Gisbertus Cuperus, Praefatio in notas ad librum de Mortibus persecutorum

THE NOTES OF GISBERT CUPER.

Preface.

Some years ago, at the request of the late John Columbus, a learned man, I set down on paper in hasty work certain things which I thought could serve to illustrate one or another passage of this golden little work. They were published at Åbo, which is the chief city of the Finns: but just as I readily believe that they were not entirely approved by the learned, so I would wish the same men to be persuaded that I did not at that time wish to make anything else public. Columbus had informed me that many notes on Lactantius had been made by him; I was therefore unwilling to put my sickle into his harvest: but in order to oblige a friend, the son-in-law of the most illustrious Scheffer, and a man of most refined learning, I sent some little notes, which were published in the farthest North. What a man more worthy of a longer life has accomplished is plain; and since I notice that not a few things have been left which deserve to be illustrated more fully, and since some of my own things, for I am not ashamed to admit this, please me less, I began to examine the most elegant little work more diligently, and to insert into these new notes my notes which Columbus published with his own, where this could conveniently be done, so that by this way all might fall as it were under a single view, and so that those who desire to know my opinion may not be obliged at every moment to consult the labours of that excellent man. Hence there arose for me annotations far more ample: and that I should present them to the public light is urged by the most eloquent of the Fathers; it is urged by the remarkable things which he teaches us; and it is urged finally by the subject of the work, which we marvel at and are astonished to see revived today, and which is the chief point of all conversations, at least among those who turn over in their minds the ancient times, the wounds inflicted on the Church, and the tragic ends of the Persecutors, and whom the Church of God touches and torments, harassed in ways so wretched, so horrible, and perhaps not to be believed by posterity. If I have accomplished anything worthy of Lactantius and acceptable to learned men, it will certainly be something for me to rejoice at in earnest; if it turns out otherwise, and if men of peevish temper, whom nothing pleases except what proceeds from themselves, think that they can find many things which displease them, so far as I am concerned they may do so; since I am one who spends time free from public business not on lawsuits and quarrels, but on true learning and humane letters, and that for the sake of relaxing the mind, to which play must sometimes be granted.

I would bid you farewell, reader, were it not that Constantine the Great laid hold of me, the glory and ornament of the little book, composed by Lactantius, which I illustrate with notes. For since he must often be called upon to play his part, and since I offer many remarks about him as occasion presents itself, I thought I would not be acting beside the point if I inquired into the birthplace of the most illustrious Prince. I see that men of outstanding learning disagree enormously among themselves, and that some think that great Emperor was born in Thrace, others in the Britains, others elsewhere, he who on coins is not without reason called CONQUEROR OF ALL NATIONS, MOST PROVIDENT PRINCE, VICTOR EVERYWHERE, and FOUNDER OF PEACE: and to whom on the same coins are attributed THE HAPPINESS OF THE AGE, BLESSED TRANQUILLITY, and also THE SECURITY OF THE COMMONWEALTH. This prince, then, Baronius, Pomponius Laetus, the archbishop of Armagh in the Antiquities of the British Churches, and recently Ed[ward] Stillingfleet in the Origines Britannicae, judged to have been born in Britain; and others make Helena, his mother, the daughter of a certain king of Britain,

