Nicolaus Toinardus Aurelianensis, Notae in librum de Mortibus persecutorum

Notes of Toinard of Orléans on the Book On the Deaths of the Persecutors.

On Chapter I.

Behold, an adversary will be added to all these; and, tranquillity having been restored throughout the world, the Church, lately overthrown, rises again. The illustrious man Joan. Bapt. Cotelier, in the Monuments of the Greek

Church, published at Paris in the year 1681, page 528, in the notes bids [us] read: Behold, the adversary is worn down by all these; with a plain sense, as he says, and a neat antithesis from adteritur and exsurgit. The excellent emendation of a most learned man, once very closely joined to me,

I have thought it right to display here, both with good omen as the first among my notes, and so that, lying hidden in a foreign place, it should not remain unknown to students of Lactantius.

On Chapter II.

"In the last times of Tiberius Caesar, as we read it written, our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified by the Jews, after the tenth day of the Kalends of April, the two Gemini being consuls." In these few words there is more than one error. The first indeed comes from the drowsiness of a copyist, so that in place of ante ("before") post ("after") has crept in. For here I think we must read ante diem decimum ("the tenth day before"), as Lactantius himself has it in another place, namely in the Institutes, book 4, chapter 10, where he says of the Jews: "Thereafter they had tetrarchs up to Herod, who was under the rule of Tiberius Caesar, in whose fifteenth year, that is, the two Gemini being consuls, on the tenth day before the Kalends of April, the Jews fastened Christ to the cross."

The most distinguished Étienne Baluze, the most diligent editor of this great treasure, at Paris in the year 1679, in his notes on chapter 2 above, denies that there is any contradiction between those two forms of speech, post and ante diem decimum, relying on the authority of Paul the jurisconsult, Digest, On the Meaning of Words, law Anniculus 132. See his words.

But the most distinguished Henry Noris, on page 345 of his vast work the Cenotaphia Pisana, published at Venice in the year 1681, refutes this opinion; and from the very original manuscript of the Pandects, preserved at Florence, he brings forward the genuine reading of Paul's words, in these terms: "The tenth day before the Kalends, after the tenth day of the Kalends; for by neither expression are eleven days signified." Then he says:

"By this genuine reading of the text, then, the opinion of Riccioli is refuted.... For that citation of Paul's words has an excellent sense and is most true, although it is not expressed in the same words as the jurisconsult's. For the same Paul, in law 134, Digest, On the Meaning of Words, says: 'A child is called a yearling not immediately when it is born, but on the three hundred and sixty-fifth day, when that day has fully begun, not when it has been completed.' Thus one who dies when the last day of the year has begun is lost as a yearling, as he says in law 132; and he proves this by an argument drawn from the common usage of speech, by which, when we say 'the tenth day before the Kalends', we count the very day of the limit, namely the following Kalends, but not the eleventh day, which follows the Kalends, namely the second day of the month. Wherefore, says the jurisconsult, a yearling is also lost who is lost on the three hundred and sixty-fifth day itself when it has fully begun, not when it is completed; nor is it necessary that he be lost on the first day of the following year. It is therefore established, on the authority of a most celebrated jurisconsult, that by that common formula of speech, 'the tenth day before the Kalends', not eleven days are signified, but only ten, the Kalends themselves being counted."

Finally, on the following page, after reporting the reconciliation of the two passages of Lactantius by the most distinguished Baluze, the same Noris adds: "But the most learned interpreters understand Paul's text otherwise. Antonio Agustín, in book 4 of the Emendationes, on the cited law of Paul, says: 'The third day before the Nones, and the third of the Nones, and the third day after the Kalends are found to be the same.' These words of Cujas I once noted in my commonplace book: 'By after the tenth day of the Kalends is signified the tenth day after the Kalends, so that the Kalends themselves are counted. Therefore after the tenth day of the Kalends of January is the fourth day before the Ides of January.' P. Manutius rightly notes, in letter 12 of book 3 of Tully's Letters to Friends, that the ancient Latins said 'ante diem tertium nonas', that is, 'on the third day before the Nones'; for when one says 'tertio nonas', it is a concise expression; for 'die ante' is understood, since the unexpressed preposition governs 'kalendas' in the fourth case. Wherefore 'after the tenth day of the Kalends of April' is the same as 'on the tenth day after the Kalends of April'...... Nor does Paul support the opinion of the most learned Baluze referred to. For he writes that by neither formula of speech, ante diem decimum

kalend. and post diem decimum kalend., is the eleventh day signified, but the tenth, though not of the same month: rather, in the one case the tenth day before, that is, the one preceding the kalends, and in the other the tenth after, namely the one following the kalends. Hence Caius the jurisconsult, in the same Digest, book 50, [law] 233, says: On the third day after the January kalends vows are undertaken for the welfare of the emperor; that is, the third [day before] the nones of January. Hence it is clear that an altogether different month is signified by these turns of phrase, Ante decimum kalend. Aprilis and post decimum kal. Aprilis: for by the former manner of speaking the 23rd of March is designated, but by the latter the day after the tenth of the kalends of April.

« Therefore the formula of Lactantius's words has no one of the ancient Latins as its authority, and is disapproved by the most learned of the more recent writers. I know that astronomers count the day from the noon of the preceding day to the noon of the following day. Hence the 25th of March after noon is called by them post diem decimum kal. Aprilis. Lactantius, in order to designate the time of the day on which the Lord suffered, namely after noon on the 23rd of March, wrote according to the manner of speaking of the astronomers. These things, however, I would wish to be not opposed to the most learned Baluze, but proposed to him, and submitted to his judgement. »

Thus far the most distinguished Noris, whose passage I have presented almost entire, both because of its excellence and because the Cenotaphia Pisana are not in everyone's hands.

I entirely agree, however, with the opinion of Noris, so that by these words post diem decimum kalendarum Aprilis the tenth day of the month of April is to be understood, counting the kalends themselves.

But in vain does the most celebrated author call the astronomers to his aid in excusing or interpreting Lactantius; for what has Lactantius to do with astronomers in a matter not at all astronomical, that one should take refuge in those subtleties, of which Lactantius would by no means have thought?

Next, if that manner of speaking of the astronomers had any place here, it would follow, since according to the astronomers the tenth day before the kalends of April was completed at noon on the 23rd of March and so the ninth had begun, that Lactantius said that Christ was fixed to the cross on that day after noon: since, on his own authority, in chapter 2 of this book, post decimum diem kalendarum Aprilis cruciatus est, by which word is signified "fixed to the cross".

But in fact Lactantius does not write specifically about a part of the day, but only generally about the day itself on which Christ underwent the cross: whence nothing is more straightforward than to say that the word post in this place is due to a copyist's error, and that ante is to be restored in its place. And this all the more because in Institutes book 4, chapter 10, where Ante decimum diem is correctly read, in that same place in some editions, such as the Lyons edition of the year 1548, in duodecimo, and the Antwerp edition of the year 1555, in octavo, one may read Ante diem septimam in place of Ante diem decimum; whereas the latter is read generally in very many ancient manuscripts and corrected editions.

Just as, therefore, in the passage of the Institutes the word septimam was put in place of decimum, so plainly in this passage of On the Deaths of the Persecutors post has been wrongly written in place of the word ante.

Johannes Columbus, who illustrated this same book with notes published at Åbo in Finland in the year 1684, has the following on this passage: see his words, col. 363.

Thus far Johannes Columbus, whose opinion is more than sufficiently refuted by what has been adduced above by Noris and by me.

Moreover, the learned man did not notice that in the other example, that of Mark 9:12, which is indeed also Matthew 17:1, the sixth day can by no means be understood as begun, but as completed. For in the parallel passage in Luke 9:28 are counted ὡσεὶ ἡμέραι ὀκτὼ, about eight days. In Matthew and Mark, therefore, the six days are to be reckoned as whole,

so that the following seventh comes nearer to eight, which is the number in Luke.

I said above, at the beginning of chapter 2, that there are several errors in the words of Lactantius. Now that the one which was the copyist's has been dealt with, the pen must be turned against Lactantius himself.

He says that "in the last times of Tiberius Caesar Christ was crucified, when the two Gemini were consuls." In another passage of the Institutes, namely book 4, chapter 10, he assigns those last times of Tiberius to the fifteenth year of Tiberius. This indeed agrees with the consulship of the two Gemini. But observe, reader, how monstrously he goes astray from this point.

Tiberius entered on the fifteenth year of his reign in the year 28 of the common era, on the 19th day of the month of August. In this very year of Tiberius John the Baptist, as we read in Luke, chapter 3, 1, 2, 3, began to preach repentance. According to Lactantius, this was the fifteenth year of Tiberius at its beginning, since, according to the same author, Christ suffered in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, which ran on until the 19th day of August of the year 29 of the common era.

Christ, then, having been baptized on the 6th day of January, when the two Gemini were consuls, in the year 29 of the common era, and having suffered on the 25th day of the following month of March, would have accomplished in no more than two and a half months all the things that are related from His Baptism up to His death. This is indeed a monstrous thing to say, although it has been rashly declared by many others of the ancients and stuffed into the Fasti of Idatius.

For what, after all, will become of the four Passovers in all by which, as the most distinguished Hardouin himself admits in the index of his Antirrheticus, published at Paris in the year 1689, the Saviour's ministry is marked out in the evangelists? What Philolaus or Ptolemy, what Copernicus or Tycho, will find in that year 29 of the common era the characteristics agreeing with the day of Christ's passion, that is, a sixth weekday coinciding with the day of the Passover?

And yet this is the very Lactantius who, together with other similar authors, that is, authors equally careless of chronology and of the gospel history, is thrust upon us by those who deny that Christ was fastened to the cross in the year 33 of the common era, and indeed on the 14th day of the month Nisan, that is, the 3rd day of April.

But far be it from me to wish anything to be taken away on this account from the authority of Lactantius and of the other ecclesiastical writers. This one thing I maintain: that the more they are extolled for their antiquity, the less credit is to be given them in matters of chronology; for since they knew and taught Christ alone, and Him crucified, they did not keep the order of events so accurately.

The most distinguished Jean Hardouin, in his Antirrheticus, p. 67, settles this question in the following words: "Finally, we understand that the Lord Jesus suffered in the year 29 of the common era from this, that it was at the third Passover after He took up the office of preaching, as the most ancient of the Fathers have handed down with unanimous agreement, when the two Gemini were consuls."

Then in the Addenda, which are at the end of the book, he adds: "For besides, both the rites of the Jews and the astronomical tables agree on that year, as we shall say elsewhere."

Then, rising up against the most distinguished Jean Vaillant on the same p. 67, he says: "Have you caught any scent of these things? Or did anyone point them out to you before us?"

Thus far the most distinguished Hardouin, by whom I for my part do not know what could be brought forward to establish this opinion. For I am not wholly ignorant of the Jewish rites, and moreover by no device whatever will there ever be dug out of the astronomical tables a sixth weekday and a day of the Passover, on which, coinciding together, Christ could have suffered in the year 29 of the common era.

"Matthias and Paul having been taken up in the place of Judas the traitor." Do not infer from these words that Paul together with Matthias was substituted for Judas by the apostles. Lactantius, writing somewhat carelessly, only meant to indicate that in the place of Judas two others discharged the office of the apostolate, namely Matthias, chosen by lot (Acts 1:26),

and Paul, taken up by Christ Himself.

And for 25 years, up to the beginning of Nero's reign, they laid the foundations of the Church through all the provinces and cities. From the consulship of the two Gemini, that is, from the year 29 of the common era of Christ, in which, on Lactantius's hypothesis (refuted above), the apostles after Pentecost (Acts 2:1, with Mark 16:20) preached the Gospel everywhere, there are indeed 25 full years up to the 13th day of October of the year of Christ 54, on which Nero succeeded Claudius; but from the year 33 of the era of Christ, in which Christ truly suffered, there are only 21.

And when Nero was already reigning, Peter came to Rome. In the little list of the deposition of the martyrs, published by Gilles Boucher at Antwerp in 1634, in the Commentary On the Doctrine of Times, one reads: On the eighth day before the kalends of March (that is, on 22 February), the Feast of Peter's Chair. According to Lactantius's reckoning this would have happened in the year of Christ 55, since the first year of Nero was running from the 13th day of the preceding October.

But if, further, the opinion of those most learned men Godfrey Henschen, at the beginning of the first volume of the Saints of the month of April, published at Antwerp in 1675, and Daniel Papebroch, in the Propylaeum to the Acts of the Saints of May, published in the same place in 1685, be admitted (the same opinion that the celebrated Antoine Pagi embraces in his Critica Baroniana, published at Paris in 16⟨8⟩8), namely that Peter suffered martyrdom at Rome on the third day before the kalends of July, in the consulship of Nervus Silianus and Vestinus Atticus, that is, in the year of Christ 65, the 12th of Nero, on 29 June, then Peter will not have lived after the establishment of the chair at Rome more than 10 years and 4 months with 8 days.

