in games and sacrifices, so the same solemnities were repeated on the last day of that same year, so that the quinquennalia might thus be ended in the same manner in which they had begun, in much the same way as the processions of the consuls were seven in the year, as is clear from Novel 105 of the emperor Justinian What if the birthdays of the emperors were festal when they recurred each month? For in the Acts of Saint Marcellus the centurion, who suffered in the city of Tingis under the rule of Diocletian, I find that the twelfth day before the Kalends of August was a festal day in the Roman Empire: "Already on the twelfth day before the Kalends of August," he says, "before the standards of this legion, when you were celebrating the feast day of your emperor, I answered with a public voice that I was a Christian." For Diocletian was made emperor on the twelfth day before the Kalends of December. In the same way certain people of old used to sacrifice on the twentieth day of the moon for the birthday of Epicurus, and kept the holiday every month, calling these days Icades, as Pliny says, Natural History, book 35, chapter 2.

A heavenly sign. An immortal sign, as Lactantius says elsewhere, that is, the sign of the cross. This passage, moreover, is of great importance. For it marks both the place and the day on which the cross, by which he was to conquer, was shown to Constantine. For since it is established from the testimony of Eusebius, who says that he received it from the mouth of Constantine, that the trophy of the cross was seen by him in the sky in the midday hours, as the sun was declining towards its setting, and that, as he was in doubt what this apparition might mean, on the following night the Christ of God appeared to him as he slept with that sign which had been shown in the sky, and commanded him to have a military standard made in the likeness of what he had seen in the sky, and to use it as a saving protection in battles, it is certain that both visions occurred in one place and within the space of a few hours. And if this is so, as it certainly is, learned men have the means at last to put an end to the celebrated controversy about the place where the sign of the cross was shown to Constantine, and the means by which credit may be established for the author of the life of Saint Artemius, formerly duke of Egypt, whose authority that most learned man Pierre-François Chifflet tried by circumlocution and evasion to break down and to belittle. These are the words of Artemius defending the memory of Constantine before the emperor Julian: "He turned to Christ, being called by Him, when he joined the most difficult battle against Maxentius. For at that time there appeared to him at midday the sign of the cross, more splendid than the rays of the sun, and signifying victory in the war in golden letters. For we ourselves too beheld the sign, since we were present at the war, and we read the letters. Moreover, the whole army also beheld it, and many witnesses of this matter are in your army." In Surius, on the 20th day of the month of October. But it will perhaps seem strange to someone that Artemius says here that many witnesses of this matter were then in the army of the emperor Julian. For if these things were said at the end of the year of Christ 342, fifty years had passed since the death of Maxentius, and it is hard to believe that many soldiers survived from the army that then fought against him. But this ought by no means to seem strange. For in the dialogue on famous orators, whose author most consider to be Quintilian, others Tacitus, some Suetonius, in that dialogue, I say, which was written in the sixth year of the principate of Vespasian, the author testifies that he had seen in

Britain an old man who professed that he had taken part in that battle in which they undertook to keep Caesar, as he brought war upon Britain, from the shores and to drive him off: which had happened some hundred and twenty years before. And Saint Jerome, in the dialogue against the Luciferians, which Baronius thinks was written about the year of Christ 382, says that there then survived men who had been present at the Synod of Nicaea, though few on account of their great age. Therefore, to return to our subject, it must be settled thus: that that vision of the cross shown to Constantine took place in the camp while he was besieging Rome, on the 7th kalends of November in the year of Christ 312. For truly too bold was Jacobus Oiselius, who in his Thesaurus of ancient coins, p. 463, says that he who referred this whole business of the cross shown to Constantine to the pious frauds of the ancients would stray little from the truth of the matter. For what will thereafter be judged true, if it were permissible to number this history, which rests on the testimony of Lactantius, Publius Optatianus Porphyrius, Eusebius, and also of ancient coins, among fables and, as he says, the pious frauds of the ancients? These matters must be handled more religiously, and that irreligious rashness ought to be far from the breasts of Christians.

Bent round, Christ. This is to be understood thus: that the monogram of Christ was bent round at the head of the Labarum, as we see on ancient coins.

That the Sibylline books be inspected. Zosimus, book 2: Maxentius, shut in, sacrifices victims to the gods and consults the soothsayers about the outcome of the war, the Sibylline oracles themselves also being searched through. And when he had found an oracle by which it was signified that it was fated that he who contrived things tending to the harm of the Roman people should perish by a miserable death, he took that oracle as referring to himself, as one who was driving back those who had attacked Rome and were planning to take it. But the outcome proved that which was true. These things indeed agree entirely with the narrative of Lactantius.