which is certainly a pure and simple fiction. But the chief foundation of the former opinion is the Panegyric which Eumenius delivered to Constantine: O fortunate, he says, and now happier than all lands, Britain, which first saw Constantine as Caesar! And to it must by all means be added the Panegyric delivered by an uncertain author to Maximian and Constantine, in which these words are read: He freed the Britains from servitude; you made them noble by arising there. But, be it said with the leave of such great men, I think quite otherwise; and I judge that Constantine the Great was born in Illyricum taken in a broad sense, or in Dacia Mediterranea, and indeed in the city of Naesus. Constantine Porphyrogenitus certainly teaches us this without any ambiguity in book 2 of the Themata, 9: The prefecture of Dacia Mediterranea under a Consiliarius: five cities, Pantalia, Germanus, Naisus, the birthplace of the great Constantine: Naesus, the birthplace of Constantine the Great. Stephanus, or his Epitomator Hermolaus Barbarus, attests the same under the entry Naisos: Naissus, a city of Thrace, the foundation and birthplace of the emperor Constantine: A city of Thrace, the work and birthplace of the emperor Constantine; and I think that Julius Firmicus reports the same in book 1 of the Mathesis, and that in him one ought to read, with Valesius on Ammianus Marcellinus, from the manuscripts, Naisum, and not Tarsum, which the printed books keep: Born at Naisus, Constantine, holding the helm of the Empire from the first stage of his life. But the firmest argument is furnished us by the author of the Excerpts on Constantius Chlorus and Constantine the Great, whose words are these: This Constantine, then, was born of Helena, a most base mother, in the town of Naisus. Nothing certainly can be said more clearly; and I would pass on to other matters, were it not that I judged it right to submit to the republic of letters a conjecture which conveniently came into my mind, and of which I also made mention at chapter 26; not that I would wish to force it upon others, or that I myself even embrace it entirely, but so that the more diligent may have something on which they can exercise themselves. That Helena is called by others the concubine of Constantius is well known; but no one, so far as I at least know, has been found who said that she was a most base woman, except the author of the Excerpts, who nevertheless perhaps did not write so, since it is not likely that a Christian would speak thus of a most pious and venerable Augusta, as she is called on coins. What then? Hesitantly and plainly in doubt I say that perhaps it was written vilissimo in oppido, in a most mean town. For this town seems not to have been very illustrious or great; and certainly a little later in the same Excerpts it follows that Constantine adorned it marvellously: Stephanus makes it his foundation; and since it was thereafter magnificently adorned, it is no wonder that it is called by Amm. Marcel. 21, 10, a wealthy town. I am surprised, however, that some of the learned think this city the same as Nastus and Nestus (of which Stephanus makes the former a city of Thrace, and adds that it is also written Neston; the latter a city and river of Illyria), and that the same men record that no one of the ancients mentioned Nestus, city and river of Illyria, but that Mela, Pliny and Solinus mention the Nestus, by far the most celebrated river of Thrace. For I for my part think that Pliny 8, 16, mentions none other than the Nessus of Illyria when he notes that in Europe lions are found only between the rivers Achelous and Nestus; and Scylax of Caryanda, or the Geographer who was published under his name, mentions in Illyria the Nestaean gulf, and a city or river, for it is not added