From Flavius Josephus, and also from coins, as I shall show in the treatise On the Coins of the Herods, it must be established that it was the year of Christ 43, the 3rd of the emperor Claudius and the 7th and last of the Elder Agrippa, when Peter was snatched from his chains at Jerusalem by divine aid, and that afterwards Agrippa, struck by an angel (Acts 12:3, 23), died at Caesarea in Palestine, where he was giving a show in honour of Claudius Caesar at a certain festival instituted for his welfare. Josephus, Antiquities, book 19, last chapter.

If therefore, as above, the Feast of Peter's Chair falls on 22 February of whatever year, and Peter was put on the cross in the year of Christ 65, it is plainly necessary that he came to Rome once at least two years before he was thrown into chains by Agrippa in the year of Christ 43, and that at the start of the first year of the emperor Claudius, in the month slipping by after Caligula was killed in the year of Christ 41 on 24 January, and that he then returned to Judaea, so that he established his see at Rome 25 years before his death.

But if this excursion of Peter's is not approved, because it seems not to fit the sequence of events related in the Acts up to chapter 12, then his first coming to the City will at the very earliest have been only in the year of Christ 44, under the emperor Claudius, namely on 22 February, as above, from the Little List of the deposition of the martyrs; from which to the year of Christ 65 and 29 June, on which, according to the opinion of Henschen, Papebroch and Pagi reported above, Peter was slain at Rome while Nero raged, no more than 21 years with 4 months and 8 days can be counted.

And certainly, since in the Paschal Chronicle, recently published anew at Paris by the celebrated Charles Du Cange, which was formerly wrongly called the Alexandrian, nothing is written of the death of Peter and Paul in the year of Christ 66 or thereafter, it is to be understood that its author assigned this event to some earlier year. But which year that is cannot be drawn out, because of the gap which takes up 20 years in all in this Chronicle between the years of Christ 45 and 66.

I do not dwell on the fact that in the Idatian Fasti, published for the third time at the end of the same Paschal Chronicle, Peter and Paul are said to have suffered in the consulship of Nero for the third time and Messala, that is, in the year of Christ 58. For who in his right mind would accept that? Even if there were not at hand the passage of Tacitus, which I shall quote below, from which it is proved that Nero did not rage until the year of Christ 64.

Yet he did not go unpunished. For God looked upon the harassment

of His people..... so that not even a place of burial appeared on earth for so evil a beast. Nero, immediately after Rome had been set on fire, raged against the Christians. Tacitus says this expressly, Annals book 15, chapters 38 and 44.

Suetonius also speaks of this fire, in his Nero, chapter 38, and Dio, page 708. By the witness of Tacitus in the same place, chapter 33, it happened when C. Laecanius Bassus and M. Licinius Crassus were consuls, that is, in the year of Christ 64. Its beginning was on the 14th day before the Kalends of Sextilis, or the 19th day of July; its end only on the sixth day, or the 24th or 25th of July, according to Tacitus, in the same work, chapter 44, where he adds: Therefore, to put an end to the rumour, Nero substituted culprits and inflicted the most refined punishments on those whom, hated for their crimes, the common people called Christians.

Let us therefore grant Nero the remaining seven or eight days of July for forming the plan of diverting onto the Christians the odium for the burning of the City: it will follow that the persecution began at about the beginning of the month of August of the year of Christ 64. And the year of Christ 68 and the 9th day of June are marked by the death of Nero. The interval before the divine vengeance: 3 years, 10 months and about 9 days.

From these things and from what has been said above, the blessed Apostles will have suffered martyrdom at the close of the eleventh month after the persecution was stirred up. For from the beginning of the month of August of the year of Christ 64 to the end of June of the year 65, eleven months elapsed.

On Chapter III.

After him, some years having intervened. That is, 30 less 6 months, as will be said below.

Another tyrant, no lesser, arose. Domitian, the last of the twelve Caesars.

Yet he lay upon the necks of his subjects for as long as possible, and reigned in safety, until he stretched out impious hands against the Lord. Domitian succeeded Titus, his brother, in the year of Christ 81, on the 13th day of September. If he began to rage against the Christians in the year of Christ 94, at about the month of February, as indeed I think, then he will have ruled before the persecution for 12 years, with 4 months and more than a half.

The Paschal Chronicle attaches the beginning of the Domitianic persecution to the year of Christ 92, and not 93, as the distinguished man Ant. Pagi holds in his Dissertatio Hypatica, published at Lyon in the year 1680, p. 110, and in the Critica Baroniana at the year of Christ 90, no. 5, p. 86; he further says in the Critica, in the same place, that the author of this Chronicle follows the Eusebian method in reckoning the Olympiads, that is, he places them one year early, although in fact they are placed two years early by the author of the Chronicle. For he takes their beginning from the year 3936 of the Julian Period, whereas they began only in the year 3938.

None of these things at all, as also not many others, did that man see whose chronological labour the most distinguished Du Cange made use of in attaching the notes of the dates to the Paschal Chronicle.

In the aforesaid edition of that Chronicle there is indeed such confusion, born, shall I say, of ignorance or of carelessness, that the year of the persecution stirred up by Domitian is left wavering on p. 250 between the years of Christ 93 and 94; nor, moreover, is the first year of the 218th Olympiad, which there is the 13th of Domitian, marked by any note at all.

Now we must inquire at what time Domitian first harassed the Church.

The distinguished man Ant. Pagi, in the Dissertatio Hypatica, p. 110, and in the Critica Baroniana, p. 85, no. 4, places it towards the end of the year of Christ 93, on the strength of a passage of Tacitus, who at the end of the Life of Agricola proclaims Agricola fortunate because he died when Collega and Priscus were consuls, that is, in the year of Christ 93, on the tenth day before the Kalends of September, or the 23rd day of August, and so escaped that last period in which Domitian drained the State no longer at intervals and with pauses for breath, but continuously and as if with a single blow. From this Pagi infers that the persecution began towards the end of the year of Christ 93.

But, in my judgement at least, it follows from this only that Domitian did not rage until after the death of Agricola. But since it is uncertain at what time afterwards

it happened, and since moreover the commonwealth appears to have been ill treated first, and the Church afterwards, that passage of Tacitus contributes nothing at all towards fixing the persecution in the year of Christ 93.

Henry Dodwell, an Englishman and a most distinguished man, in the eleventh Cyprianic Dissertation, published at Oxford in the year 1684, to which he affixed the title On the Fewness of the Martyrs, a title most unworthy of a man who is in any way a Christian, let alone of a learned author, contends from the words of Brutius in Eusebius, Hist. book 3, chapter 18, that the Church was harassed by Domitian only in the year of Christ 95, namely because in the fifteenth year of his reign Flavia Domitilla, niece through his sister of Flavius Clemens, then consul, was banished to the island of Pontia for confessing Christ.

But by those most distinguished men Antoine Pagi, throughout his Critica Baroniana, and Thierry Ruinart, a Benedictine monk, in the preface to the genuine and select Acts of the Martyrs, published at Paris in the year 1689, not only has that whole dissertation of Dodwell been excellently refuted, but this argument too, brought forward to assert the shortness of the Domitianic persecution, has been answered: that nothing follows from it except that this persecution raged most fiercely in the year of Christ 95.

And indeed in the Paschal Chronicle, at the fourteenth year of Domitian, these words are found: "Brutus (read Brutius) records that many Christians suffered martyrdom in the fourteenth year of Domitian." Brutius hands down to memory that many Christians underwent martyrdom in the fourteenth year of Domitian.

But in order that something on which we can rely may be drawn out of that passage of Brutius, the certain must be separated from the uncertain, and the following must be established:

First, that the twelfth year of Domitian began in the year of Christ 92 on 13 September, while the fourth year of the 217th Olympiad was running.

Next, that the 218th Olympiad began at the summer solstice of the year of Christ 93.

Third, that the thirteenth year of Domitian was reckoned from 13 September of the year of Christ 93, while the first year of the 218th Olympiad was running.

Finally, that his fourteenth year began in the year of Christ 94, while the second year of the same 218th Olympiad was in its course.

From which it follows that the author of the Paschal Chronicle errs by two years, since he ties the thirteenth year of Domitian to the first year of the 218th olympiad and to the fifth Indiction. For according to this author's method and assumptions, the 218th olympiad and the thirteenth year of Domitian would have had their beginning in the year of Christ 91.

I do not dwell on the fact that the consulships in the later years of Domitian have been wrongly assigned by the author of the Paschal Chronicle, for that does not bear on the present matter. I take only what is reported there from the history of Brutius, that many Christians underwent martyrdom in the fourteenth year of Domitian. For since it is agreed among the learned that Domitian did not harass the Church until, after Agricola had died on 23 August of the year of Christ 93 (according to Tacitus, cited above), he "drained the commonwealth continuously and as if with a single blow", I think I shall go most safely by the middle way if I say that the Domitianic persecution began in the month of February of the following year 94, and accordingly that in the same year, on the sixth day of the month of May, John the apostle was thrown into a jar full of boiling oil and afterwards banished to the island of Pathmos: which agrees with Jerome, who says in the Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers that this happened "in the fourteenth year" (of Domitian), "when Domitian was stirring up the second persecution after Nero".

Thus, then, from the Neronian persecution, which, as I showed above, began about the beginning of the month of August in the year of Christ 64, there were thirty years to the Domitianic one, less six months, which is precisely the span from the beginning of August of the year of Christ 64 to the end of January of the year 94.

"But after he was roused by the prompting of demons to persecute the righteous people, then he was handed over into the hands of his enemies and paid the penalty." Domitian, as was just said, began to rage in the month of February of the year of Christ 94. Slain

he was in the year of Christ 96, on the 14th day before the Kalends of October, that is, on 18 September, as is agreed among all. The interval of the divine vengeance: about 2 years and 7 and a half months.

On Chapter IV.

"For after very many years there arose that execrable animal Decius, to harass the Church. For who but a wicked man would persecute justice? And as though he had been raised to that princely summit for this very purpose, he at once began to rage against God, so that he at once fell." That Decius raged as soon as he became emperor, the Paschal Chronicle also teaches in these words: "At the beginning of the reign of Decius, a persecution having been stirred up against the Christians, Flabianos, Flavianus (read Fabianos, Fabianus), bishop of the Romans, suffered martyrdom." Now it must be inquired at what time this happened.

Decius succeeded Philip, who in the year of Christ 249, on the 15th day before the Kalends of July, that is, on the 18th day of June, in the consulship of Aemilianus and Aquilinus, was still reigning, according to the Justinian Code, book VIII, title 56, On revoking gifts, law I; but the name of Decius Augustus, under the same consuls, on the 15th day before the Kalends of November, that is, on the 19th day of October, is inscribed in the same place, book IV, title 16, On hereditary actions, law II. Decius therefore obtained the empire between 17 June and 19 October.

But if we grant that he began to reign towards the end of June, or towards the beginning of July, as will be said below, then from the Domitianic persecution, which I assigned to February of the year of Christ 94, to the Decian there will be, besides about five months, 156 years, which Lactantius rightly and deservedly calls "very many", because the subsequent persecutions were almost contiguous to one another.

But what Lactantius says, that Decius fell at once after he harassed the Church, does not entirely equal the same time as that which ran from the persecution stirred up by Domitian up to his death, namely from the month of February of the year of Christ 94 to the year of Christ 96 and the day 18 September. For that interval is of about 2 years and 7 and a half months; that it is somewhat less in the case of Decius is shown thus.

From what has been said above, Decius began to reign in the year of Christ 249, between the day 17 June and 19 October. He ceased to reign in the year of Christ 251, in which he came forth as consul for the third time, with his son Decius Etruscus as colleague. For in the following year, that is 252, Trebonianus Gallus, the successor of both, entered his name in the Fasti as already Augustus, with his son Vibius Volusianus, already Caesar, as colleague.

But at what season of the year the Decii died may be gathered from Trebellius Pollio in his Valerian, where these words are read: "In the consulship of the two Decii", in the year of Christ 251, "on the 6th day before the Kalends of November", that is 27 October, "when on account of imperial letters the senate was being held in the temple of the Castors (at Rome), and the opinions of the members were being taken one by one as to whom the censorship ought to be conferred on, for the Decii had placed this in the power of the most ample senate.... Valerian being absent, for he was engaged on campaign with Decius, all said with one voice, the custom of stating opinions being interrupted: 'The life of Valerian is a censorship.....' When these things had been said repeatedly, they added, 'ALL'; and so the meeting broke up. When Decius received this decree of the senate, he called together all the courtiers, and ordered Valerian himself also to be asked." Thus far Trebellius Pollio.