Chapter XLV.

In the following winter. That is, in the winter which immediately followed the death of Maxentius. Now Maxentius perished in the year 312, on the 6th kalends of November. Therefore Constantine set out for Milan as that year was ending, or about the beginning of the following one, which I rather believe. For Nazarius, in the panegyric which he delivered to Constantine, speaks thus of the stay which he made at Rome, so that it is plainly established that he was there for two months: Whatever evil, he says, a deadly tyranny had inflicted over a whole six years, a care of almost two months healed. But it is not probable that he who was thus very near the kalends of January left Rome while they were impending, so as to enter on his consulship elsewhere rather than at Rome. Moreover there exists in the Code of the emperor Justinian, book 11, title 57, a law given by Constantine at Rome on the 15th kalends of February, he himself and Licinius being consuls for the third time, that is, in the month of January which came next after Maxentius was destroyed; from which it seems it can be gathered that Constantine did not depart from Rome before the day on which that law is said to have been given. If this is so, it seems the words of Nazarius must be taken thus: that that care of almost two months, which he relates Constantine spent in settling the affairs of the city, is to be understood in the same way in which Saint Augustine, in the book to the Donatists after the conference, chapter 33, says that the proconsul Aelianus heard the case of Felix, bishop of Aptunga, on the 15th kalends of March, about four months after Caecilianus had been judged by Melchiades; although from the 6th nones of October, the day on which he was judged, up to the 15th kalends of March, on which the case of Felix was heard, four and a half months intervened. By the same reasoning Saint Leo the pope, writing in his fifty-second letter to Ravennius of Arles and the other bishops of the Gauls, says that the Synod of Chalcedon consisted of about six hundred bishops, whereas it is the settled opinion of almost all writers that 630 bishops attended it. Constantine therefore came to Milan towards the end of the month of January. And thither came Licinius too, to marry Constantia, Constantine's sister. The same is recorded

by Zosimus too, rightly noting that these things were done after Maxentius had been defeated, and before there was war between Maximinus and Licinius. Hence it is clear that the most learned Jean Morin was mistaken, who in his book On the Church Set Free by Constantine, p. 328, writes that Licinius came to Constantine at Milan after Maximinus had been defeated and destroyed, and there took Constantia in marriage. "This done," says Zosimus, "Constantine returns to the Celts," and Licinius into Illyricum, as the author of the Fragment on Constantius Chlorus relates, p. 473. But before they departed from Milan, they issued a law on behalf of the Christians, which will be quoted a little further on.

Certain most learned men judge that the marriage of Licinius and Constantia was celebrated at Milan in the month of March, drawing their argument from the first law of the Theodosian Code On Vacant Property, which is recorded as given by Constantine on the 6th before the Ides of March at Milan, in the consulship of Constantine Augustus for the third time and Licinius. Although Morin, in his book On the Church Set Free by Constantine, p. 329, holds that in this constitution March must be changed to May, because, as he says, Constantine in the month of March of that year fought against the barbarians in Germany. Indeed, and let it suffice to have observed this once here, nothing certain can be gathered from the subscriptions of the laws contained in the Theodosian Code; and so it cannot be concluded from them that Constantine was at that time in the places in which they are said to have been given. For if that were certain, it would also be certain that within the space of six days he was at Heraclea in Macedonia, or in Thrace, and at Milan in Italy, since the law of which we have spoken is read as given at Milan on the 6th before the Ides of March, and the first law On Agents at Heraclea on the 3rd before the Nones of March, under the same consuls. An example that can be taken from law 2 On Penalties and from law 1 If a Partner in a Claim Has Died without an Heir presses more strongly: of these the first is said to have been given at Cabillunum, the other at Antioch, both on the 12th before the Kalends of April, in the consulship of Constantine Augustus for the fourth time and Licinius for the fourth time. The most learned Jacques Godefroy saw that there was a difficulty in the subscription of the latter law, and declared either that it must be attributed to Licinius, who held the East, whose capital was Antioch, or that the name of Antigonia near Stopi in Macedonia must be restored, which fell to Constantine when peace was established between him and Licinius after the battle of Cibalae. But these things do not resolve the difficulty. For it will always be difficult to reconcile this discrepancy, since it is certain that Constantine could not be in Gaul and in Macedonia on one and the same day. Again, how can it happen that the same man who was at Cabillunum and at Antioch on the 12th before the Kalends of April was, in the same year, on the 8th before the Ides of March at Thessalonica, and two days later, that is on the 6th before the Ides of March, at Rome? For that is gathered from the subscriptions of law 1 On Various Offices and of law 2 On the Julian Law concerning Public and Private Violence. Then the same man would have to be judged to have been at Rome on the Ides of September of the same year, and on the sixth day after at Naissus in Dacia. For the first law On the Right of the Treasury is said to have been given on the Ides of September at Rome, and the first law On the Centonarii on the 14th before the Kalends of October at Naissus. Finally, the same Constantine, if this rule were certain, would have been in the following year at Serdica on the 12th before the Kalends of May, but at Rome on the very Kalends of May, within the space of twelve days, since that can be gathered from the subscriptions of laws 2 and 3 On Gifts. Other examples too could be adduced. But these suffice. Whence it must be concluded, as we were saying before, that nothing certain can be gathered from the subscriptions of the laws of the Theodosian Code for marking the places in which Constantine resided at various times of his reign; and so the arguments that most learned men have taken from this source to confirm and establish their historical conjectures are weak.