one of them, Neston. Indeed, Apollonius of Rhodes, 4.1215, also assigns the Nestaei to the same region; and the words of the Scholiast are to be noted: "Scylax says the Nestaei are an Illyrian people; from them the voyage into the gulf is one of a single day. And Eratosthenes says in the third book of his Geography: After the Illyrians, the Nestaei, near whom is the island of Pharos, a colony of the Pharians." That is: Scylax says the Nestaei are a people of Illyria: from them into the gulf is a voyage of one day; and Eratosthenes says in the third book of his Geography: After the Illyrians, the Nestaei, near whom is the island of Pharus, a colony of the Pharians. There was therefore in Illyria a city and a river Nestus; there was the Nessus, or Nestus, a river of Thrace; and finally Naisus, the native city of Constantine, which Stephanus also makes a city of Thrace, taking the name of this region, that is, in a broad sense: unless someone should wish, with Valesius, to rewrite it as "of Dacia" and to understand Dacia Mediterranea, on which I give sufficiently much information in the Notes. In the town of Naisus, therefore, was born Constantine, afterwards called the Great from the glory of his achievements; and it seems to have been mean and small, since Constantine adorned it wonderfully, namely so as to make the place of his birth more illustrious. Hence it is called "most mean" by the author of the Excerpts, if indeed my conjecture is true, which I was unwilling to suppress any longer, if only for this reason, that the charge of meanness may be removed from the Augusta Helena, a charge which, moreover, I do not remember to have been brought against her by any of the ancients; except that Eutropius relates that Constantine, son of Constantius, was born "of a more obscure marriage", which certainly could have been said by him in respect of the second nuptials which Constantius celebrated with Valeria, daughter of the emperor Diocletian. But to proceed: in no way, moreover, does the reckoning of the times permit that Constantine could have been born in Britain. For he was born in the year of Christ 272, in the consulship of Aurelian and Bassus, long before his father was adorned with the dignity of Caesar, which took place in the year of Christ 291. For he did not enter that island before he was Caesar, and before that he without doubt spent most of his time in Illyricum; for, as the author of the Excerpts says, Constantius, nephew through his brother of the divine Claudius, an excellent Prince, was first a Protector, then a Tribune, afterwards Governor of the Dalmatias, and he received his final dignity from Carus, who began to reign in the year 282, or at any rate held it under him, as is clear from Vopiscus in his Carinus. Nor does Eumenius help these illustrious men at all: and I judge that the sense of the words which are adduced is far different: namely, that Britain first saw Constantine as Caesar, not because he was born there, but because, his father having died, he was made Caesar by the army; which is true, as is clear enough and more than enough from what I have observed in the notes. Nor does the other panegyrist prove anything either, who says that Constantine made the Britains noble by arising there. For those men are indeed said to arise who are born and enter into life, and to them a rising is attributed: but the same words are also used with singular elegance of those who become Kings, Emperors or Caesars. Thus Caius and Lucius, adopted by Augustus and designated princes of the youth, are called "the rising youths" by Paterculus, 2.99, and Pliny, 33.3, spoke of "the rise of the prince Vespasian", speaking of the beginning of his reign; and about the same man, as seems to many, Curtius speaks, 10.9: "Therefore by right and with justice the Roman people professes that it owes its safety to its prince, upon whom, in the night which we almost held to be our last, a new star shone. The RISING of this one, by Hercules, not of the sun, restored light to a darkening world." Nor do the panegyrists customarily speak otherwise. Chapter 1 of the Panegyric spoken to Maximian and Constantine: "Most sacred princes, Maximian, willing or unwilling, ever Augustus, and Constantine, RISING emperor"; chapter 8: "This is he who, at the very RISING of his Divinity, brought back to obedience to the commonwealth the Gauls, made savage by the wrongs of former times"; that is, as soon as he had been made emperor, at the beginning of his reign. Eumenius, chapter 10 of the panegyric spoken to Constantine: "I believe some ignoble band of Barbarians, with a sudden onset and unforeseen brigandage, tested the AUSPICES OF YOUR RISING"; and the same man in another Panegyric, chapter 2, calls the day on which Constantine was named Caesar "the divine RISING of his majesty". So that when Constantine is said to have made the Britains noble by arising there,

nothing else, certainly, could be proved from it than that he there assumed the purple and was made Caesar, or Emperor; which is also the opinion of Justus Lipsius in the Admiranda, and of Joh. Livineius; and the manner of speaking is taken from the sun, or the stars, with which the Emperors used to be compared. Britannicus is called by his sister Octavia, in Seneca, "star of the world"; Antoninus the Philosopher calls himself, as an old man, "the setting sun", but Commodus "the rising", ἀνατέλλοντα; and Geta and Caracalla, on a very rare coin of the Ephesians in Spon and Morell, are called ΝΕΟΙ ΗΛΙΟΙ ("new suns").

What my view is, further, on the Acts of Pilate I have made plain at chapter 36. Afterwards I came upon the posthumous Works of the Bishop of Chester; and I noticed that the illustrious man remarks on page 51: "That the Acts of Pilate, full of impiety against Christ, were fabricated by order of the tyrant Maximinus, were publicly posted both in the countryside and in the cities, and were handed over by schoolmasters to boys to be learned; that the Romans used them under Diocletian and Maximinus to call Christians back from martyrdom, as the words of Maximinus in the passion of Saints Tarachus, Probus and Andronicus testify: Most wicked man, you do not know whom you invoke, Christ, a certain man who came to be, placed under the custody of Pontius Pilate, whose acts are laid up (it is read otherwise in the printed editions)." But if the illustrious prelate understands by Maximinus Galerius Maximinus, under whose rule Eusebius testifies that these Acts were fabricated, certainly the Romans could not have used them under Diocletian and Maximinus (or rather Maximian); since these had divested themselves of the purple before these Acts were published. Next, the Emperor Maximinus did not utter the words in the passion cited, as the bishop seems to think; but Numerianus Maximus, the governor, who dragged the martyrs into court when Diocletian and Maximian Herculius (out of whom, to mention this in passing, the translator of Theodore Metochites wrongly makes three emperors, Diocletian, Maximian and Herculius, though he himself wrote Διοκλετιανός καὶ Μαξιμιανὸς ὁ Ἑρκύλιος, "Diocletian and Maximian the Herculian") were consuls for the second time, as the Acts testify, although I do not find that they held their second consulship together. Moreover Eusebius, as I have pointed out, attributes these most filthy Acts to Galerius Maximinus; whence also in book 1, chapter 9, he writes that they were invented χθὲς καὶ πρώην, "yesterday and the day before". A learned man, who recently published a dissertation on the Thundering Legion, writes that Diocletian and Maximinus forged these Acts, although Diocletian, having already laid down the empire, was living at Salona; and he judges that the Acts of Pilate cited by Justin Martyr, Tertullian and others are also spurious: an opinion which the Bishop of Chester, however, opposes; this dispute I leave to others to examine.