From which it is clear that, the power of electing a censor having been conferred on the senate by the absent Decii, Valerian, himself also absent, was elected censor at Rome on 27 October.

Valerian was staying on the frontier of Moesia with the Decii, who were killed there before the end of that year. Let us allow about one month, both for reporting that decree of the senate to Moesia and then for joining the battle in which both Decii fell: the Decii will have been killed towards the end of November.

This happened at Abruttus, or Abyrtus, or Abrittus, as Victor, On the Caesars, Dexippus in Syncellus, page 376 of the Royal edition of the year 1652, and the Paschal Chronicle under the year of Christ 251 testify, besides Jordanes in the book On Gothic Affairs, chapter 18, in whom is found:

"And coming to Adabritto (or abrupto), a city of Moesia, surrounded by the Goths, he too is killed"; where the most distinguished man Ant. Pagi noted, in the Critica Baroniana, p. 51, at this year 251 of Christ, that Abrutto should be read: but you will read better ad Abrittum. Read also Abrutti in Victor's De Caesaribus, in place of Bruti.

Victor in the De Caesaribus says simply that Decius reigned for a completed reign of two years; the other Victor says thirty months. But those thirty months cannot be found in the reign of Decius unless we admit that Philip died immediately after his name was inscribed, on 17 June of the year of Christ 249, in the Law of which [we spoke] above, and that Decius perished towards the end of the year 251 in battle against the Carpi. For in this way the thirtieth month would have been just touched upon.

Meanwhile it is clear from these things that the Decii reigned more than two years; namely from that space of time which lies between 17 June and 19 October of the year 249, up to the end of November of the year 251, and so two years with about five months.

And indeed that the Decii reached the third year of their reign is shown by various inscriptions in which the tribunician power for the third time is assigned to Decius the Elder; one of these is at Feltria, in Gruter 283, 6; another at Vintium in the province of Gaul, where it still exists, and it is reported by the most distinguished man Ant. Pagi, Dissertatio Hypatica, part 1, ch. 7, p. 64, and in a more correct form in the Critica Baroniana at the year of Christ 251, p. 52.

The author of the Paschal Chronicle wrongly confines the reign of Decius within the space of one year, and connects the persecution with the year 251. Rightly indeed, so far as the consulship of both Decii is concerned, but against the very marks of the martyrdom of Pionius which are adduced there.

It will perhaps not be beside the point to report the very words in which I suspected that two errors lay hidden, and to propose their correction. Here they are:

"And at Smyrna in Asia, Pionius.... under Proclus Quintilianus, proconsul of Asia, on the fourth day before the Ides of March, which is, according to the Asians, in the sixth month, on the 12th, at the tenth hour of the Sabbath." "And at Smyrna in Asia, Pionius... under Proclus Quintilianus, proconsul of Asia, on the fourth day before the Ides of March, which is, according to the Asians, in the sixth month, on the 12th day, at the tenth hour of the Sabbath." It had come into my mind that instead of δ' εἰδῶν Μαρτίων, the fourth day before the Ides of March, and μηνὶ ἕκτῳ, in the sixth month, one should read δ' εἰδῶν Ἰουλίων, the fourth day before the Ides of July, and μηνὶ αὐτῷ, in the month itself, that is, in the same.

As for the first correction, after δ' εἰδῶν, the fourth day before the Ides, I was putting Ἰουλίων, of July, in place of Μαρτίων, of March, because in the whole reign of Decius no Sabbath that is the 12th day of the month coincides with any fourth day before the Ides of March: but only the fourth day before the Ides of July and the 12th day of the month in the year of Christ 251 fall on a Sabbath; which is shown thus.

Decius, as was said above, reigned at most from after 17 June of the year 249 to the end of November of the year 251. In these years, and in 259 between them, the Sabbath stood in relation to any fourth day before the Ides of any month as in the following table, in which it is also indicated on which day of the month the fourth day before the Ides falls.

In the year of Christ 249, Sunday letter G.

The fourth day before the Ides of February, the 10th day of the month.

The fourth day before the Ides of May, the 12th day. This would indeed suit the correcting of the Paschal Chronicle extremely well, since the change of Μαίων, of May, into Μαρτίων, of March, is easy: but in that May, a month, Decius was not yet reigning, as was shown above.

The fourth day before the Ides of November, the 10th day.

In the year 250, Sunday letter F.

The fourth day before the Ides of August, the 10th day of the month.

The fourth day before the Ides of October, the 12th day, but Ὀκτωβρίων, of October, differs too much from Μαρτίων, of March.

In the year 251, Sunday letter E.

The fourth day before the Ides of July, the 12th day of the same month of July. For the Ides fall on the 15th day of July. Hence I had conjectured that in the Paschal Chronicle Ἰουλίων, of July, should be read instead of Μαρτίων, of March, so that the fourth day before the Ides and the Sabbath would coincide with

the twelfth day of the month; and therefore that the passion of Pionius fits the year of Christ 251.

So much for the first emendation.

As for the second, in which αὐτῷ, "itself", is put in place of ἕκτῳ, "sixth", the sense would be that the day of the ides is included in that same month of which it is there signified to be the twelfth day.

That is to say, although among the Romans a backward counting is made from before the nones or ides, just as from before the kalends, this nevertheless happens with this difference, that the days counted from before the kalends are in the month which precedes the designated kalends, and so in a different month from the kalends themselves; unlike the days which are reckoned from before the nones or ides, for these are in the same month as the nones and ides from which they are counted backwards.

The author of the Paschal Chronicle, therefore, in the martyrdom of Pionius, by the words quoted above, μηνὶ αὐτῷ ιβ', "in the month itself, on the 12th day", would be indicating that the 4th day before the ides of July is the 12th day of that same month of July according to the Asians: since the Asians reckon the days of the months in straight order from the first day of the month, and not backwards from the following nones or ides, as the Romans do, among whom, when the counting proceeds from before the kalends, the designated day is then not in the same month as the kalends.

In vain, therefore, would anyone henceforth, according to those corrections, look in the Paschal Chronicle and in the Latin Acts of the passion of Pionius for some sixth month in March, as has been done by others before.

Yet, to confess the truth, the change of the word Μαρτίων, "of March", into Ἰουλίων, "of July", seems to me too bold; especially since I am led to believe that Pionius suffered in the year of Christ 250, as the second consulship of Decius, in which he had Gratus as colleague, recorded in the Acts of his passion, shows.

And so I would judge that the author of the Paschal Chronicle really wrote πρὸ δ' εἰδῶν Μαρτίων, that is, "on the 4th day before the ides of March"; but that by the month of March there Xanthicus is to be understood, which is the sixth month in the solar year of the proconsular Asians, the count being taken from the month Dius. And as Dius began on the 24th of September, so Xanthicus began on the 22nd of February.

Moreover, since St Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, suffered on the second day of the month Xanthicus, the 7th day before the kalends of March, on the great sabbath, at the eighth hour, as we learn from the letter of the Church of Smyrna on the Martyrdom of St Polycarp edited by Ussher, and from the menologies of the Greeks, and since, on the other hand, the following is read in the Acts of the passion of Pionius: "On the twenty-third day of the month of February, when the great sabbath was at hand", that is, was present, "namely the birthday of the blessed martyr Polycarp, while the persecution of Decius was pressing, Pionius the presbyter and Sabina .... were arrested"; which in the Acts of the same Pionius edited by the most distinguished Theod. Ruinart, p. 123, read thus: "On the second day, then, of the sixth month, which is the fourth day before the ides of March, on the greater sabbath day, celebrating the birthday of Polycarp", etc. From these marks of the 23rd day and of the sabbath it necessarily follows that Pionius was arrested in the year of Christ 250.

But since he suffered on the 12th day of the following March, or Xanthicus, which fell on a Tuesday in that year, everyone will recognize that the word σαββάτου, "of the sabbath", was wrongly added, both in the Acts of Pionius and in the Paschal Chronicle, by some smatterer who, remembering that Pionius had been put in prison on a sabbath day, and indeed a great one, and had suffered martyrdom on the 12th day of the month of March, or Xanthicus, with a hasty pen attached the mark of the sabbath, which belonged to the 23rd day of February, to the 12th day of the month Xanthicus, making no distinction between the days on which Pionius was arrested and on which he suffered; although in the same year the 23rd of February and the 22nd of March cannot both fall on a sabbath.

But why that sabbath, which fell on the 23rd day of the Julian February, in the year of Christ 166 when Polycarp suffered martyrdom and in the year 250 when Pionius was arrested, should be called great, I do not know whether anyone has yet worked out; nor indeed, as for myself,

do I trust that I have attained it: but let it be permitted to investigate it, and thereby to stir up the sagacity of others.

In those two years of Christ, 166 and 250, Easter fell on the 7th day of April, and so the first Sunday of Lent fell on the 24th day of February. Hence the Sabbath which precedes that first Sunday of Lent could be called great by the Asians of the proconsular province, who, being Quartodecimans, had very many things in common with the Jews in matters relating to Easter.

Among the Jews, moreover, the Sabbath which immediately precedes the Passover is called great. And since the time for beginning Lent depends on the following Easter, and puts Christians in mind of Easter, the Smyrnaeans would for that reason have given to the Sabbath which is before the first Sunday of Lent the same name which is assigned by the Jews to the Sabbath which is before the Passover.

It has no bearing on the present matter that the Smyrnaeans, together with the Quartodecimans, celebrated Easter on the fourteenth moon itself, that is, in those years of Christ 166 and 250, on the 2nd day of April, a Tuesday, otherwise than the rest of the Christians. For the Quartodecimans had the same beginning of Lent as the rest of the Christians.

I noted above that the word instaret, which stands in the Acts of the passion of Pionius after cum sabbatum magnum, means adesset ("was present"). Indeed it was rendered from ἐνισταμένου wrongly understood, which stood after σαββάτου μεγάλου, as if it were said of a great Sabbath that was impending, although there a Sabbath which had already arrived is indicated.

Among Latin authors, indeed, that time which is midway between the past and the future is often called instans: but since the meaning is ambiguous, such an interpretation is faulty, and in various authors it has sometimes given less learned readers occasion for misunderstanding things.

The most distinguished Theodore Ruinart, of whom above, has reported various Latin Acts of the passion of Pionius from printed and manuscript codices, among the Acta Martyrum sincera in selecta, p. 138, where, the 12th day which is in the Paschal Chronicle being omitted, the 4th before the Ides of March, or Martii, is generally joined with the sixth month, except in the one Bollandist [codex], in which one reads: On the 4th before the Ides of March, by the custom of the Romans, but by the custom of Asia, on the eleventh of the seventh month, on the Sabbath day, at the seventh hour.

It is not known, indeed, why in that Bollandist codex the seventh hour is read instead of the tenth; nor can one guess how in the same Latin Acts, and in the Greek Menologies, Pionius is said to have suffered on the eleventh day. But I have a suspicion that "of the seventh month" was put deliberately for "of the sixth month", namely because the reckoning of the months there was drawn from Hyperberetaeus, which for various peoples and authors is the head of the civil year, so that in this way Xanthicus becomes the seventh instead of the sixth; although elsewhere, on the contrary, it is the first, when it is matched with April, as in the author of the Paschal Chronicle in those places in which the author himself speaks.

I do not dwell on the fact that in the places cited above the months are named, without any other designation, according to the order which each holds in the year. Xanthicus, for instance, is called the first, and so the rest. But perhaps it will not be out of place to report a similar example, in which an error lies hidden, from Flavius Josephus, in whom the Jewish lunar months are called by the names of the Syro-Macedonian months.

It is in book 5 of the War, chapter 25 in the Greek copies, or 3 in the Latin, p. 888 D of the Greek-Latin [edition], where Vespasian is read to have entered Gadara τετάρτη δύστρου μηνός, that is, on the fourth day of the month Dystrus; but Dystrus precedes Xanthicus. Yet a little before, namely at p. 887 F, the Sicarii are said to have attacked the little town of Engaddi at the feast of Unleavened Bread, which was celebrated in the middle of the month Xanthicus. Read therefore, by a slight change, δευτέρου instead of δύστρου, which will give τετάρτη δευτέρου μηνός, on the fourth day of the SECOND month; and so Vespasian would have entered Gadara on the fourth day of the month Artemisius, which immediately follows Xanthicus, Engaddi having been plundered by the Sicarii nineteen days before. Artemisius simply

is also called, in 1 Macc. 13:51, Δεύτερος μὴν, the second month.

Moreover, in the same Latin Acts of the passion of Pionius, Decius is said to have been consul with a colleague named variously Vizelus Gratus, or Vicius Gratus, or Vitius Tratus: hence the true name of that Gratus cannot be drawn out.