For cases of this kind. In the old manuscript one reads "ad hujusmodi causa Licinio collocati." Our emendation is sound. And in ancient manuscripts causa is often found written for casus, as in St Ambrose, Letter 43: "In nature there is chance, in choice judgement":

in place of which in the very old manuscript codex of the church of Beauvais is written causa, although not rightly.

Perintho. That is, Heraclea. For so Heraclea of Thrace is called, to distinguish it from other cities of the same name, as Henri de Valois rightly noted on book 22 of Ammianus Marcellinus. The Menologium of the Greeks, for the tenth day of May: Perinthus, a city of Thrace, which is now called Heraclea. In Canisius, vol. 11 of the Antiquae lectiones, p. 768.

Millia decem et octo. Near Resiston, which is the first place that occurs in the Antonine Itinerary for those going from Heraclea to Hadrianople, although there it is said to be 22 miles distant from Heraclea.

Secundam mansionem. The reading of the old exemplar must again be set out, which runs thus: Secunda mansione tenente destante militibus totidemque collectis. We had formerly conjectured that one should read: Secundam mansionem tenente distantem militibus totidem atque collectis. Afterwards I noticed that the British conjecture was not only clearer but true; and therefore I have transferred it into the text. Columbus, however, does not, on the strength of that emendation, approve what we had put forward.

Chapter XLVI.

Summe Deus. That most distinguished man Johan Columbus thinks that Eusebius has this prayer in view in book 4 of the Life of Constantine, ch. 19, where he writes that he, by a law enacted, ordered the soldiers who had not yet received the teaching of the divine faith to go out on Sundays into an open field and, at a given signal, all together to pour forth to God a prayer which they had learned beforehand. And shortly afterwards, in the following chapter, he gives its wording. But that prayer is very different from the one which the angel taught Licinius; and it is highly probable that it had often been recited before by Constantine's soldiers, since it is established from the second book of his Life, ch. 4 and 12, that he always poured out prayers to God before he came to close quarters and to battle.

Kalendarum Maiarum. For on this day he had been made Caesar, in the year of Christ 305, as we saw above. From this is also confirmed what we have said about the year in which Diocletian laid down the empire. For if on the Kalends of May of the year 313 the eighth year from Maximinus' proclamation was being completed, as Lactantius says, it necessarily follows that he was proclaimed Caesar in the year 305 on the Kalends of May. Those therefore are wrong who think that he held power for only seven years, and was Caesar for four years and Augustus throughout the East for three. For he ruled for eight full years and some part of the ninth.

Sicut ille. That is, Maxentius, who was defeated on his very birthday.

Vocant serenum. Near Resiston, as we said, a place in Thrace between Hadrianople and Heraclea. A plain indeed made famous by this battle, which brought forth peace for the afflicted Church. Zozimus is therefore mistaken, who thinks that that battle was fought in Illyricum. These are his words: Civil wars having been kindled between Licinius and Maximianus, and a sharp battle having been fought in Illyricum, at first Licinius indeed seemed to be overcome; but the battle being at once renewed, he put Maximianus to flight.