In the same chapter 36 I show that by "highest priest" in Prudentius one must understand not the Pontifex Maximus of the Romans, but a priest of Cybele. And without doubt he was the first of the priests of Cybele and the head of the rest, in the way that Apuleius also, book 1, celebrates the greatest priest of Isis: And when we had now reached the temple itself, the greatest priest, and those who carried forth the divine images... duly set out the statues.

It is moreover worth noting that Lactantius in chapter 4 relates that the skin torn off (direptam, or dereptam, as I judge it should be written) from Valerian and dyed with red colour was placed in a temple of the barbarian gods in memory of a most glorious triumph, and was always displayed to the envoys of the Romans. For the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle reports similar things of Carinus: namely that, defeated, he fled to Carrhae, and, captured by the Persians, was soon put to death, and that they made the skin stripped from him into a sack and, σμυρνίσαντες, that is, anointing it, kept it εἰς ἰδίαν δόξαν, for the sake of their glory. Where these things were drawn from I do not know at all: for none of the other authors has recorded any such thing about Carinus; since he was defeated and killed in the battle which he fought with Diocletian near the Margus in Moesia. So that the author of that Chronicle must be read with great caution; as in that very place he makes Carus the uncle of Carinus, though he was in fact his father, and Numerian's too. Κάρινος ὁ βασιλεὺς ἀπιὼν πολεμήσας κατὰ Περσῶν κατὰ τοῦ θείου αὐτοῦ Κάρου: Carinus, having set out against the Persians with Carus

his maternal uncle. And not only does he make an uncle out of the father, but he also writes that Carinus was a companion to his father as he set out against the Persians; whereas, on the contrary, Carinus governed the Gauls, and Numerian undertook the expedition with his father into the East, as Vopiscus testifies. But if the word αὐτοῦ were absent, or had been added by ignorant copyists, θείου Κάρου could be rendered 'of the Divine Carus', as he is called not only on coins but also by Nemesian in the Cynegetica, which he wrote to Carinus and Numerian:

Soon I shall gird myself to commemorate your triumphs with a better lyre, most valiant offspring of the DIVINE CARUS.

On chapter 16 I noted that Casaubon, that most distinguished man, suffers something human when he writes that Constantius defeated the Persians in war. Yet the author of the Chronicle cited on p. 642 also reports the same: 'The Persians,' he says, 'were conquered by force by Constantine and Maximinus Jovius'; 'The Persians were utterly defeated in a very great war by the Caesars Constantius and Maximinus Jovius.' These things are said to have been done in the consulship of Maximianus Herculius for the fifth time and Maximianus Jovius Caesar for the second, which is the year 1050 from the founding of the City and 297 of Christ, in which Galerius Maximianus certainly overcame Narses: but Constantius was waging war in the Britains. Further, Maximinus Jovius is Galerius Maximianus Jovius, since C. Valerius Maximinus had not yet been made Caesar at that time.

I thought (see the note on chapter 29) that Aurelius Victor should be corrected by inserting the particle et: but even the common reading makes clear that Licinius was made Caesar [and] Augustus at the same time; whereas otherwise the rank of Caesar was given to princes first, and then the name of Augustus.