Here, in passing, since the occasion offers, I would have jurisconsults, or any other readers of the Justinian Code who are little given to more accurate chronology, warned that, right down to the times of Diocletian, there is an error by an anachronism of one year in the numbers of the era of Christ that are attached to those laws in which the consuls are noted, for example in the laws cited above, which were enacted in the consulship of Aemilianus and Aquilinus; for the year 250 of the era of Christ is put in place of 249.

The error was first committed by the illustrious father of the Fasti, Onofrio Panvinio, and then by his copyist. For Panvinio, thinking that the nativity of the Saviour must be placed one year earlier, thrust into his Fasti the age and the era of Christ, taken without distinction; and in this he had as his imitator the man who undertook to add the years of Christ to the consulships designated in the Code.

The most eminent Baronius, in his Annals, which can never be praised enough, increased Panvinio's error by one year more, as has been widely noticed by chronologers. But, what is most astonishing, amid so great a light of chronology, the most distinguished Charles Le Cointe, the recent writer of the Annals of the Franks, stumbled on the same stone. Now from the digression back to the road.

In Du Cange's edition of the Paschal Chronicle, p. 270, by the same fate and the same error as the year of the Domitianic persecution, of which [we spoke] above, the year of the Decian persecution too is left bare and wandering between the years of Christ 253 and 254, by a double error.

First, because the reign of Decius is marked by no distinguishing notes at all. Second, because, the year of Christ 253 being joined there with the last year of the emperor Philip, it must follow that the Decian persecution began at the latest in the year of Christ 254, whereas it is by far most certain that Decius died before the year 252, since in that year 252, as I noted above, his successor Trebonianus Gallus came forth as consul for the second time, already Augustus, with as colleague Vibius Volusianus, his son, already Caesar.

That the most distinguished Du Cange often went astray in recording similar events I do not wonder in the least, since, just as he possessed a most extensive reading in various and most recondite matters, so he had very little and almost no practice in chronology.

For having set out against the Carpi, who had then occupied Dacia and Moesia. The most distinguished Du Cange, in his Notes, p. 547, on the above-mentioned passage of the Paschal Chronicle, shows that the Carpi in this passage of Lactantius, the Franks in the Paschal Chronicle, the Getae or Goths in Jordanes, and the Scythians in Zosimus are the same people.

On Chapter V.

Not long after, Valerian. After 7 years; for in the year of Christ 257, the 5th of his reign, he punished bishops and presbyters with exile, as is clear from the Life, Acts and Letters of Cyprian. In the following year, 258, the 6th of his reign, around summer, he raged, as the aforementioned Cyprian teaches in his letter to Successus: hence in this place Lactantius says that Valerian shed much righteous blood, although in a short time, that is, within the space of one year; for he was captured by the Persians in the following year, 259.

On Chapter VI.

Aurelian was cut off amid the beginnings of his fury. He therefore stirred up the persecution only towards the end of the year 274 or at the beginning of the following one. For he was killed in March of the year 275.

On Chapter XI.

And he sent a soothsayer to Milesian Apollo. That the Milesians worshipped Apollo is taught, besides Strabo, Book 14, p. 634, and Pausanias in the Attica, p. 15,

by several coins, among which there is one of large module in the Royal Treasury, a bronze of the emperor Julius Verus Maximinus, after this manner:

Aut(ocrator) K(aisar) I(oulios) Verus Maximinus.

(Head radiate.)

Of Amisus the free, in the year 268.

(Apollo seated, holding a lyre in his right hand; Serapis standing, with a modius on his head, ears of corn in his right hand, a lance in his left.)

Below, between the two figures, a globe.

At the bottom: of the Amiseni Milesians.

That is: Emperor Caesar Julius Verus Maximinus. Of Amisus the free, in the year 268. Of the Amiseni Milesians.

From this coin you will understand that Serapis was worshipped by the Amiseni, as Apollo was by the Milesians.

From what is to be noted below about the second era of the Amiseni, [it appears that] it was struck in homage to Maximinus, in the year of the Julian Period 4950, from the founding of the City 990, of Christ 237, after the death of both Gordians.

On the occasion of the numeral letters inscribed on it, I shall say in a few words that the Amiseni had at most two eras.

The first will have been reckoned from the year of the Julian Period 4667, from the founding of the City 707, before Christ 47, when Julius Caesar rewarded the Amiseni with freedom (ἐλευθερίᾳ ἠμείψατο, "repaid with liberty"), as Dio witnesses, book 42, page 207, because Pharnaces, the parricide son of Mithridates, had taken away their manhood, as Hirtius teaches, Alexandrian War, chapters 41 and 70, together with Appian, book 2 of the Civil Wars, page 484, and Dio, book 42, page 206, in whom, where we read τούς τε ἡβῶντας ἐν αὐτῇ πάντας ἀπέκτεινε, "he killed all the grown youths in it", one must read, on the evidence of the two other authors, ἀπέτεμε, "he castrated"; which in Appian is τομίας ἐποιήσατο. I am truly astonished that this error has remained unnoticed until now.

This first era of Amisus is shown by a coin of Hadrian, if indeed it is genuine, which is cited by Joseph Scaliger, Canones Isagogici, book 3, page 301, Amsterdam edition, number 90:

Aut(ocrator) Kais(ar) Ail(ios) Hadrianus Seb(astos) P(ater) P(atriae) Hyp(atos) 3.

Of Amisus the free, in the year 183 (wrongly, ΓΠΓ).

That is: Emperor Caesar Aelius Hadrian Augustus, Father of the Fatherland, Consul for the third time. Of Amisus the free, in the year 183.

There Scaliger not only wrongly interprets ΥΠ. Γ., Consul III, as "third", which means "for the third time", but he also errs when he says that those 183 years end in the year of the Julian Period 4833, to which he ties Hadrian's third consulship; for Hadrian entered on his third and last consulship in the year of the Julian Period 4832, from the founding of the City 872, of Christ 119; hence, either way, and without any foundation, the era would have to be reckoned from the year of the Julian Period 4650 or 4651, that is, before Christ 64 or 63.

But I have a strong suspicion that on that coin one should read ΡΞΓ, 163, just as another silver coin of the same Hadrian in the Royal Treasury displays:

Aut(ocrator) Kai(sar) Tra(ianos) Hadrianus Seb(astos) Hyp(atos) 3.

(Head laureate.)

Of Amisus the free, in the year 163.

(Pallas standing, holding a small Victory in her right hand, her left resting on a shield.)

It was struck, as we shall see from the following era, in the year of the Julian Period 4854, from the founding of the City 885, of Christ 132, the fifteenth [year] of the emperor Hadrian. For Hadrian, after Trajan had died, obtained the empire in the year of Christ 117, on the 10th day of the month of August.

The second era, which is marked by the numeral letters ϹΞΗ, 268, on the coin of the above-mentioned Maximinus, is to be reckoned from the very beginning of the year of the Julian Period 4683, from the founding of the City 723,

before Ch. 31, when the people of Amisus, having killed or driven out the tyrant Straton, won their freedom for themselves by arms. And as for the statement in Strabo, book 12, page 547, that freedom was restored to them by Caesar Augustus after the battle of Actium, it is to be understood as confirmed.

That same era is seen on a bronze coin of middle module of Diadumenian, which is kept in the Museum of that most learned and most cultivated man Fr. Dronius.

M. OPEL. ANT. DIADUMENIANUS CAESAR.

(With bare head.)

OF FREE AMISUS, YEAR 249.

(An eagle with outspread wings.)

That is: Marcus Opelius Antoninus Diadumenianus Caesar. Of free Amisus, in the year 249.

It was struck before the month of June of the year of Christ 218, since the emperor Macrinus was killed in that year, together with his son Diadumenus, at the beginning of June.

Here, however, the reader must be warned that the coin of Aelius Caesar, which the most distinguished Ant. Pagi cites in the Addenda to his Critica Baroniana, page 305, as sent to him by me from the Royal Cabinet, with the letters PZE, 165, does not belong to Aelius Caesar, nor is it in the Royal Cabinet. I do indeed remember that I wrote it thus to that most distinguished man, just as it has been set out by him; but I had previously received it in that form from a friend by letter, misled without any ill intent.

This coin is in fact one of Sabina, wife of Hadrian, which is found on page 307 of the Thesaurus Palatinus published by L. Beger at Heidelberg in the year 1685. Hence collapses the third era of the people of Amisus, which Ant. Pagi, in the same place in the Addenda, wrongly built upon that coin.

Nor should it be passed over that Holstenius too, in his notes on Stephanus On Cities, under the entry Amisos, wrongly reports a coin of Caracalla struck at Amisus, on which, he says, are the letters CNE, 255, which fit neither era. For on it are CME, 245, as they are read on a bronze coin of the largest module in the Royal Cabinet, in this manner:

IMP. CAES. M. AUR. ANTONINUS GERM.

(With radiate head.)

OF FREE AMISUS.

(Victory in a two-horse chariot, in her right hand a crown, in her left a palm.)

In the exergue: YEAR 245.

That is: Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Germanicus. Of free Amisus, in the year 245.

Caracalla did not assume the title of Germanicus except in the course of his sixteenth tribunician power, as may be seen on the coins in Occo, page 377, and Mediobarbus, page 293. Now the tribunician power was conferred on Caracalla in the year of Christ 198, and thus in the year of Christ 213 he entered upon his sixteenth tribunician power, only in the course of which did he style himself Germanicus.

This coin was therefore struck in the year of the City 967, of Christ 214, and not in the year of the City 961, of Christ 208, as the most distinguished Pagi holds on the same page 305, in the Addenda, where, led into error by Holstenius, he reckons the letters CNE, 255, from the earlier era of Amisus, that is, from the year of the City 707.

On Chapter XIII.

Lawfully cooked. That is, burnt, as in chapter 21: Then torches, lit and put out, were applied to each of the limbs. This at last came about when, after the whole skin had been roasted through for much of the day, the force of the fire had penetrated to the innermost parts.

On Chapter XV.

So the emperor now raged not against his household only, but against all; and first of all he compelled his daughter Valeria and his wife Prisca to be polluted by sacrifice. They were therefore Christians. And that they were indeed Christians, and not always so badly treated, you may learn from this passage of Eusebius, rendered word for word (Hist. Eccl., book 8, chapter 1, right at the beginning):

What need is there to speak of those in the imperial households, and of the rulers over all? who, to the members of their households, before [their] face,

they allowed [their own people] to speak freely concerning the divine, in word and in life, wives and children and household servants, all but permitting them even to boast of the freedom of their faith, whom they held to be exceptionally acceptable, and more so than their fellow servants: such was that Dorotheus, of all men the most well-disposed and most faithful towards them, and on all these accounts distinctly the most honoured, beyond those in offices and governorships; and with him the renowned Gorgonius. What need is there to speak of those who were in the houses of the emperors, and of those who ruled over all? who allowed their own people, before them, to conduct themselves freely concerning divine matters both in speech and in manner of living, to wives, and to children and servants, all but permitting them even to boast over the free profession of the faith, whom they held as exceptionally acceptable, and above their other fellow servants: such was that Dorotheus, of all men the most well-disposed and most faithful towards them; and therefore, above those who were in magistracies and prefectures, the most honoured; and with him the celebrated Gorgonius. Let me be permitted to append two other versions of this text, published by most distinguished men, the one by John Christopherson, and the other by Henri de Valois: from which, when compared with the one above, the reader will understand how great, and how senseless, is the licence of some translators, who in rendering authors turn everything upside down and stuff in countless words, most of them trifling and useless; even without any distinction of type. Such are, for the most part, the things which in these two versions I have had enclosed in brackets.

That which is John Christopherson's I present in the first place, as being the older. It runs as follows: What does it concern us to say of those who (are) in the palace of the emperors (having attained great dignity); and finally of the emperors (themselves), who, (themselves as it were) looking on, gave their household servants leave to speak freely (and frankly) for the spreading of the divine word and for the (pious) manner of life (to be led); and granted to (their very own) wives, children and servants the power of boasting (and exulting), as it were (openly), of the (wonderful) freedom of the faith? Whom indeed they held dearer and more especially beloved than (the remaining crowd of servants). As that Dorotheus, who beyond the rest showed both the highest goodwill towards them and no less fidelity, and therefore attained, above others who held magistracies and prefectures in the empire, the most ample degree of honour. As Gorgonius, who shone with no dissimilar fame (and celebrity).

Thus far Christopherson, who, as you see, took τῷ θείῳ as an adjective; for he renders it "divine", and joins it with λόγῳ, "word". But wrongly; since it is to be taken as a substantive and interpreted as "the deity", or "divine matters": whence Valois rendered it by "those things which belonged to their religion". His whole version runs thus: What need is there to speak of those who (lived) in the palaces of the emperors, what of the emperors (themselves?) Who gave their household servants, and (their) wives, children and servants, the power of freely carrying out, in the presence of (themselves), both in words and in deeds, those things which (belonged) to (their) religion; permitting them in a manner to glory in (this) freedom of (their) faith (and to display themselves), and they embraced them with a (certain) special love above (all) other attendants. Of this kind was that Dorotheus, who showed the highest goodwill and fidelity towards them, and for that reason earned great honour above (all) the magistrates, the governors of provinces. To him must be joined that most celebrated Gorgonius.