Tenax. That Licinius was avaricious Eusebius proves by many examples in book 1 of the Life of Constantine, ch. 55. The Fragment on Constantius Chlorus, p. 474: Licinius raged with wickedness, avarice, cruelty and lust.

Chapter XLVII.

Deus summus. The Martyrdom of Saint Basileus, bishop of Amasea: Licinius therefore, aided by the almighty hand of our Lord Jesus Christ, won the victory over Maximinus.

Sumpta veste servili. Eusebius confirms this account in book 9 of the Ecclesiastical History, ch. 10, and in book 1 of the Life of Constantine, ch. 58.

Fretum trajecit. The battle was therefore fought in that part of the empire which Licinius held, that is, between Heraclea

and Hadrianopolis in a certain plain called Serenus, as Lactantius said in the preceding chapter. And it was 60 miles distant from Nicomedia.

He made for the east. Zosimus: Departing through the East into Egypt, in the hope of gathering forces as great as would suffice for waging the war.

He resumed the robe. That is to say, the purple, the sign of imperial majesty.

Chapter XLVIII.

Having entered Nicomedia. John, presbyter of Nicomedia, mentions the arrival of Licinius at Nicomedia in the Life of Saint Basileus, bishop of Amasea, from which we learn that Constantia too, the wife of Licinius, came with him to Nicomedia after Maximinus had been defeated: And so, after the just punishment of Maximinus and the wrath brought upon him by God, Licinius, since he held the whole East under him, came with great pomp to Nicomedia, the city of our region, together with his wife, to dwell in the royal palace and to govern the empire of the East. And now for the first time a certain perfect peace was suddenly brought throughout the whole circuit of the region, after those violent upheavals and struggles stirred up by raving idolatry, by the will and work of Licinius. Although there are those to whom these Acts of Basileus seem to be false and spurious, it is clear enough that in this place they are genuine.

On the day of the Ides of June. These words are not to be understood of the day on which the edict was issued, but of the day on which it was posted up at Nicomedia by order of Licinius.

Constantine and he himself being consuls for the third time. That is, in the year of Christ 313.

The letter. Eusebius copied it out in book 10, chapter 5, but translated from the Roman tongue into the Greek language, as he himself says. That we now have it in Latin, therefore, as it was first issued, we owe to the diligence of Lactantius alone. But he omitted the preface which Eusebius has.

That the supreme Divinity may be able for us. Eusebius renders: so that whatever divinity and heavenly thing there is. Valesius, however, says that this reading is not sound. Certainly it does not agree with the words of the edict.

Whose worship we follow with free minds. These words Eusebius did not render in Greek.

Dicatio. That is, dignatio. For I see that these words are used promiscuously and without distinction. A little later in this letter one reads: Your Dicatio understands. The same word is found in the first Conference of Carthage, chapters 10 and 19, and in the report of the proconsul Anulinus to Constantine Augustus, in the third Conference, chapter 220, and in Saint Augustine, letter 68. If anyone should seek more examples, let him consult the Glossary of Du Fresne.

Conditions. Eusebius renders: of the haireseis. This word has caused learned men much labour, as is plain from the Annotations of Valesius on this passage. Now, therefore, the understanding of this passage will be easy. For those skilled in law among the Greeks called haireseis what we call conditions, as may be seen in various places of the Basilica, but especially in book 44, titles 19, 30 and the following, in the code of Graeco-Roman law, and elsewhere. Constantine Harmenopulus, book 5, title 8: unlawful and ridiculous conditions are removed from institutions [of heirs] and from legacies, and these are granted without the condition. This passage John Mercer rightly renders thus: Conditions which are contrary to the laws or ridiculous are, in institutions and legacies, held as not added, and so these are paid without a condition of that kind. In the Theodosian Code, laws 9 and 10, On the estates of shipmasters, haeresis signifies a duty, or naval condition: We will that the naval haeresis be kept in all respects, so that whatever possessions, up to twenty years before, were disposed of by the lot of public auction and had been separated from the naval haeresis on account of a public contract, if it should be established that they were subject to this burden before that time, shall again be held liable to the duty owed.

Because ..... to the honour. These words are corrupt in Eusebius, where one reads thus, in the translation of Valesius: And

this was done by us for this purpose, that nothing might seem to have been taken away by us from any divine worship or any honour. Better indeed than Musculus and Christophorson.

Letters having been issued. He is speaking of the earlier enactment of Constantine and Licinius, which had been passed shortly after Maximinus was defeated. See the annotations of Valesius.