I discussed (see the note on chapter 39) the burning of corpses, and I thought that in two inscriptions these words, CORPUS INTEGRUM CONDITUM, denote that the body was not cremated but committed to the ground. I do not yet reject that conjecture: but let the learned nevertheless consider whether those who set up those monuments mean rather to signify that the bodies were buried not mutilated but whole. For a great religious scruple held the Gentiles that this should happen; and it was a great consolation to them if they said their last farewell to human affairs with their limbs flourishing and whole. Statius, Silvae 2.1.156:

Yet, O fates, it is a thing to be grateful for that no slow death consumed the boyish beauty of him as he lay, and that he went down to the shades WHOLE, and with his body defiled by no damage, such as he was

To this Gevartius not unfittingly refers the act of Augustus, who on his last day called for a mirror and ordered his hair to be combed and his sagging cheeks to be set right, as Suetonius testifies. For they were persuaded, of course, that the shades move about among those below just as the bodies were when they departed from life; as Deiphobus in Virgil, Aeneid 6, and Laius in Statius, Thebaid 2, show, not to call on other examples. Hence it is that Cornelius Severus, in Seneca, Suasoria 7, inveighs so severely against Antony because he had ordered Cicero's head and hand to be cut off:

These things a gentle victory did not do in the case of the Emathian Perses, nor to you, dread Syphax, nor in the case of the enemy Philip. And in the triumph over Jugurtha all mockery was absent, and fierce Hannibal, falling by our wrath, yet bore his limbs inviolate beneath the Stygian shades.

And perhaps Nero also has regard to this when, in Suetonius, 'he demands nothing sooner or more from his companions than that no one should be given possession of his head, but that by whatever means he should be burned WHOLE': although he may have had before his eyes the mockery, and the head fixed on a pike, as used to be done. The Gentiles therefore earnestly desired to go to the underworld whole, so that, of course, with their limbs also whole they might devote themselves to dances and feasts in the Elysian field. Hence I think the limbs of the slain were carefully fitted together, so that, of course, they might be buried as though whole. Statius, Thebaid 3.132.

And they fill the deep wounds with tears. Some draw out the spearheads with a sparing right hand, to no purpose; some gently fit the severed arms in their place, and set the faces back upon the necks.

They likewise bound up wounds; as in Euripides, Phoen. line 1665, Antigone asks Creon that she might bind up the wounds of her slain brother Polynices:

But [let me] put bandages about the savage wounds.

In the same chapter I made some remarks on the "king of the age" in order to explain Tertullian, and I afterwards suspected that it could not unsuitably be written "for the rivalry, namely, of the devil, the king of the age"; for the devil in the New Covenant, and indeed in the Gospel of John, is called "Ruler of the world", and in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians "the god of this age": or else that the common reading can be explained thus, that the pontifex maximus is a king of the age in imitation of the devil.

It must finally be added that Freher, a most distinguished man, treats most learnedly of the various kinds of tributes in the dissertation which he composed on the Coin of the Census; and that chapter twenty-three of Lactantius is greatly illustrated by his words, which follow. "It must certainly be held," he says, "that the tribute of the soil, that is, of the fields, was imposed according to their measure and extent, as Ulpian teaches in On Censuses; or rather according to their fertility. For stipend and tribute are burdens on produce, Digest book VII, On Usufruct, and the law Neque, Digest, On Expenses Incurred on Dotal Property. Hence Maecenas in Dio: 'imposing a tax simply on all things that furnish some yield to the one who has acquired them.' Nor were tributes imposed on fields alone, but also on the other means, on gold wrought and unwrought, on ready money, on slaves, on flocks, according to their amount. And as this differed between the rich and the poor, so too did the burden of the tribute; nor was this much to be dreaded by the poor. But the head tribute was one and the same for all alike, free men only (for slaves had no heads, but like cattle the tribute for them was paid by the master according to their prices, together with the rest of his fortunes), rich and poor, married and unmarried, parents and childless. I shall not say young and old, because a limit was set to that matter, so that no one was liable by head before his twentieth year, and old age had its own immunity: except that in Judaea this too was somewhat increased, as Ulpian attests, Digest book III, On Censuses."