Thus far Valois. In his notes these words are read: Γαμεταῖς. Christopherson understood these words of the wives of the emperors, to whom, that is, the emperors permitted the free profession of the Christian faith. But what follows plainly refutes this sense.

But the distinguished man ought to have attended not to what follows but to what precedes. For he would have perceived that by the word οἰκείοις, which occurs in the place above, and which I rendered by "their own people", as a generic term, three classes of persons are comprehended who lived in the palaces of the emperors; namely γαμετὰς, παῖδας and οἰκέτας, wives, children and servants, all of them indeed the emperors'; but that Dorotheus and Gorgonius belonged only to

the third kind, or class, immediately preceding, which is that of τῶν συνθεραπευόντων, of those who minister together, whom I have expressed in one word as fellow servants. For Dorotheus was of the number of those to whom the prefectures of the empire had been entrusted: whence in the same place, from the Acts of the martyrs Indes and Domna, chap. 23, Valesius notes that he was distinguished by civil rank, as one who was called praepositus by the Italians.

On Chapter XVII.

So, the summer being over, by way of the circuit of the Striga bank. Restore Istricae, that is, Danubian; from Ister, the Danube. For the corruption from Istricae into Stricae, and then Strigae, was easy, the first letter being removed by the copyists through habit. Thus Strix from Histrix. Hence Striculus in Arnobius for Histriculus; Strionem for Histrionem. Isidore and the old glossaries: Strio, a mime, a stage-player. These examples, with many others, the great Salmasius supplies on Spartianus, chap. 27, in the Life of Hadrian.

Henry Dodwell, in the dissertation On the Striga Bank appended to the works of Lactantius published at Oxford in the year 1684, indulges his fancy when he says, «that Striga in this passage of Lactantius is a land-surveyors' word, or a gromatic one, carried over and adopted first from the laying out of camps, then to the fields of colonies, which used to be measured and allotted according to the pattern of camps.» After that most learned man has established this with much effort, he finally concludes thus:

«Accordingly our emperor (Diocletian) was carried for the most part in a litter from Rome as far as Ravenna. From there to the Danube perhaps by litter, then the rest of the journey by ship, and down the stream of the Danube, through the Euxine Sea as far as Nicomedia.»

But who in his right mind would admit that an emperor sick in body and mind undertook a long and most dangerous voyage through the Cataracts of the Danube and the shallows and storms of the Euxine Sea? It would therefore be better said that Diocletian was carried by litter to the Drava or the Sava, at the point where they first become navigable for vessels; and from there, down the stream, as also down the Danube, landed in those parts which are nearer to Hadrianople, whence he would have set out on a direct route, again by litter, towards Nicomedia.

But to this opinion, although more probable, the text of Lactantius is as much an obstacle as to Dodwell's, for in it the emperor is nowhere read to have used the downstream course of rivers in accomplishing the aforesaid journey: so the interpretation must be sought elsewhere, namely from the itinerary called that of Antoninus, in which one can see that there were two routes from Viminacium, which is situated in Moesia, as far as Nicomedia.

Diocletian, then, would have come from Ravenna to Viminacium, a city long dear to him, as various laws issued by him there show; where he would have had a twofold route, of which he was to take one.

The one was indeed very short; for on it, by way of Municipium and Hadrianople, no more than twenty stations are counted as far as Ostudizum, where the two routes run back into each other. But I think that this one was avoided by Diocletian and left on the right hand, because it was extremely steep, and on this short cut a great many mountains, chief among them Haemus, had to be crossed.

It is described on page 30 of the Itinerary of Antoninus published at Cologne in the year 1600; and I have thought it worth while to set it before the eyes, without a listing of all the places or a statement of the distances, since neither bears on the present matter.

Viminacium.

Municipium. 18 Roman miles.

Idimum. 17 Roman miles, etc.

Burditpa.

Hadrianople. 24 Roman miles.

Ostudizum. 18 Roman miles, etc.

Byzantium (Constantinople).

Chalcedon.

Crossing into Bithynia. 4 Roman miles.

Pantichium. 15 Roman miles.

Libyssa, 24 Roman miles.

Nicomedia. 22 Roman miles.

The other route, in which the words "along the Bank" are to be noted, from the same starting point of Viminacium to the same end point of Ostudizum, is found on p. 49 and is headed thus.

Likewise along the BANK from Viminacium to Nicomedia, xii. 72 miles. Thus [in the source].

Cuppae. 24 miles.

Novae. 24 miles.

Ratiaria. Legion XIV Gemina. 18 miles.

Oescus. Legion Mac[edonica]. 12 miles.

Novae. Legion I Ital[ica]. 17 miles.

Beyond Murisca.

Candidiana. 13 miles.

Teglicium. 12 miles.

Dorostoron. Legion XI Cl[audia]. 12 miles.

Sucidava. 18 miles.

Axiopolis. 12 miles.

Trosmis. Legion I Jovia, Scythia.

Arrubium. 9 miles.

Diniguttia. 9 miles.

Noviodunum. Legion II Herculea. 20 miles.

Istrus.

Tomi. 36 miles.

Sadame.

Tarpodizon. 18 miles.

OSTUDIZUM. 32 miles.

Byzantium.

Pantichium. 15 miles.

Libyssa. 24 miles.

NICOMEDIA. 22 miles.

Note that in this second listing Chalcedon, together with the crossing into Bithynia, is omitted by the author, although they are in the first.

The route just described was indeed very long, since it has 53 stations, as will be plain to anyone who counts them in the Itinerary itself, but it was the easiest for an emperor in poor health, because it went over level ground, following the Istrian Bank, that is, the Bends of the lower Danube.

For in the Latin copies of Ptolemy, in the part where the Greek is lacking, on p. 57 of the Greek-Latin edition of Bertius, of the year 1618, one reads: "The bend near the city Axium", that is, Axiopolis, "and from here as far as the mouths it is called ISTER." Add that on p. 55 of the same Itinerary the route which runs from Taurunum into the Gauls as far as Legion XXX is said to go along the Bank of Pannonia, not along the Bank simply, because that designation belongs to the Ister par excellence, p. 49.

Diocletian will have chosen this latter route, not only as more convenient than the other, which was the shortcut, but also because along it, had his health permitted, he would fulfil the duties of an emperor, namely by reviewing one after another the various legions stationed on the frontiers of the empire listed above, since there were none on the other route: and especially I Jovia, at Trosmin, or Trosmis, and II Herculea, at Noviodunum, both of which were named after the surnames of Diocletian and Maximian the elder, and lasted until the times of Honorius, as Claudian testifies in the War against Gildo, in these verses:

His own Alcides leads the Herculean cohort, and the King of the Gods the Jovian.

Now, I think, you understand, reader, what is meant in Lactantius by the circuit of that Istrian Bank, by which Diocletian came from Ravenna to Nicomedia: namely, by a journey overland through the various bends of the lower Danube, almost as far as its mouths, and then to Ostudizum.

This capital observation I received from a most illustrious abbot, in whom, besides astonishing learning, there is such modesty that he wishes his name to be concealed.

On Chapter XVIII.

I present the whole chapter here, divided not only into verses but also by the addition of the names of Diocletian and Gal. Maximian. In it, moreover, for greater distinction, the words of both are printed in italic type. It would be desirable, however, that the books of any authors whatever, and especially of the ancients, which are published hereafter, should be divided likewise by adding verse numbers. This would be done for the greatest convenience of the reader in citing their passages.

Chapter XVIII. 1. Not many days afterwards the Caesar arrived, not to congratulate his father, but to force him to give up the empire. 2. He had already clashed recently with the old man Maximian, and had terrified him by instilling the fear of civil war. 3. So he approached Diocletian, at first gently and in a friendly manner, saying that he was now old, now less vigorous, and unfit to administer the state: that he ought to rest after his labours. 4. At the same time he also put forward the example of Nerva, who had handed over the empire to Trajan.

5. But he said both that it would be unseemly if, after the splendour of so lofty a summit, he should fall into the darkness of a humble life; and that it would be less safe, because in so long a reign he had incurred the hatred of many. 6. Nerva, moreover, having reigned one year, since he could not bear the weight and care of such great affairs, whether through age or through inexperience, had thrown away the helm of the state and returned to private life, in which he had grown old. 7. But if he desired to obtain the name of emperor, there was nothing to prevent all of them from being called Augusti.

8. But he, who in hope had already gaped after the whole world, since he saw that from this either nothing but the name, or not much, would accrue to him, replied that his own arrangement ought to be preserved in perpetuity: that there should be in the state two greater ones, who hold the supreme power; likewise two lesser ones, who serve as assistance. 9. Between two, concord could easily be preserved; among four equals, in no way. 10. If he himself were unwilling to yield, he would look to his own interests, so as no longer to be the lesser and the last. 11. Fifteen years had now passed since, banished to Illyricum or to the bank of the Danube, he had been struggling with barbarian nations, while others ruled in luxury within more spacious and more peaceful lands.

12. Having heard these things the feeble old man, who had already received a letter from the old man Maximian, writing whatever he had said, and had learned that the army was being increased by him, [spoke] in tears.

13. DIOCL. Let it be so, he said, if this pleases [you]. It remained that the Caesars should be chosen by common counsel.

14. MAX. What need is there of counsel, since those two must necessarily be pleased with whatever we have done?

15. DIOCL. Just so. For their sons must be named.

16. Now Maximian had (a son) Maxentius, the son-in-law of this very Maximian, a man of a pernicious and evil mind, so proud and stubborn that he was not accustomed to do obeisance either to his father or to his father-in-law, and for that reason he was hated by both. 17. Constantius too had a son, Constantine, a most upright young man, and most worthy of that eminence, who, for the distinguished and comely bearing of his body, and his military diligence, and his upright character, and his singular affability, was loved by the soldiers and also desired by private citizens. 18. And he was then present, having long since been made by Diocletian a tribune of the first rank.

19 What then will be done?

20. MAX. He, he said, is not worthy. For he who despised me as a private man, what will he do when he has received the empire?

21. DIOCL. But this one is both lovable, and will reign in such a way that he will be judged better and more merciful than his father.

22. MAX. So it will come about that I cannot do what I wish. Therefore those ought to be named who are in my power, who fear, who do nothing except at my command.

33. DIOC. Whom then shall we make?

24. MAX. Severus, he said.

25. DIOCL. That dancer, that drunkard, that sot, for whom night is in place of day, and day in place of night?

26. MAX. He is worthy, he said, since he has faithfully supplied the soldiers; and I have sent him to Maximian, to be invested [with the purple] by him.

27. DIOCL. So be it. Whom will you give as the other?

28. MAX. This one, he said, pointing out Daia, a certain half-barbarian young man, whom he had recently ordered to be called Maximinus after his own name.

29. Already too Diocletian had borrowed a name for him from his brother, for the sake of the omen, because Maximian kept faith with the utmost scrupulousness.

30. DIOCL. Who is this whom you offer me?

31. MAX. My kinsman by marriage, he said.

32. But he, groaning:

DIOCL. You are not giving me, he said, men to whom the protection of the commonwealth can be entrusted.

33. MAX. I have tested them, he said.

34. DIOCL. You must see to that, since you are about to take up the government of the empire. I have laboured and taken care enough that, while I ruled, the commonwealth should stand unharmed. If anything adverse happens, the fault will not be mine.

Now follow the notes on this chapter.

Patri ("to his father"). He was his adopted son. He was also his son-in-law, for Galerius Maximianus had married Diocletian's daughter, Galeria Valeria.

Sene ("old man"). Perhaps one should read seni.

At the same time he also put forward the example of Nerva, who had handed over the empire to Trajan. This, however, is utterly false; for Trajan, adopted by Nerva, did not rule until Nerva was dead, although, after the most distinguished Henry Dodwell in the Appendix to the Dissertationes Cyprianicae, no. 40, the illustrious Dr William Lloyd, bishop of St Asaph in Wales, holds the same view, as is shown by the Canon of Nerva and Trajan, most learnedly and most skilfully written by him, which I keep carefully in my possession until it comes out in the chronological work that all men of letters are daily expecting from so great a man.

It should be observed, however, that this is related not by Lactantius as its author, but by Maximianus in Lactantius, to serve his own purpose. For he wished to misuse this example with Diocletian, who was not only unversed in history but also at that time placed in straits, in order to induce him to abdicate the empire. But Diocletian, in that state of affairs, did not dare to withhold credit from Galerius Maximianus; and for that reason, below (v. 6), whether through ignorance of the matter, being an unlettered man, or rather because of Maximianus's ferocity, being a timid old man, he did not at all refute the falsity of the example.