Who bought. Constantine renewed this enactment after the victory won over Licinius, as is clear from the second book of Eusebius on his Life, ch. 41, in the edition of Valesius.

Vicar. Since Eusebius wished to speak in Greek, and had no word by which the dignity of a vicar might be signified, he used an explanation and a circumlocution. Then the translators of Eusebius rendered it 'prefect', one who administers justice in that province or region. — (See below, col. 370, two letters of Baluze on this passage.)

He exhorted. Namely Licinius.

Ten years. This passage shows, and we said above, that the persecution began on the 7th day before the Kalends of March, the day on which the church of Nicomedia was demolished. For if you count from the twenty-third day of February of the year 303 up to the thirteenth day of the month of June of the year 313, on which the edict on restoring the churches was posted at Nicomedia, you will find that ten years, three months and nineteen days had elapsed; that is, as Lactantius says here, ten years and more or less four months.

Chapter XLIX.

The narrows of Mount Taurus. Or 'the gorges', as others put it. They lie between Cappadocia and Cilicia. For Lactantius teaches in ch. 47 that Maximinus in his flight passed through Cappadocia. And certainly for one coming from Bithynia into Cilicia the direct route is through Cappadocia. I therefore think those narrows were situated at the place where the Cilician Gates are marked on geographical maps.

He fled to Tarsus. Lactantius testifies in chapter 47 that the Serene Field, where Maximinus was defeated and put to flight by the army of Licinius, was 160 Roman miles distant from Nicomedia. In the Bordeaux Itinerary, moreover, it is noted that from Nicomedia to Ancyra in Galatia 258 Roman miles are counted, and from Ancyra to Tarsus 343 Roman miles. That makes 761 Roman miles. I know that Maximinus fled with the utmost speed until he reached Nicomedia. But afterwards I think his mind calmed down to some extent, and his eagerness to flee cooled for a while. Therefore, since 601 Roman miles still remained for him to travel to reach Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, and since, having gathered soldiers from the rout and from the East, he halted first in Cappadocia, then in the narrows of Mount Taurus, where he built fortifications and towers to ward off the attacks of the pursuing Licinians, it was impossible that he who reached Nicomedia on the Kalends of May should have reached Tarsus before the following month of July. I have thought it right to note this here because I see that most people hold that this Maximinus died in the month of June, and that Henry Noris, a man otherwise most learned, contends in his dissertation on the coin of Licinius, ch. 2, that his death occurred in the year 314, at the beginning of spring. But we shall look at the year later. Meanwhile it must be observed that Maximinus did not die as soon as he reached Tarsus, but survived his disgrace for some time and endured the most grievous pains for a very long while, so that one may rightly affirm that he did not die before the month of August.

Driven by madness. So we have emended, since in the old manuscript it is written insania percutis. Lactantius, book 1 of the Institutes, ch. 9: The same man, driven by fury and madness, killed his wife together with his children. St John Chrysostom, in the oration on Saint Babylas, speaking of the deaths of the persecutors, says that from one of them, while still living, the pupils leapt out of his eyes, that is, from Maximinus; that another, driven by fury, and another, overwhelmed by some other affliction, met their death. What is said here about fury, however, Henri Valois interpreted of Diocletian, whom he infers from Eusebius and Constantine to have perished insane. But Eusebius and Constantine do not say this: but only that he, from the state of his mind,

was cast down by the force of disease in the last year of his reign. And indeed Lactantius, who describes his disease, notes nothing about madness and frenzy. But if Chrysostom had not explained himself, I should readily believe that the things which are said by him about an emperor driven by frenzy ought to be referred to Maximinus, on account of this passage of Lactantius.

He dashed his head against the walls. This is one of the detestable kinds of mourning, as Cicero calls them in the third Tusculan. See Casaubon's Notes on Julius Capitolinus.

His eyes leapt out. Eusebius writes the same in book 9 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 10, and in book 1 of the Life of Constantine, chapter 59; likewise Eutychius, Theophanes and Anastasius. St Chrysostom also mentions it in his oration on St Babylas, and St Jerome on Zechariah, as we shall see a little later.

