CONSTANTINE AND HIS COLLEAGUES
While Constantine thus peacefully succeeded his father in the command of
Gaul, Spain, and Britain, Italy was the scene of continued disturbance
and of a successful usurpation. We have seen how Severus, an officer of
the eastern army and a trusted friend of Galerius, had been chosen to
take over the command which Maximian so unwillingly laid down at Milan.
He was proclaimed Cæsar, with Italy and Africa for his portion, and the
administration passed into his hands. But he preferred, apparently, to
remain on the Illyrian border rather than shew himself in Rome, and, in
his absence, Maxentius, a son of Maximian, took the opportunity of
claiming the heritage of which he considered himself to have been
robbed.
No single historian has had a good word to say for Maxentius, who is
described by Lactantius as “a man of depraved mind, so consumed with
pride and stubbornness that he paid no deference or respect either to
his father or his father-in-law and was in consequence hated by
both.”[30] He had married a daughter of Galerius, but had been thrust on
one side at the choosing of the new Cæsars, and Severus and Maximin Daza
had been preferred to him. He owed his elevation to the purple to a
successful mutiny on the part of the Prætorians at Rome, and to the
general discontent of the Roman population. It is evident that Rome
watched with anger and jealousy the loss of her old exclusive and
imperial position. The Emperors no longer resided on the Palatine, and
ignored and disdained the city on the Tiber. Diocletian had preferred
Nicomedia; Maximian had fixed his Court at Milan. The imperial trappings
at Rome were becoming a mockery. When, in addition to neglect, it was
ordered that Italy should no longer be exempt from the census, and that
the sacred Saturnian soil should submit to the exactions of the
tax-gatherer, public opinion was ripe for revolt.
-----
Footnote 30:
_De Mort. Persec._, c. 18.
-----
Lactantius affects to see in the extension of the census to Rome a
crowning example of Galerius’s rapacity. He speaks of the Emperor
“devouring the whole world,” and declares that his madness carried him
to such outrageous lengths that he would not suffer even the Roman
people to escape bondage. But Galerius was thoroughly justified in the
step he took. The immunity of Rome from taxation had been a monstrous
piece of fiscal injustice to the rest of the world, designed merely to
flatter the pride and purse of the Roman citizen. Galerius, moreover,
had disbanded some of the Prætorians—who were at once the Household
Troops and the permanent garrison of the capital; but now that the
Emperor and the Court had quitted Rome, their _raison d’être_ was gone.
The vast expenditure on their pay and their barracks was money thrown
away. Galerius, therefore, abolished the Prætorian camps. Such an act
would give clear warning that the absence of the Emperors was not merely
temporary, but permanent, that the shifting of the capital had been due
not merely to personal predilections, but to abiding political reasons.
That the Prætorians themselves received the order with sullen anger may
well be understood. For three centuries they had been the _corps
d’élite_ of the Roman army, enjoying special pay and special advantages.
They had made and unmade Emperors. They had repeatedly held the fortunes
of the Empire in their hands. The traditions of their regiments fostered
pride and arrogance, for they had seen little active service in their
long history, and the severest conflicts they had had to face were
tumults in the imperial city. Now their privileges were destroyed by a
stroke of the pen, and needing but little instigation to rebellion, they
offered the purple to Maxentius, who gladly accepted it. Nor, it is
said, were the people unfavourable to his cause, for Maxentius’s agents
had already been busy among them, and so, after Abellius, the præfect of
the city, had been murdered, Maxentius made himself master of Rome
without a struggle. His position, however, was very precarious. He had
practically no army and he knew that neither Galerius nor Severus would
recognise his pretensions. The latter had already taken over the command
of the armies of Maximian, and was the nominee of Galerius, who at once
incited his colleague to march upon Rome. Maxentius saw that his only
chance of success was to corrupt his father’s old legions, and with this
object in view he sent a purple robe to Maximian, urging him to resume
his place and title of Augustus. Maximian agreed with alacrity. He had
been spending his enforced leisure not in amateur gardening and
contentment, like his colleague at Salona, but in his Campanian villa,
chafing at his lost dignity. Hence he eagerly responded to the summons
of his son and resumed the purple, not so much as Maxentius’s supporter,
but as the senior acting Augustus.