But how Nerva entered upon the empire, and, after adopting Trajan, made an end of living, it will not be altogether beside the point to set out here in a few words.

When Domitian had been slain on the 14th day before the Kalends of October, that is, on the 18th of September, in the year of Christ 96, Nerva began to rule; on that same day, long before, namely in the year of Christ 56, Trajan had been born, as is found in Pliny, book 10, letter 28, and in the ancient calendar in Bucherius and Lambecius. Hence in his Panegyric, chapter 92, that day is called glad with a threefold joy, which took away the worst prince (Domitian), gave the best (Nerva), and brought to birth one better than the best (Trajan).

Then, a little after Trajan had been adopted in his absence in the year 97, at the end of October, Nerva dies, namely in the year 98, on the 27th of January. For according to Dio, p. 771, B, he did not rule longer than one year, four months and nine days.

That Nerva certainly did not long survive the adoption of Trajan we understand from Pliny, Panegyric, chapter 10, where he says of Nerva: Whom the gods claimed for heaven, so that after that divine and immortal deed he should do nothing mortal; for this veneration was owed to the greatest work, that it should be the last, and that its author should be deified AT ONCE, so that it might one day be asked among posterity whether a god had done it. Thus far Pliny the Younger.

Further, since the time that Nerva spent after the adoption of Trajan is fixed by Aurelius Victor in the Epitome at three months, the adoption of Trajan is accordingly assigned, fittingly, to the end of the month of October of the year 97, and indeed to the 5th day before the Kalends of November, that is, the 28th of October. For the 5th day before the Kalends of any month was sacred to such acts of the emperors, as the most distinguished Antoine Pagi teaches in the Dissertatio Hypatica and in the Critica Baroniana.

But that the empire was abdicated by Nerva, if it really had been abdicated, who could have known better than Pliny the Younger? Yet in his letters, and in the very panegyric of Trajan, there is not only deep silence on that matter, but the contrary is plainly asserted from them.

This in fact Aurelius Victor wrote in his book On the Caesars, in which these are his words about Nerva: When he saw that (the empire) could not be managed except by men superior and stronger in body and mind, he abdicated in the sixteenth month.

But what weight is to be given to that writer's authority on the abdication of the empire by Nerva, he himself reveals when he writes of the same man entering upon the empire: For what was more prudent and more moderate than Nerva the Cretan? who, when in extreme old age among the Sequani, where he had revolted out of fear of the tyrant, had taken the empire at the will of the legions, etc. Of which things Joseph Scaliger, on no. 2113 of Eusebius, rightly says: All false and monstrous.

For Victor in his On the Caesars the occasion of the error may have been either this passage of Lactantius, where Galerius Maximianus thrusts this example upon Diocletian; or another, likewise misunderstood, from the same Pliny, who in the Panegyric, ch. 8, speaking of the adoption of Trajan, says of Nerva: Thereupon, as though he had laid down the empire, rejoicing in what security, in what glory (for how little does it matter whether you lay down or share the empire, except that the latter is the harder), leaning upon you not otherwise than as if you were at hand, sustaining himself and his country on your shoulders, he grew strong by your youth, by your strength? From which this author ought to have understood that in Pliny, speaking rhetorically, to lay down and to share the empire are indeed almost the same: yet that Nerva did not lay it down, but only shared it.

Indeed, the words of Eutropius, speaking of Diocletian himself, are: Alone of all since the Roman empire was founded, he returned from so great a height to the private state of life and the condition of a citizen. Which is partly false; for this he had in common with his brother, Maximian Herculius: but in both cases by force, not of free will, as we learn from this book of Lactantius, ch. 18, 19 and 20.

But he said. That is, Diocletian.

Et. So I have restored, in place of the word ei, at the suggestion of Joannes Columbus, unless you prefer ei to be the same as sibi.

Nervam vero uno anno imperantem. So it must be read, instead of Nerva vero uno anno imperante. Moreover, Nerva had reigned about one year and a month and a half when he adopted Trajan; which interval of time runs from the middle of September of the year of Christ 96 to the 28th day of October of the year 97.

That he had returned to private life, in which he had grown old. From what has been said above it is plain that Nerva lived, and reigned, for three months after the adoption of Trajan.

The name of emperor. In which sense it was used of the Augusti alone. Thus in ch. 9 of this book: For after he had received the name of emperor. Then ch. 25: Constantine, however, not as emperor, as he had been made, but as Caesar. So ch. 27: Formerly indeed he, when he had received the name of emperor. Next ch. 29: Constantine emperor. Further, ch. 30: the honour of emperor having been lost. Finally ch. 32: Licinius having been named emperor; and in the same place at the end: All four he orders to be named emperors.

All. The other two, who were Caesars, namely Constantius and Galerius Maximianus himself.

But he. That is, Maximian.

Spe. Wrongly in the autograph ipse, as Joannes Columbus rightly observed.

Aut haud multum. I have added haud before multum, as necessary; not, however, non, since haud rather seems to have been swallowed up in the preceding word aut.

That he would look to his own interests, so as no longer to be the lesser and the last. Galerius Maximianus was lesser than the Augusti (Diocletian and Maximian Herculius), being only a Caesar; and he was the last of the Caesars, because inferior to Constantius. This indeed he had long borne most grievously; for when Narses, king of the Persians, had been put to flight, he exclaimed with a fierce face and a terrible voice: How long a Caesar?

Quindecim, cum in Illyricum. After quindecim I have added cum, recovered, that is, from cim, the last syllable of the preceding word.

Let it be so, he says, if this pleases. It remained

that the Caesars should be chosen by the common counsel of all. These are the continuous words of Diocletian himself, and not (from the word Supererat on) interposed words of Lactantius, as they might seem at first sight. For supererat is put for superesset, just as erat is put for esset in Cicero, in the speech for the Manilian law: But if Cn. Pompeius were at this time a private citizen, he nevertheless WAS to be chosen and sent to so great a war. Other examples also occur.

By the common counsel of all. A counsel, namely, in which Maximianus Herculius Augustus and Constantius Caesar ought to have shared.

To those two. To Maximianus Herculius and to Constantius.

Just so. For. Again Nam in place of Autem.

To be named. Caesars.

Was. From the beginning of this verse 16 to the end of verse 18 there is one single parenthesis, comprising the words of Lactantius.

After Maximiano, filius has been added, as it stands in verse 17 after Constantio...

The first Maximianus, of whom the discussion is there, is Herculius; the other, however, is Galerius.

What then will happen? These are the words of Diocletian, which are followed without a break by his last words, which are found in verse 15.

He. Constantine, whom, being present there at that moment (verse 18), Maximianus was contemptuously pointing out.

Let him be clothed. With the purple, by which the Caesars were distinguished.

He had ordered Maximinus to be called after his own name. Baluze, a distinguished man, acknowledges in his notes that here and almost always elsewhere Maximianum is read in the old codex. Hence I have a suspicion that Daza was called Maximianus by Gal. Maximianus, after his own full name, not Maximinus. For in two inscriptions of the Baths of Diocletian, in Gruter p. 183, 2 and 7, after Constantius and Maximianus Augusti and Severus Caesar, there is listed a Maximianus Caesar, who can be no other than Daza. Add that among the Greek writers the same man is called Maximianus indiscriminately.

I should think, therefore, that since there were already two Maximiani, Herculius and Galerius, it became the custom among the common people that, for the sake of distinction, Daza was called not Maximianus but Maximinus, as is inscribed on Greek and Latin coins.

Moreover, Gal. Maximianus must be judged to have adopted Daza at the same time as he ordered him to be called after his own name: since in chapter 39 Daza is read to have called Valeria, the wife of Gal. Maximianus, mother, and in the same place Gal. Maximianus is called the father of Daza.

Already also to him. To Gal. Maximianus Armentarius.

Diocletian had borrowed the name from his brother for the sake of the omen, because Maximianus kept faith with the utmost scrupulousness. Thus I have restored the text, in place of what had been written: Ex parte mutaverat, hominis causa, etc. For is anyone to be said to change someone's name in part who adds to it some whole name, such as is that name of Maximianus imposed on Galerius by Diocletian?

It could in some way be said that the name of Galerius had been changed in part by Diocletian, if Galerius had been called Galerianus with the ending of adoptive names, as Octavianus from Octavius, Valerianus from Valerius, and very many similar ones: but when the name of Maximianus was imposed, there was in the appellations of Galerius no trace of a changed name, but plainly of an added one.

There will perhaps be someone who will object that Galerius's name was changed, because instead of Armentarius he was called Maximianus: but that with little success. For the appellation Armentarius is not a name but a surname imposed in jest, like those of Caligula, Caracalla and Tarantas, which, used only in the mouth of the common people, you would not find inscribed on public monuments, for example edicts, stones and coins. Add to this that Galerius, from the time he was called Maximianus, did not cease to be called Armentarius as well, as may be seen in both Victors, and elsewhere.

Anyone knowing Latin to any degree will understand that the [word] mutuaverat

is used here by Lactantius in place of mutuatus fuerat. For Priscian, book 8, On the Verb, says: "The ancients produced many [verbs] likewise with a double ending in one and the same meaning, such as partio and partior, meto and metor, modero and moderor, mutuo and mutuor." Thus far Priscian, whose authority alone may count for that of many. Lactantius in this very book, chapter 16, has: "This is the true triumph, when the dominators are dominated; for they have been conquered and subjugated by your valour."

Examples of this usage in the verb Mutuo do not indeed occur to me at present, except that which is in Matthew (Matt. 5:42): "From him who wishes to borrow (δανείσασθαι) from you do not turn away"; and another in Nonius, among the authors of the Latin language, chapter 17, number 48, page 751.

Mutuet: let him take a loan. Caecilius in the Asotus:

He will run to a friend to borrow; let him borrow for my sake;

where one should read currat, and causa mea.

To these two examples add, if you wish, Pliny, book 2, chapter 9, where he says that the rest of the stars are ruled by the brightness of the sun, since indeed they shine wholly with light borrowed from it.

But so that the reason for this correction may be understood, one must know that Maximian Herculius was called brother by Diocletian, namely by reason of their partnership in the empire.

So in chapter 8 of this book, right at the beginning, where the discussion is about Diocletian, one reads: "What of HIS BROTHER Maximian, who was called Herculius?" So too in the inscription of the Baths of Diocletian in Gruter, 178, 7, after the names of Diocletian and Maximian (Herculius), Constantius and Maximian (Galerius), Severus and Maximinus (Daza) have been set down, one may read:

THE FELICIAN BATHS, CONSECRATED IN THE NAME OF DIOCLETIAN AUGUSTUS HIS BROTHER, etc., where after the word FELICES there has been omitted, through the carelessness either of the stonecutter or of the copyist, MAXIMIANUS AUG., that is, the name of Herculius, as it stands in another similar inscription, which is shown, mutilated, in the same place, number 8.

This [inscription], in those parts which pertain to the present purpose, I shall try partly to supply in this manner.

THE ELDER AUGUSTI.

Read D. D. | OUR LORDS CONSTANTIUS

AND MAXIM[IAN].

THE FELICIAN BATHS

-es, elder. | MAXIMIAN AUGUSTUS

..... his. | IN THE PRESENCE OF [HIS] MAJE-

-sty. | ORDERED TO BE MADE, AND TO DI-

-ocletian's. | NAME CONSECRATED [THEM].

There you see the words MAXIMIANUS AUG., which are missing in the first inscription, added in this one after THERMAS FELICES, namely because Herculius had consecrated them to Diocletian, his brother.

Moreover, from chapter 20 of this very book we learn that the Augusti were brothers to one another, while the Caesars were called sons by the Augusti, in these words: "But he was unwilling to make him (Licinius) Caesar, lest he should call him SON, so that afterwards he might name him, in the place of Constantius, AUGUSTUS and BROTHER."

The same brotherhood of Diocletian and Maximian Herculius is displayed by an inscription set up in the forum of Tyre, which is reported in the Jerusalem Talmud, tractate Havodah Zarah, chapter 4, folio 39 verso, column 2, line 17, in this manner:

I, Diocletian the emperor, who built this forum of Tyre to the fortune of Herculius MY BROTHER in eighty days.

This from Bomberg's Venetian edition, which is far more elegant and more correct than that Cracow one of the Jewish year 367, or of Christ 1706.

Lactantius therefore means that Diocletian, whose brother Maximian Herculius was, borrowed (mutuasse, or mutuatum esse) the name of Maximian Herculius, his brother, in order to give it to Galerius Armentarius.

The reason for the name given is added, namely "for the sake of the omen, because Maximian Herculius kept faith with the utmost scrupulousness." Diocletian, that is, had seized on an omen from the name, reckoning that Galerius, whom he was creating Caesar,

would be loyal to him if he bore the name of the emperor Maximian Herculius, his brother, who was loyal to him. In Victor too, On the Caesars, Maximian Herculius is read to have been faithful in friendship towards Diocletian.