As if he were being burned. In the Annals of Eutychius it is written that Maximinus fell into a disease by which his body was so scorched that it was like a coal, and was so roasted that his bowels burst from the heat which he felt within, and that his eyes fell out and dropped to the ground, and his scorched flesh was separated from his bones. But Anastasius the librarian explains these things better in his Ecclesiastical History, in these words: The divine wrath, coming upon him first, seized him. For a flame kindled from the midst of his bowels and marrow, with intolerable pain, threw him down face-forward upon the ground, gasping, so that both his eyes leapt out, and he was left blind, as being truly wicked. Then, when his flesh, putrefied by the countless burning of his bones, was falling away, he cast out his soul, which fought against God. That Anastasius took these things from Theophanes is manifest.

He breathed out his guilty spirit. In the Epitome of Victor it is written that he perished by a simple death, that is, a natural one, or by his own fate. And Eutropius relates that he forestalled his approaching ruin by a chance death. Both of which are true. The common opinion of learned men is that this death occurred in the year of Christ 313. Petavius, however, in book 11 of On the Doctrine of Times, chapter 34, writes, on the authority, as he himself says, of Eusebius in the Chronicle, with Victor and Eutropius agreeing, that Maximinus died in the year after that in which Galerius Maximian perished, that is, in the year of Christ 312. But since it is certain that he died in the year following the slaying of Maxentius, Henricus Noris rightly censures Petavius on this point. Yet he himself is convicted of erring in this, that, following Baronius, he contends that the death of Maximinus happened in the year 314, at the beginning of spring. For since it is evident from the last chapters of Lactantius that he perished in the year in which peace was given to the Church, in which also Lactantius put an end to this work, and since we have shown that the persecution began in the year 303, at the end of February, it is clearer than daylight that Maximinus died in the year 313, which was the tenth from the beginning of the persecution. The learned man indeed relies on an argument plausible in appearance, namely on those words of Maximinus from the edict which he issued shortly before his death in favour of the Christians, in Eusebius, book 9, chapter 10, where he says that in the previous year, by letters given to the individual governors of the provinces, he had decreed the same things which were contained in the letters of Constantine and Licinius. Since, therefore, that constitution of Constantine and Licinius was enacted at the beginning of the year 313, it shines forth most evidently that this one, which was issued in the following year, must be put off to the year 314, and accordingly that the tyrant lost his rule together with his life in that year. A weighty argument indeed, if it were established that Maximinus counted his years from the Kalends of January. But since the eighth year of his reign was completed on the Kalends of May of the year 313, as Lactantius teaches, the edict issued by him some months later is referred to the following, that is, the ninth year of his reign, but not to the year of Christ 314, especially since it is evident from the narrative of Eusebius that it was issued shortly after he had been defeated by Licinius. Accordingly Baronius, joining both the victory of Licinius and the end of Maximinus, writes that these things happened

in the year of Christ 314, by an error of one year. For what the most learned Henry Noris adds from coins about the sixth year of Maximinus Augustus certainly does not stand in the way of the opinion of those who assign the death of Maximinus to the year of Christ 313, since he, who had taken the title of Augustus at the end of the year 307 or about the beginning of the following one, could have counted the sixth year of his reign in the year 313. That he died in that year can also be proved by the authority of Aurelius Victor, who writes that, after an imperial reign of two years, that is, two years after the death of Galerius, he was routed and put to flight by Licinius and perished at Tarsus. For since Galerius died in the year 311, in the month of May, and Maximinus died in the year 313, it is rightly written that he reigned two years in the East; whereas if he had died only in the year 314, he would have exceeded the two years which are attributed to him by Aurelius Victor.

I had thought these things to be true, or likely to be true, because I could find no other way of emerging from that difficulty than the method of counting the years of Maximinus from the kalends of May. Afterwards Henry Dodwell, a man of very wide reading and polished judgement, judged this explanation of mine not to be good, on the ground that it had not been accepted by the usage of that age that the years of emperors should be reckoned from their birthday, though he declared that he was inclined to come round to that opinion, if that usage could be confirmed by some suitable example of proven reliability. He therefore follows another way, and refers the edict of the previous year mentioned by Maximinus to the end of the year of Christ 312, taking his argument from a law of Constantine published in the Theodosian Code, which he issued at Rome about the beginning of December, he says, but when about to leave Rome at once. And so he reckons that the edict of Constantine and Licinius on the peace of the Church, given at Milan about the middle of December, reached Maximinus in the same month, and that he could have issued that earlier edict mentioned in the second in the same year. He then adds that there is no reason why anyone should wonder that these things are so arranged, if he has well understood the speed of the couriers and the headlong temper of Maximinus himself.