Severus marched straight down the Italian peninsula and laid siege to
Rome, only to find himself deserted by his soldiers. According to
Zosimus, the troops which first played him false were a Moorish
contingent fresh from Africa. Then, when the treachery spread, Severus
hastily retired on Ravenna, where he could maintain touch with Galerius
in Illyria, and was there besieged by Maximian and Maxentius. Doubtless,
if he had waited, Galerius would have sent him reinforcements or come in
person to his assistance, for his own prestige was deeply involved in
that of Severus. But the latter seems to have allowed himself to be
enticed out of his strong refuge by the plausible overtures of his
rivals. He set out for Rome, prepared to resign the throne on condition
of receiving honourable treatment, but on reaching a spot named “The
Three Taverns,” on the Appian Road, he was seized and thrown into
chains. The only consideration he received from his captors was that
they allowed him to choose his own way of relieving them of his
presence. He opened his veins. So gentle a death in those violent times
was considered “good.”[31]
-----
Footnote 31:
_Nihil aliud impetravit nisi bonam mortem._—_De Mort. Persec._, c. 26.
-----
This victory over Severus, gained with such astonishing ease, speaks
well for the popularity of Maximian with his old soldiers. Galerius
prepared to avenge the defeat and murder of his friend and invaded Italy
at the head of a large army. He too, like Severus, marched down the
peninsula, but he got no nearer to Rome than Narnia, sixty miles
distant. There he halted, despite the fact that no opposition was being
offered to his advance. Why? The reason is undoubtedly to be found in
the attitude of Constantine, who had mobilised his army upon the Gallic
frontier and was waiting on events. There was no love lost between
Constantine and Galerius. If Constantine crossed the Alps and followed
down on the track of Galerius, the latter would find himself between two
fires. Galerius is represented by Zosimus as being suspicious of the
loyalty of his troops; it is more probable that he decided to retreat as
soon as he heard that Constantine had thrown in his lot with Maximian
and Maxentius. Maximian had been sedulously trying to secure alliances
for himself and his son. He had made overtures to the recluse of Salona.
But Diocletian had turned a deaf ear. Even if he had hankered after
power again, he would hardly have declared himself in opposition to the
ruler of Illyria, while he was dwelling within reach of Galerius. With
Constantine, however, Maximian had better success. He gave him his
daughter Fausta in marriage and incited him to attack Galerius, who at
once drew his troops off into Illyria, after laying waste the
Transpadane region with fire and sword.
[Illustration: THE GOLDEN GATE OF DIOCLETIAN’S PALACE AT SALONA
(SPALATO).]
Some very curious stories are told in connection with this expedition of
Galerius. Lactantius declares that he invaded Italy with the intention
of extinguishing the Senate and butchering the people of Rome; that he
found the gates of all the cities shut against him; and discovered that
he had not brought sufficient troops with him to attempt a siege of the
capital. “He had never seen Rome,” says Lactantius naïvely, “and thought
it was not much bigger than the cities with which he was familiar.”
Galerius was, it is true, a rough soldier of the camp, but it is
ludicrous to suppose that he was not fully cognisant of the topography
and the fortifications of Rome. Then we are told that some of the
legions were afflicted with scruples at the idea of being called to
fight for a father-in-law against his son-in-law—as though there were
prohibited degrees in hatreds—and shrank as Roman soldiers from the
thought of moving to the assault of Rome. And, as a finishing touch to
this most extraordinary canvas, Lactantius paints into it the figure of
Galerius kneeling at the feet of his soldiers, praying them not to
betray him, and offering them large rewards. We do not recognise
Galerius in such a guise. Again, an unknown historian, of whose work
only a few fragments survive, says that when Galerius reached Narnia he
opened communications with Maximian and proposed to treat for peace, but
that his overtures were contemptuously spurned. This does not violate
the probabilities like the reckless malevolence of Lactantius, but,
after all, the simplest explanation is the one which we have given
above. Galerius halted and then retired when he heard that Constantine
had come to an understanding with Maximian, had married his daughter,
and was waiting and watching on the Gallic border. No pursuit seems to
have been attempted.
Maximian and Maxentius were thus left in undisputed possession of Italy.
They were clearly in alliance with Constantine, but their relations with
one another were exceedingly anomalous. Both are represented in equally
odious colours. Eutropius describes the father as “embittered and
brutal, faithless, troublesome, and utterly devoid of good manners”;
Aurelius Victor says of the son that no one ever liked him, not even his
own father. Indeed, the scandal-mongers of the day denied the parentage
of Maxentius and said that he was the son of some low-born Syrian and
had been foisted upon Maximian by his wife as her own child. Public
opinion, however, was inclined to throw the blame of the rupture, which
speedily took place between Maximian and Maxentius, upon the older man,
who is depicted as a restless and mischievous intriguer. In Rome, at any
rate, the army looked to the son as its chief, and as there was but one
army, there was no room for two Emperors. Lactantius tells the story
that Maximian called a great mass meeting of citizens and soldiers,
dilated at length upon the evils of the situation, and then, turning to
his son, declared that he was the cause of all the trouble and snatched
the purple from his shoulders. But Maximian had the mortification of
seeing Maxentius sheltered instead of slaughtered by the soldiers, and
it was he himself who was driven with ignominy from the city, like a
second Tarquin the Proud.