When I wished to leave you here once more, reader, behold, there is brought from Italy the Epistola Consularis of Enrico Noris, a man certainly most celebrated, and to whom the study of antiquity owes a very great deal, which he was sending me as a gift. On chapter 10 of Lactantius I teach that the Caesars were entirely in the power of the Augusti, and that it is therefore not surprising that Galerius Maximian ran alongside Diocletian's carriage. This opinion of mine and of others is strongly confirmed by this most eminent man; for on p. 177 of the said Epistle he teaches that the name of Caesar was the mark of no imperium. Antonio Pagi, likewise a most learned man, mentions a Caesarean imperium from time to time; others rejected this, whom he introduces speaking thus: "We plainly do not know," they say, "what this Caesarean imperium of Domitian and Commodus may be, as that man of yours imagines. For Dio in book 53, discussing the titles of the emperor, testifies that the appellation of Caesar signifies no particular power, but only succession of lineage. And not to depart from Domitian, Tacitus at the end of book 3 of the Histories writes that after the slaying of Vitellius Domitian was hailed as Caesar by a crowd of soldiers. And at the beginning of book 4 he says: 'Domitian had received the name and the seat of Caesar.' But that no imperium was conferred on him by that title is clear from what he immediately adds: 'The praetorship and consular imperium are decreed to Domitian.' The praetorship conferred no imperium on Domitian, but only the power of jurisdiction. Moreover, so that as Caesar, and at the same time son of Vespasian Augustus, he might have some authority and power above private praetors, consular imperium was decreed to him by decree of the senate, because that bare appellation of Caesar granted him no imperium. Marcus Aurelius created his sons Caesars while still boys, without sharing with them any imperium, of which by reason of their age they were not yet capable. But the same man after the ninth year handed over proconsular imperium to Commodus, before which he had been only Caesar without any imperium. For

the Augusti, reserving to themselves power and command within the city, distinguished their sons, the Caesars, with proconsular command outside the city. Therefore Commodus and the other Caesars, before [receiving] proconsular command, were considered to have no share in any command. Hence, when in the year 175 the Senate had received the news of the killing of Avidius Cassius, among the festive acclamations made to the absent M. Aurelius they said: For Commodus we ask lawful command, for Commodus we ask the tribunician power. Commodus, therefore, was without command, although he had been Caesar already from the year 166, yet he was destined for command, which he received together with the tribunician power only in that same year 175. When the same Commodus had bestowed the name of Caesar on Albinus, the latter, afterwards emperor, said before an assembly: I spurned Commodus when he bestowed on me the Caesarian name. He did not say the Caesarean command, but the pure and simple name of Caesar. The authority for these things is Capitolinus, chapters 2 and 3 in the Albinus." These things are read in a man so eminent, both corrector and compiler of the Fasti, whose friendship, kindness and learning I value most highly; and from them, reader, you can at the same time perceive that Julian not wrongly called himself a faithful attendant; and that Galerius Maximianus in Lactantius, chapter 9, had reasons for disdaining the name of Caesar, and why, when he had heard it in letters addressed to him, he exclaimed with savage countenance and terrible voice: How long Caesar? and why, finally, Galerius Maximinus, chapter 32, wished to be named neither Caesar nor in third place.

I had just set these things in order when, behold, a letter is brought to me from a most excellent man; and since it sheds further light on the Caesarean dignity, no less than on the year in which Constantius and Galerius were designated Caesars, it seemed good, reader, with your kind leave, to add it.

To the most illustrious lord, the most learned and most renowned man, Lord Gisbert Cuper, most distinguished senator of the most mighty Estates of the Federated Netherlands.

When I ventured to send you my consular letter, most illustrious sir, it was not among my wishes that you, entangled in arduous affairs, and especially in this commotion of Europe shaken by French arms, in the business of the most mighty Estates of the Federated Netherlands, should turn your eyes to it. For, having been co-opted into the supreme senate of the Belgian provinces, you must attend with counsel and foresight to present matters and to those which may arise from the varied course of events, and not recall your mind to ages long past. But, such is your genius, when in the senate you debate counsels on the greatest matters and sacrifice publicly to Consus, at home afterwards you devote yourself to the rites of Minerva; to carry out both of these with praise is granted only to those whom just Jupiter has loved. Hence you praise the Fasti of the people that conquered the nations as emended by me, you who, on account of the excellent volumes published by you, are most highly praised in the Fasti of the republic of letters. And I rejoice very greatly that you are going to illustrate the golden book of Lactantius with new notes beyond those of Baluze; for most things unknown to our forebears are set out there, and the chronology of the reign of Diocletian, which escaped Scaliger, Panvinio, Baronius and others, is most correctly made clear. Nicolas Toinard of Orléans long ago asked my opinion about the year in which, according to Lactantius, Constantius and Galerius were designated Caesars, since Baluze thinks this was done in the year 293 of the common era of Christ. But I wrote back that Baluze admits a metachronism of one year. For Galerius Maximianus, in the title of the edict promulgated on behalf of the Christians in A.D. 311, in which [year] the same Augustus also gave up his soul amid torments, is styled TRIB. POT. XX COS. VIII. But if he had received the tribunician power in A.D. 293, that same tribunician power would have begun to be multiplied for the twentieth time only on the kalends of March in the year 312. Panvinio writes that these Caesars were designated in A.D. 291, which previously the Idatian