I judge the modesty and fairness of the man to be such that he will not take it ill if I note here the difficulties which occurred to me as I seriously examined his words, not because I wish to set myself above him or to make myself his equal, but so that through friendly skirmishes we may seek the truth together; which ought to be the sole aim of our studies. First, I admit that it was not then in use for years to be counted from the birthday of the emperors, but from the kalends of January, from the procession of the consuls, who marked the calendar and gave the years their name, to use the words of Lactantius from the sixth book of the Institutes, chapter 4. But if anyone should nevertheless wish to dispute this point here, one could bring against it the observation of the most illustrious Cardinal Baronius, who notes in the Ecclesiastical Annals that Diocletian established that years should thenceforth be counted from the first day of his reign, and that by that example Maximinus, who had succeeded him, counted his years in the same way. But let us set aside these things, which are not supported by the testimonies of the ancients. The most distinguished man says that Constantine entered Rome on the 29th of October and did not complete two months there; which he took from the panegyric which Nazarius delivered to Constantine. But if he left Rome about the beginning of the month of December, as the most learned man thought could be gathered from the law cited above, that two months' care which Nazarius praises comes to nothing. For in that way Constantine would scarcely have been at Rome a whole month. But what goes for the throat is that there is extant, as we have said, in the Code of the Emperor Justinian, book 11, title 57, a law given by Constantine at Rome as the month of January was drawing to its close, the one which came next after the death of Maxentius; which plainly shows, I think, that Constantine did not depart from Rome before the end of the month of January. Moreover, the distance from the city of Rome to Milan is immense, and cannot be covered in a short interval of time, since 528 miles are counted in the Itinerary of Antoninus, and from Milan to Nicomedia fourteen times

a hundred and seventy-six thousand paces. It is impossible that a law which was given at Milan about the middle of December could have been carried to Nicomedia in the same month, however swift the couriers may have been, or however quick and fleet the horses. Nor does Maximinus's headlong temperament make any difference here, since on the contrary Eusebius, in Book 9, chapter 9 of the Ecclesiastical History, blames his slowness in this matter. These things being thus duly established, I think it can no longer be doubted that we must return to our explanation, since it is clear that Maximinus's first edict was given in the year 313, in the month, as it seems, of April, but the later one, in which he mentions the former as given as it were in the previous year, was issued about the month of September. Or at any rate, which seems more probable, it must be said that Maximinus counted the years in the Greek manner, and so that for him the beginning of the year was the month of September. If this explanation is admitted, it will now not be difficult to understand how a Constitution given in the month of April of the Roman year 313 is said to have been given in the previous year by one who began the year from September, according to the custom of the Greeks.

Chapter L.

He vanquished the persecutors. Lactantius, Book 7 of the Institutes, chapter 26: For those who, in order to defend impious religions, sought to abolish the worship of the heavenly and only God, lie overthrown. Eusebius observes the same things in the first book on the Life of Constantine, chapter 3, and so does the author of the Fragment on Constantius Chlorus, p. 475. Jerome on chapter 14 of Zechariah: Let us read the ecclesiastical histories, what Valerian, what Decius, what Diocletian, what Maximian, what Maximinus, the most savage of all, and lately Julian suffered; and then we shall prove by the facts that even according to the letter the truth of the prophecy has been fulfilled, that their flesh rotted away, and their eyes wasted away, and their tongue was dissolved into filth and gore. Scaliger, in his Animadversions on Eusebius, p. 248, interprets this passage in such a way as to think that Jerome placed Maximinus among those whose flesh rotted away. But I think that this is not the sense of Jerome's words. He speaks first of the wretched death of Valerian and Decius, but does not explain the manner of death. For the words of the prophecy, which he had undertaken to interpret, could not be drawn to the manner of death by which those two emperors perished. Next he refers the rotting of the flesh to Maximian, the wasting of the eyes to Maximinus, the filth and gore of the tongue to Diocletian, if the things are true which Eutychius of Alexandria and George Cedrenus relate of him, namely that when near to death he cast up from his throat a multitude of worms together with his very tongue, which had rotted away.

Valeriam. Since I saw that it was expressly written in the old book Valerium quem, I did not dare to change it in the first edition of this book, fearing, that is, that perhaps some man of that name lay hidden somewhere. But afterwards I noticed that there is no doubt that the old book is faulty in this place, and that the name of Valeria must be restored here. Therefore I have restored it.