On Chapter XX.

Maximian, after he had achieved what he wanted by the expulsion of the old men, was boasting that he was now lord of the whole world. He must be judged to have wished at that time to change the title of the Roman empire, so that it should be called not the ROMAN empire but the DACIAN.

And his son, who was then nine years old, having been put in as Caesar. He was therefore born in the year of Christ 296, after the month of May, or in 297, before the same month. For the old men were expelled on the kalends of May of the year of Christ 305, which, namely, immediately followed the ninth consulship of Diocletian.

Candidianus. This is the name of the son of Galerius Maximian, whom, born of a concubine, Valeria, the wife of the same Maximian, had adopted on account of her barrenness. But since his father waged war for 15 years in Illyricum, or on the bank of the Danube, you would not speak altogether foolishly if you said that Candidiana, whether a town or a staging-post, which according to the Itinerary of Antoninus, p. 63, cited above, lies between Transmarisca and Teglicium, received this name because Candidianus had either been born or been brought up in it.

On Chapter XXIV.

Having taken up the imperial power, Constantine Augustus did nothing before restoring the Christians to their worship and to their God. He therefore acted as Augustus at once, never having been Caesar before, and he held the second place in the empire, as in chapter 25, at the end. Eusebius too, On the Life of Constantine, book 1, chapter 22, says that Constantine was called Augustus immediately after the death of Constantius: unless you prefer to say that Constantine is called Augustus by Lactantius by prolepsis; for he did not claim this title for himself, if any credence is to be given to the author of the Panegyric of Constantine and Maximinus, until after he received it from Maximian Herculius, who, having resumed the purple, came into Gaul in the year 307 in order to give his daughter Fausta in marriage to Constantine.

But whence, then, so many various coins, of gold, silver and bronze, on which CONSTANTINE is read as CAESAR? Is this to be attributed to Constantine's moderation, since some were struck in the provinces which were under his control? Or were they for the most part struck in deference to Galerius Maximian rather than to Constantine, in those regions which were subject to Galerius Maximian, so that, by so many coins scattered through the empire, the title of Augustus might be taken away from Constantine?

Thus the reason for supposing it: Galerius Maximian ordered Constantine to be called [not] emperor, as he had been made, but Caesar together with Maximinus, chapter 25, at the end. You may also draw this very point from chapter 26, in which the same Maximian is read to have been unable to make Caesars: namely Maxentius, added to the two others, Maximinus and Constantine.

On Chapter XXV.

In order to thrust him down from the second place to the fourth. Constantine, chapter 24, commended to the soldiers by his father Constantius when near death, had been made Augustus; and so he was the equal of Galerius Maximian, and second in the Roman empire. Severus and Maximinus, however, had been made Caesars by Galerius Maximian (chapter 18, verses 24 and 28-34) before Constantine obtained any rank. Again, Severus having now been named Augustus, and Maximinus having attained the third place, as having been made Caesar earlier, it was necessary for Constantine to yield his place to both of them, if he had been named merely Caesar; and so from the second place given to him by the soldiers after his father's death, as noted above towards the end of chapter 24, he would have been thrust down into the fourth.

On Chapter XXVI.

That Maxentius was made emperor at Rome. Beware of understanding by this meaning of emperor Augustus, as afterwards

(chap. 32 at the end) Maxentius himself was made. Here this is nothing other than Caesar; for below, with Maxentius counted, one reads: And Maximianus hated the man, and could not make three Caesars.

And names him Augustus twice. That is, again, or anew.

On Chapter XXVII.

Maximianus having been joined. That is, Maximinus. For Daza was called by Lactantius Maximianus and Maximinus indiscriminately. See the note on chap. 28, line 28.

By the marriage of his younger daughter. Of Fausta.

He. Galerius Maximianus.

Felix animis quorum. Read: flexis animis eorum ("their minds having been swayed").

On Chapter XXIX.

There were six. Diocles does not enter into the number, but Maximianus Herculius does, to whom, while he was staying in Campania, his son Maxentius had sent the purple, and whom he had named Augustus twice, that is, anew, so that father and son held the Empire in common.

The emperor Constantine, his son-in-law. For he had married Fausta, the daughter of Maximianus Herculius.

The son of his son-in-law. Of Constantius Chlorus, whom Flavia Maximiana Theodora, stepdaughter of the same Herculius, had married. Therefore Constantius, having married the stepdaughter, is reckoned the son-in-law of her stepfather.

On Chapter XXX.

To his son. So in the inscription of Constantia, which is in Gruter, p. 166, 7, Constantius is called the son of Maximianus Herculius, though he was merely the husband of his stepdaughter, as noted just above.

On Chapter XXXII.

Maximinus, angered, wished to be named neither Caesar nor in the third place. From this you will understand that Maximinus had placed himself in a higher place than Constantine. For if he had held Constantine in the place of an Augustus, as he had been made, then he himself would have had to be named only in the fourth place. But this does not conflict with what I noted above on chap. 24.

He therefore sends envoys to him often. That is, Galerius Maximianus to Maximinus.

He begs him to obey him, to keep his arrangement. That one, namely, by which he had given power to Licinius, substituted in the place of Severus.

Let him yield to age, and pay honour to grey hairs. For Licinius, who had been made Augustus, was more advanced in age than Maximinus; Galerius Maximianus held him as a friend from their old comradeship in arms, and an intimate from his first military service.

The beast is pained. Galerius Maximianus. So too at the beginning of chap. 25, the evil beast.

Overcome by obstinacy. I fully subscribe to the opinion of the most distinguished Antoine Pagi, who in the Critica Baroniana at the year of Christ 307 says that these words must be understood of Maximinus; and he shows it from Eusebius, in whom, book 8, chap. 13, one reads that after Licinius had been named Augustus by Galerius Maximianus, Maximinus proclaimed himself Augustus.

These words, victus contumacia, mean the same as impar contumaciae, "unequal to obstinacy", not indeed another's, but his own. The sense is that Maximinus, carried away by the force of his own obstinacy, did not obey Maximianus when he asked what was fair; and I may illustrate this usage of speech with some examples, drawn chiefly from Flavius Josephus. For this author is somewhat familiar to me.

Plato in the Hipparchus, right at the beginning, calls the φιλοκερδεῖς, those greedy for gain, ἥττους τοῦ κέρδους, word for word, "less than", that is, "overcome by", gain. In Herodian one finds ἥττων ὀργῆς καὶ ἐρῶτος, "less than anger and love".

In the Antiquities, book 12, chap. 3, p. 401, one reads of the high priest Onias χρημάτων ἥττων, "less than money", that is, avaricious; which vice in Flavius Josephus in the same place is φιλοχρηματία, love of money. Then in book 17, chap. 10, p. 600, of Herod: ὀργῆς μὲν ἥσσων, κρείσσων δὲ τοῦ δικαίου, "less than anger indeed, but better than justice". Finally in book 18, chap. 11, p. 613, of Gaius Caligula.

ἥσσων μὲν τοῦ αἰσχροῦ, κρείσσων δὲ τοῦ βελτίστου, "less indeed than baseness, but better than that which is best", that is, than honourable conduct.

Moreover, in these passages of Flavius Josephus, and in book 14, chapter 17, 484, where Sameas, a just man, is declared τοῦ δεδοιέναι κρείττων, "better than being terrified", that is, superior to terrors, τὸ κρείσσων is the same as "despiser". For in Apuleius, book 7 of the Metamorphoses, there are the words of Tlepolemus, who uses the Greek phrase in Latin: "Hail, clients of Mars, the mightiest god, and comrades now faithful to me; and willingly receive a willing man of great-souled vigour, one who more gladly receives wounds on his body than gold in his hand, and who is BETTER than death itself, which others dread."

But just as in Tacitus, Annals, book 13, chapter 46, Poppaea is read as "pretending that she was unequal to her desire and captivated by Nero's beauty", and in Victor's Epitome, "a desire for glory, burning more fiercely, had overcome Julian the Apostate", so on the contrary Marcus Porcius Cato is said by Titus Livy, book 39, 40, to be "of a mind unconquered by desires"; the same Julian the Apostate is in Victor's De Caesaribus "victor over all food, over lust and over all desires"; the emperor Gratian in Victor's Epitome: "victor over wine and lust". Finally in Cicero's De Finibus one reads: "And those who keep to their own judgement, so as not, overcome by pleasure, to do that which they perceive ought not to be done."

From these it is clear that those words, victus contumacia, "overcome by obstinacy", are not said in this place of another's obstinacy, and therefore that those who ascribed them to Galerius Maximian have until now been mistaken, since they are said of Maximinus.

He removes the name of Caesars. Of three, that is, of himself, then of Constantine, and of Maxentius.

Maxentius and Constantine sons of the Augusti. Maxentius and Constantine were by nature sons of Augusti, namely of Maximian Herculius and of Constantius; but that was a title of rank with which Maximinus distinguished them both. There is, however, room to suspect that he wished, by that title, which was merely honorific, to reduce them to a lower class; for the power in the empire of those who were called Sons of the Augusti was nothing, or slight. Hence Capitolinus, chapter 3, on the emperor Lucius Verus, the adopted son of Antoninus Pius, says: "Nor was any other mark of honour added to his name before he reigned than that he was called son of Augustus."

I add that I further suspect that the coin of Constantine the Great which Mediobarbus shows on page 459, if indeed it is genuine, with the inscription CONSTANTINUS FIL. AUGG., that is, SON OF THE AUGUSTI, namely of Constantius and Maximian Herculius, was struck deliberately and by order of Maximinus somewhere in his territories, so that by means of coins that decree might be made public by which Maximinus wished Constantine to be regarded as no more than SON OF AUGUSTUS.

That at the Field of Mars lately held he had been proclaimed Augustus by the army. Campus Martius is not here the name of a place, such as there was at Rome, but rather, so to speak, of military assemblies, in which the army was reviewed. But whether the Field of Mars was held at fixed times, or whenever the emperor ordered, is not clear.

It is likely that Maximinus, who was in charge of Syria and Egypt (chapter 36), assembled the legions of these provinces into camp, so that, having been proclaimed Augustus by the soldiers themselves as its authors, he might secure safety for himself on account of the title he had seized.

Nor was the Field of Mars held only among the Romans, but also, in imitation of them, among the Franks. Hear Gregory of Tours, book 2, chapter 27, saying of King Clovis: "When the year had passed, he ordered the whole host to come with its equipment of arms, to display on the Field of Mars the brightness of their [arms]": whence is confirmed what I said above, that the holding of the Field of Mars is a review of the military forces. That of Clovis, moreover, will have been held at the beginning of spring, when armies are customarily led out to war.

He orders all four Emperors to be counted. Add a comma after the word quatuor, and read nominari, "to be named", instead of numerari, in this way: "all four, he orders them to be named emperors": namely Licinius, Maximinus, Constantine

and Maxentius. Here, moreover, by "emperors" the Augusti are meant, as was noted at chapter 18, verse 7.

On Chapter 33.

"The marrow having been struck back, the evil falls back inwards." Who has ever either heard or read that marrow is struck back? So, adding a comma after malum, write: "The evil, struck back by remedies, falls back inwards." For medelis is used in place of medicinis. So above: "The wound begins not to feel the medicine." If you approve this emendation, reader, credit it to a distinguished man who forbade me to praise him as its author.

On Chapter 37.

"Without measure; since the soldiers." Read satellites ("attendants"). So at the end of chapter 38: "Surrounded by these attendants and guards."

On Chapter 39.

"Lastly, that it was unlawful for a woman of that name and rank, against custom, without precedent, to try a second husband." Valeria said this either in real ignorance of the matter or by pretence, so that Maximinus might be turned from his plan by the unprecedented nature of the thing. For an old precedent for such a marriage, 142 years earlier, was available in Lucilla Augusta, daughter of M. Antoninus the Philosopher, that is, of M. Aurelius, and widow of the emperor L. Verus, as Capitolinus testifies in his M. Antoninus the Philosopher, chapter 20, in these words: "Setting out for the German war, he gave his daughter, before the period of mourning had run its course, to the elderly son of a Roman knight, Claudius Pompeianus, Antiochene by birth and not noble enough, whom he afterwards made consul twice, although his daughter was an Augusta and the daughter of an Augusta."

This happened, I say, 142 years earlier, since that there are so many from the mourning of Lucilla to the mourning of Valeria is shown thus.

Galerius Maximianus died in his own eighth consulship, in the month of May, chapter 21, and so Valeria became a widow in the year of Christ 311.

L. Verus came to the end of his life in midwinter, as Galen testifies in his book On Prognosis, chapter 10. That winter was the one which occupied the end of the year of Christ 169 and the beginning of 170.