[Illustration:
BUST OF MAXIMIAN AT ROME.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ALINARI.
]
Whether these circumstantial details are to be accepted or not, there is
no doubt as to the sequel. Maximian was expelled from Rome and Italy,
and began a series of wanderings which were only to end with his death.
He seems first of all to have fled into Gaul and thrown himself upon the
protection of his son-in-law, Constantine, and then to have opened up
negotiations with Galerius, who must naturally have desired to establish
some _modus vivendi_ between all the rival Emperors. Galerius called a
conference at Carnuntum on the Danube and invited the presence of
Diocletian. Maximian was there; so too was Licinius, an old
companion-in-arms of Galerius and his most trusted lieutenant. Of the
debates which took place no word has survived. But the fact that
Diocletian was invited to attend is clear proof that Galerius regarded
him with the profound respect that was due to the senior Augustus and
the founder of the system which had broken down so badly. Galerius
wished the old man to suggest a way out of the _impasse_ which had been
reached, to devise some plan whereby his dilapidated fabric might still
be patched up. Even in his retirement the practical wisdom of Diocletian
was gladly recognised, and three years later we find one of the
Panegyrists sounding his praises in the presence of Constantine. This
shews that Diocletian and Constantine were on friendly terms, else
Diocletian would only have been mentioned with abuse, or would have been
passed over in significant silence. The passage deserves quotation:
“That divine statesman, who was the first to share his Empire with
others and the first to lay it down, does not regret the step he took,
nor thinks that he has lost what he voluntarily resigned; nay, he is
truly blessed and happy, since, even in his retirement, such mighty
Princes as you offer him the protection of your deep respect. He is
upheld by a multiplicity of Empires; he rejoices in the cover of your
shade.”[32]
-----
Footnote 32:
_Sed et ille multijugo fultus imperio et vestro lætus tegitur
umbraculo._—_Pan. Vet._, vii., 15.
-----
Diocletian would not have been called to Carnuntum, or, if called, he
would scarcely have undertaken so tedious a journey, had there not been
affairs of the highest moment to be discussed. We know of only one
certain result of this strange council of Emperors. It is that a new
Augustus was created by Galerius without passing through the
intermediate stage of being a Cæsar. He was found in Licinius, to whom
was assigned the administration of Illyria with the command of the
Danubian legions, and the status of second rank in the hierarchy of the
Augusti, or rather of the Augusti in active life. Galerius, we may
infer, was sensible of the approaching breakdown of his health and
wished his friend Licinius to be ready to step into his place.
Apparently, a genuine attempt was made to restore to something like its
old position the system of Diocletian. Perhaps as reasonable a
supposition as any is that it was decided at the conference that
Diocletian and Maximian should again be relegated to the ranks of
retired Augusti, that Galerius and Licinius should be the two active
Augusti, and Constantine and Maximin the two Cæsars. Maximian had
unquestionably gone to Carnuntum with the hope of fishing in troubled
waters and Lactantius[33] even attributes to him a wild scheme for
assassinating Galerius. It is, at any rate, certain that he left the
conference in a fury of disappointment. The ambitious and restless old
man had received no encouragement to his hopes of again being supreme
over part of the Empire.
-----
Footnote 33:
_De Mort. Persec._, c. 29.
-----
But what then of Maxentius, who was in possession of Italy and Africa?
If the theory we have propounded be right, he must have been studiously
ignored and treated as a usurper, to be thrown out—just as Carausius had
been—at a favourable opportunity. There is a passage in Lactantius which
seems to corroborate this suggestion. That author says that Maximin
Daza, the Cæsar of Egypt and Syria and the old protégé of Galerius,
heard with anger that Licinius had been promoted over his head to be
Augustus and hold the second place in the charmed circle of Emperors. He
sent angry remonstrances; Galerius returned a soft answer. Maximin an
even more aggressive bearing (_tollit audacius cornua_), urged more
peremptorily than ever his superior right, and spurned Galerius’s
entreaties and commands. Then,—Lactantius goes on to say,—overborne by
Maximin’s stubborn obstinacy, Galerius offered a compromise, by naming
himself and Licinius as Augusti and Maximin and Constantine as Sons of
the Augusti, instead of simple Cæsars.