When [she learned] that he had lived. Columbus suspects that we should write: when she learned that he, that is, Licinius, had issued an edict. But to me it seems that nothing at all should be changed. For the sense is this. Licinius ordered Candidianus to be put to death. But because the order was not carried out at once, Valeria, when she then learned that he had been alive at the time when he had been ordered to be put to death, mingled herself with the retinue of Licinius, so as to watch over the fortune of Candidianus.

Their mother. That is, the wife of Maximinus, whose name the learned confess that they do not know.

Into the Orient. Most have conjectured that we should write instead into the Orontes, because it is clear that a river is indicated in this place, which the most distinguished Cuper has shown, learnedly indeed, by several arguments. But because he himself also reports that some of the ancients called Orient the river which the rest commonly call the Orontes, I was unwilling to change the text, although the same most distinguished man does not doubt that Lactantius wrote Orontes, and that Orient crept into the place of the true name through copyists in an age in which people spoke in that way.

Chapter LI.

Would corrupt the truth. Lact., Book III of the Institutes, ch. 1: God willed this to be the nature of the matter, that simple and bare truth should be the more luminous; because it is adorned enough of itself, and therefore, painted over with ornaments added from outside, it is corrupted.

Of the Jovii and Herculii. So were called the families of Diocletian, who called himself Jovius, and of Maximian the elder, who was called Herculius, as though they drew their descent from Jove and Hercules, as has been observed by most learned men. Aurelius Victor notes that from this a name was given to the auxiliary military units that were outstanding in the army, that is, that they should be called Herculiani. Hence in Ammianus Marcellinus, Books XX and XXII, there is mention of the Joviani and the Herculiani.

And here at last let there be an end of our notes on Lactantius's book On the Deaths of the Persecutors. A work on the same subject, if the report is true, had been written by Aurelius Victor, a history comprising the persecutions of the Church up to Diocletian, which Marianus Victorius, on Letter XXI of Jerome (the one addressed to Paul, a monk of Concordia, from whom Jerome was asking for the Commentaries of Fortunatianus, and, for the knowledge of the persecutions, the history of Aurelius Victor), testifies existed in the Vatican Library in his own time. Yet I greatly doubt whether it can truly be said that Aurelius Victor, a man not at all Christian, wrote a history of this kind, since that passage of Jerome is corrupt in the common editions, and so tangled that it drove that most learned man Andreas Schottus into dreadful perplexities, so that, while looking for Aurelius Victor as a writer on the persecutions of the Church, he was forced to come down to this, that he supposed there had been several Victors who were writers of the Augustan history, and that one had even given his name to Christ. For if that history had existed in the Vatican Library at the time when Victorius was writing his scholia on Jerome, it would certainly not have escaped the learned and diligent hands of Baronius, nor those of so many most learned men, most devoted to ecclesiastical antiquity, who after the pontificate of Pius V and the times of Marianus Victorius spent their lives at Rome and gave praiseworthy labour to editing, revising and emending the works of writers, and above all of ecclesiastical ones. Indeed that unanimous and unbroken silence of so many most eminent men on a matter of such moment, who nowhere make even with a word any mention of this history of Aurelius Victor, compels me, even unwilling and reluctant, to suspect either that Victorius slipped in memory or that he was imposed upon, especially since it cannot be gathered from Jerome's words that Aurelius Victor wrote a history of the persecutions, but only that his history, in which the life of the emperors up to Julian is treated, is useful to one who wishes to have knowledge of the persecutors, that is, of those emperors who persecuted the Church of God. For that persecutorum should be read here, and not persecutionum, is shown above all by codices 173 and 2789 of the Royal Library, another old codex of the same library which once belonged to the most distinguished Claude Dupuy, then codex 305 of the Colbertine Library, the first Roman edition of the year 1468, the Venetian of the year 1488, and the Lyons editions of the years 1508, 1513 and 1518. Erasmus first of all restored persecutionum, doubtless on the authority of some old exemplar, since in codex 4110 of the same Colbertine Library it is also read so. Victorius followed him. But surely from what has been said so far it is sufficiently clear that this reading is not good, and that the one which the old books and editions present ought to be kept, since it has no difficulty. Let us, however, give thanks to the immense kindness of God, best and greatest, Who has restored this book of Lactantius to us after so many centuries, and let us use it for His greater glory and for the benefit of the holy Church, for whose sake this labour was undertaken.