For the present I do not discuss whether L. Verus died before the end of the year 169 or after the beginning of the following one: although I think it happened towards the end of the year 169 for either way it follows that from then to the month of May of the aforesaid year of Christ 311, in which Maximianus died, the 142nd year runs its course.

That L. Verus died towards the end of the year 169, or at most prolonged his life to the beginning of the following year, can be recognized from the beginning and end of his reign.

M. Aurelius and L. Verus both, by a new precedent, obtained the empire after the death of Antoninus Pius, who departed from the living in the year of Christ 161; and indeed, according to Tertullian, Apology, chapter 25, and Dio, page 814, on 17 March.

This granted, since L. Verus did not reach the tenth year of his reign, he must have died before the 17th day of the month of March of the year of Christ 178. Otherwise he would have reached the tenth year of his reign.

That he reached no more than the ninth year is established chiefly by two arguments, which I shall set out briefly.

The first is supplied by the coins, Greek as well as Latin, none of which at all shows beyond L. Θ, that is, year 9, or beyond TR. P. 9.

The second is found in the Paschal Chronicle, where at the first year of the 237th Olympiad, Indiction 6, in the consulship of Apronianus and Paulus, one reads that Lucius Aurelius Commodus died, ἄρξας ἔτη θ, having reigned 9 years.

Nor indeed is the testimony of the author of that Chronicle to be rejected because he records the death of L. Verus two years earlier than is right, namely in the year of Christ 168; for in this anachronism he is consistent with himself, since he has the beginning of the reign of the same L. Verus, into the year

of Christ 159, pushed back: these two points become plain from the numbers of the Indictions accurately set down in this Chronicle; as does also another, and that a constant one, the same author's prochronism of two years in fixing the Olympiads, as was noted by me above, p. 151.

But if anyone should ask me from where, then, it comes that in Capitolinus, in the Life of L. Verus, L. Verus is said to have reigned with his brother (M. Aurelius) for eleven years, he will receive the answer that the word undecim arose there from the two numeral letters XI, which were transposed from two others, IX, by which nine is signified, so that from the XI the undecim, afterwards written out in full, flooded all the copies of Capitolinus that have so far come into our hands.

Further, it ought to surprise no one that undecim is read likewise in Victor the Epitomator, Cassiodorus and Eutropius. For all of them, once the source had been corrupted, drank in the same poison.

In Cedrenus the correction of the same error is easier, where one reads on p. 250 of the Royal edition of the year 1647: Μάρκος Ἀντωνῖνος ἐβασίλευσεν ἔτη ιθ´, μετὰ μὲν Βήρου (wrongly Σεβήριου) τοῦ γαμβροῦ αὐτοῦ ἔτη ι. καὶ μῆνας θ´: Marcus Antoninus reigned 19 years, with Verus (wrongly Severus) his son-in-law 10 years and 9 months. For in place of ἔτη ι, καὶ μῆνας θ´, either one must read simply ἔτη θ´, 9 years, or ἡ must be restored after ἔτη in place of ι, that is, 8 in place of 10, since the ἡ was changed into ι by an easy slip, both from the likeness of the shape and from the identical pronunciation of the two letters among some people. Hence L. Verus, who began to reign in mid-March of the year of Christ 161, would have died, according to Cedrenus, in the year 169 before, with the coming of mid-December, he had touched upon the 10th month of the year.

Let it stand, therefore, that L. Verus reigned only 9 years and made an end of living at the close of the year of Christ 169 or the beginning of 170: whence, up to 311, in which Maximinus sought marriage with Valeria after the death of Galerius Maximianus, the 142nd year was in its course.

I will add, since this too contributes to establishing the chronology of L. Verus, that Capitolinus must moreover be corrected in chapter 2 of the Life of L. Verus, where one reads: He lived forty years less two, that is, thirty-eight; which agrees very well with the year of the birth of L. Verus during his father's praetorship, on the 18th day before the Kalends of January, in Capitolinus, chapter 1. But of this elsewhere.

Nor indeed can I pass over, in support of the correction of the letters XI into IX, an excellent example which the most distinguished Jean Hardouin, in his Ancient Coins Illustrated, published at Paris in the year 1684, p. 316, under the word ΜΑΣΣΑ, brings forward from Pliny, in whom, book 18, section 69, with the numbers of the years interchanged, he directs that one read "in the year of the City 516" instead of 514.

I have gathered from Greek and Latin authors very many examples not only of similar transpositions but also of numeral letters wrongly understood and then of the numbers themselves written out in full, which I intend at some time to present in a not unsuitable place.

Among them is one, remarkable if any other is, in Flavius Josephus, Antiquities book 17, chapter 10, p. 600 of the Greek-Latin [edition], E, line 9, where Herod's funeral procession is said to have gone from Jericho as far as Herodium σταδια ὀκτω, for eight stades; whereas in the parallel passage, book 1 of the War, chapter 21, p. 774, line 3 from the end, one reads that this was done σταδίους διακοσίους, for two hundred stades.

The reconciliation of these two passages led astray three authors otherwise most acute: Wilhelm Lange, book 2 of On the Years of Christ, chapter 18, p. 350 of the Leiden edition of 1649; James Ussher, Annals, latter part, year of the Julian period 4711, p. 536 of the London edition of 1654; and Christian Nolde, History of Idumaea, p. 71 of the Franeker edition; to the refutation of whose opinions I once devoted rather lengthy labour. For the present I will say only that ὀκτω is wrongly read in the Antiquities, written out in full from ἡ, the sign of the number eight; whereas the ἡ had been written down from σ´, the mark of the number two hundred, wrongly formed or read. For it must be observed that in the books of the Antiquities numbers in abbreviated form by letters

used as numerals are almost universally expressed, unlike in the books On the War, where the numbers themselves are written out in full.

There is the further point that in that account of Herod's funeral procession, in the books On the War, the same letter η is wrongly read for σ, namely at page 744, line 6 from the end, in the word Προῆγε, that is, "went before", in place of Πρόσγε, that is, "moreover". For the passage runs thus.

Προῆγε δὲ ἡ λοιπὴ δύναμις; "And the rest of the army went before." This is plainly against the sequence of the narrative, as will be clear to the reader, and against what corresponds to this passage in the Antiquities, page 600, E, line 6, in these words:

Τούτων δὲ κατόπιν ἤδη πᾶς ὁ στρατός, "And after them the whole army."

On Chapter XLIV.

"Civil arms had already been set in motion between them. And although Maxentius kept himself at Rome." This was in the year of Christ 312.

"The senate, on account of his valour, decreed to Constantine the title of the first name, which Maximinus was claiming for himself." The title is that of Maximus, which is seen at the end of this chapter and thereafter on the coins of Constantine. Constantine had received it in the preceding year in the Gauls, as the most illustrious Mediobarbus has very well observed, at page 462 of his most excellent Work, from coins on which,

IMP. CONSTANTINUS MAX. P. F. AUG. SM. H. ER.

VOTIS V. MVLT. X. VICTOR. AVG. P. TR.

The last three letters P. TR. signify "struck at Trier", supply "coin".

Moreover, that the title of Maximus, which according to Lactantius Maximinus was claiming for himself, was assumed by him, coins or inscriptions have not yet shown. Hence a learned man held that in this passage by "the title of the first name" must be understood the name of first emperor, which Maximinus was claiming for himself by right of priority in time, since he had been made Caesar (ch. 18) long before Constantine.

On Chapter XLVI.

"As that man was conquered at Rome." Maxentius, as in ch. 44.

On Chapter XLVIII.

"Which indeed the divinity in the heavenly seat." Read: "So that whatever there is of divinity and of heavenly power", from Eusebius, book 10, chapter 5, and Nicephorus, book 7, chapter 41, where Θειότητος must be read, instead of θειότης in Eusebius and instead of θειοτάτου in Nicephorus.

"Concerning the name of Christians seemed, now to take care and simply each one." These are to be supplemented and corrected from the Greek of Eusebius, book 10, chapter 5: "were contained concerning the name of Christians, and which seemed altogether perverse and alien to our clemency, let those be removed; and now freely and simply each one."

On Chapter L.

"First of all Valerius." He is certainly the one of whom Sextus Victor in the Epitome, no. 55, has: "Valens is created emperor"; and no. 56: "Valens is punished with death by Licinius"; whose coin is in Occo, page 480:

ΑΥΤ. Κ. ΠΟΥ. ΟΥΑΛΕΡ. ΟΥΑΛΕΝC. ΕΥ. CEB. L. A.

That is: Emperor Caesar Publius Valerius Valens Pius Augustus, in year 1.

The most illustrious Count Mediobarbus, page 387, wrongly referred this coin to Valens, the tyrant under Gallienus. For that Valens, whom Pollio mentions at no. 18, was called Valens Thessalonicus, as Ammianus Marcellinus teaches us, book 21, chapter 16, and not by the doubled name Valerius Valens. Rather, another coin in Occo, page 528, belongs to him, in this manner:

ΑΥΤ. ΚΑΙ. Γ. ΙΟΥΛ. ΟΥΑΛΕΝC. CEB. E. A.

That is: Emperor Caesar Gaius Julius Valens Augustus, in year 1.

Hence in the same place Occo wrongly holds that this Valens was punished with death by Licinius; for he lived in the time of Gallienus.

Moreover, the Valerius Valens inscribed on the first coin cannot be the Valens whom Licinius, after there had broken out between

himself and Constantine a war, created Caesar, not however Augustus. For this Valens, a Caesar, when peace had afterwards been made between the two emperors, was merely reduced to private rank, not killed, as Sirmond's Anonymous attests in the Valesian edition of Ammianus, p. 659, and Peter on embassies in the Excerpts, volume 1 of the Byzantine History, p. 27. Nor is Zosimus to be heeded, a most bitter hater of Constantine, when he relates, though he does not affirm it (as the Greek word οἶμαι, that is, "I think", which he uses, sufficiently shows), that this Valens the Caesar was killed at Constantine's wish and command.

The other Valens, an Augustus, was slain at about the same time as Maximinus perished; and "these having been removed, the rights of empire came to Constantine and Licinius", as Sextus Victor writes. And the rights of empire came to Constantine and Licinius in the year of Christ 313. It was then, therefore, that Valens, or Valerius Valens, perished, whom Victor mentions: for he was "first of all" put to death by Licinius, as Lactantius writes.

Nor is this Valerius the Augusta Valeria, as was corrected in the Oxford notes; for Valeria was killed by Licinius last, not first, as is stated in express words in chapter 41.

This, besides very many other things, I had once been taught by the most illustrious and most learned abbé Louis Du Four de Longuerue; and the most distinguished Antoine Pagi, having received it from him, recently inserted it in his Critica Baroniana, at the year of Christ 306, no. 15, p. 20, acknowledging, as befits an honest man, from whom he had learned it.

On Chapter LI.

"Thus their chastity and their station were their ruin." I am surprised that Lactantius did not say that the sacrifices were Valeria's ruin, by which she had been polluted under compulsion from Diocletian her father, though she was a Christian, as I discussed at chapter 15.

On Chapter LII.

"Where now are those magnificent surnames of the Jovii and Herculii, renowned among the nations, which, first insolently assumed by Diocles and Maximian and afterwards transferred to their successors, flourished? Surely the Lord has blotted them out and erased them from the earth." Lactantius wrote this rhetorically and against the faith of history, unless you say that the finishing touch was put by him to the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors at some intervening time after all the persecutors of the name of God had been vanquished, before the following coins were struck, on which both Licinii are inscribed as Jovii.

The first is shown with an engraving in the Byzantine Families of the most distinguished Charles Du Cange, published at Paris in the year 1680, p. 25, in this manner:

Our Lords the Jovii Licinii, Unconquered Augustus and Caesar.

Jewelled head. Busts of Licinius Augustus and Licinius Caesar, holding in their hands a Victory who offers a laurel wreath to each.

Two others are in Mediobarbus, p. 455, described in these words:

Our Lords the Jovii Licinii, Unconquered Augustus and Caesar.

Heads with busts, that is, with the likeness down to the navel, of the Licinii father and son, laureate, facing each other; with their right hands they support a Victory, who with arms outspread holds a laurel wreath in each hand.

This coin seems to be the same as that one of Du Cange above.

There follows a last one, in the same place in Mediobarbus:

Our Lords the Jovii Licinii, Unconquered Augustus and Caesar.

The laureate heads of the Licinii; with their right hands they support an image of Fortune, namely a figure with its head adorned with a basket, [holding] a rudder in the right hand, a cornucopia in the left.

Add that legions, cavalry wings and cohorts always remained distinguished by the names of the Jovii and Herculii, even under Constantine himself and down to the emperor Valentinian III, as may be seen throughout the Notitia Dignitatum of the empire.

Farewell, reader. May fortune answer your wishes; these are my wishes.