Fasti had recorded, also adducing an eclipse of the sun in the same year. But with Baronius that designation of the Caesars is to be referred to the Kalends of March in the year of Christ 292. For when Lactantius, in chapter 33, had written of Galerius: "The eighteenth year was now passing when God struck him with an incurable plague," etc., he adds: "And these things went on through a whole year, until at last, subdued by his ills, he was compelled to confess God," etc., "and, now failing, he sent out an edict of this kind." He therefore began to be ill in the last part of the year of his rule, that is, of TRIB. POT. XVIII, and throughout the whole year of TRIB. POT. XIX he was afflicted by the disease; but at the beginning of TRIB. POT. XX, namely after the Kalends of March in the year of Christ 311, he issued the edict. Now if he had promulgated the edict in the same year 311 before the Kalends of March, towards the end of TRIB. POT. XX first entered upon in A.D. 291, as Panvinius thinks, he would have been ill for a full two years before the promulgation of the edict: namely in the last part of TRIB. POT. XVIII and again in TRIB. POT. XIX and XX, since he issued the edict as Consul for the eighth time, that is, in the year 311. The astronomical tables, moreover, should be consulted as to whether any eclipse occurred in the year 292, as the Fasti cited report. Petavius places an eclipse in the year of Christ 291, on 15 May, at the third hour after noon. But Idacius wrongly recorded that eclipse, and the designation of those Caesars, under the same year 291, whereas the creation of the Caesars took place in the following year, if Lactantius is to be believed.

On the authority of the Caesars under the Augusti I judge thus. Some were Caesars pure and simple, without any authority, as Gaius and Lucius, sons of Augustus, immediately after their adoption; as also Nero, before he was invested with proconsular authority in the year of the City 804. So too Commodus and his brother Annius Verus, when they were little children. But certain others received authority together with the dignity of Caesar. Thus Constantius and Galerius, as soon as they were made Caesars, received proconsular authority. Vopiscus, in chapter 6 of the Life of Carus, says that he had it in mind to take from Carinus the authority of a Caesar, since, as he writes at the beginning of the Life of Carinus, he held the Caesarian authority, by which, namely, he was able to wage war in the West. See what I have written at p. 189 of the Pisan Cenotaphs. And since Constantius and Galerius were called Caesars as future administrators of wars, they also entered upon proconsular authority together with the name of Caesar. Hence in very many rescripts of the Code of Justinian, in the titles of the laws of Diocletian and Maximian, Augusti and Caesars are named, namely on account of the proconsular authority outside the City. Thus Valerianus Caesar too is set at the head of the rescripts there together with Valerian and Gallienus, as also Philip Caesar with his father the Augustus. But in the same Code, where rescripts of the deified brothers are cited, Marcus Aurelius Caesar is never read as added: from which I infer that he, while Antoninus Pius was alive, was a Caesar pure and simple. See book 2 of the Code, titles 1, 13 and 38; book 6, title 26. Nor likewise is Commodus read together with his father Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus in book 3, title 31, book 5, title 25, book 6, title 26. I therefore consider that certain Augusti handed on proconsular authority to their Caesars, while others shared with their sons, whether by nature or by adoption, the dignity of Caesar stripped of all authority. But all these things I put forward to be examined by your singular learning, with this mind, that I am ready to go over to your opinion, whatever it may be; for you are a Senator, and with me also, as they used to say of old, of the first, consular, rank in giving opinion. Farewell, most learned man, ornament and bulwark of the republic of letters in the Low Countries. Given at Florence on the 10th day before the Kalends of December, 1688.

Of Your Most Illustrious Lordship

the most humble and most devoted servant.

These things a man of illustrious learning sent to me; if they please you, reader, as much as they please me, they will certainly please very greatly. Farewell.