But Maximin was obdurate and wrote saying that his soldiers had taken
the law into their own hands and had already saluted him as Augustus.
Galerius therefore, in the face of the accomplished fact, gave way and
recognised not only Maximin but Constantine also as full Augusti. Such
is the story of Lactantius. It will be noted that the name of Maxentius
is not mentioned. He is treated as non-existent. There need be no
surprise that nothing is said of Diocletian and Maximian, for they were
ex-Augusti, so to speak, though still bearing the courtesy title. But if
Maxentius had been recognised as one of the “Imperial Brothers” at the
conference of Carnuntum, the omission of his name by Lactantius is
exceedingly strange. From his account we should judge that the policy
decided upon at Carnuntum was to restore the fourfold system of
Diocletian in the persons of Galerius, Licinius, Maximin, and
Constantine, taking precedence in the order named. When Maximin refused
to be content with his old title of Cæsar or to accept the new one of
Son of Augustus, and insisted on being acknowledged as Augustus, the
system broke down anew. At the beginning of 308, there were no fewer
than seven who bore the name of Augustus. And of these Diocletian alone
had outlived his ambitions.
Maximian returned to Gaul, where he received cordial welcome from
Constantine. He had resigned his pretensions not—as says Lactantius,
cognisant as ever of the secret motives of his enemies—that he might the
more easily deceive Constantine, but because it had been so decided at
Carnuntum. He was thus a private citizen once more; he had neither army,
nor official status, nothing beyond the prestige attaching to one who
had, so to speak, “passed the chair.” There can be little doubt that his
second resignation was as reluctant as the first, but as he was at open
enmity with his son, Maxentius, he had only Constantine to look to for
protection and the means of livelihood. And Constantine, according to
the author of the Seventh Panegyric, gave him all the honours due to his
exalted rank. He assigned to him the place of honour on his right hand;
put at his disposal the stables of the palace; and ordered his servants
to pay to Maximian the same deference that they paid to himself. The
orator declares that the gossip of the day spoke of Constantine as
wearing the robe of office, while Maximian wielded its powers. Evidently
Constantine had no fear that Maximian would play him false.
His confidence, however, soon received a rude shock. The Franks were
restless and threatened invasion. Constantine marched north with his
army, leaving Maximian at Arles. He did not take his entire forces with
him, for a considerable number remained in the south of Gaul—no doubt to
guard the frontier against danger from Maxentius, though Lactantius
explains it otherwise. Maximian waited till sufficient time had elapsed
for Constantine to be well across the Rhine, and then began to spread
rumours of his having been defeated and slain in battle. For the third
time, therefore, he assumed the purple, seized the State treasuries, and
took command of the legions, offering them a large donative, and
appealing to their old loyalty. The usurpation was entirely successful
for the moment, but when Constantine heard of the treachery he hurried
back, leaving the affairs of the frontier to settle themselves.
Constantine knew the military value of mobility, and his soldiers
eagerly made his quarrel their own. There is an amusing passage in the
Seventh Panegyric[34] in which the orator says that the troops shewed
their devotion by refusing the offer of special travelling-money
(_viatica_) on the ground that it would hamper them on the march. Their
generous pay, they said, was more than sufficient, though no Roman army
before this time had ever been known to refuse money. Then he describes
how they marched from the Rhine to the Aar without rest, yet with
unwearied bodies; how at Chalons (Cabillonum) they were placed on board
river boats, but found the current too sluggish for their impetuous
eagerness to come to conclusions with the traitor, and cried out that
they were standing still; and how, even when they entered the rapid
current of the Rhone, its pace scarcely satisfied their ardour. Such,
according to the Court rhetorician, was the enthusiasm of the soldiers
for their young leader. When, at length, Arles was reached, it was found
that Maximian had fled to Marseilles and had shut himself up within that
strongly fortified town. His power had crumbled away. The legions, which
had sworn allegiance to him, withdrew it again as soon as they found
that he had lied to them of Constantine’s death; even the soldiers he
had with him in Marseilles only waited for the appearance of Constantine
before the walls to open the gates. The picture which Lactantius draws
of Constantine reproaching Maximian for his ingratitude while the
latter—from the summit of the wall—heaps curses on his head (_ingerebat
maledicta de muris_), or the companion picture of the anonymous
rhetorician, who shews us the scaling ladders falling short of the top
of the battlements and the devoted soldiers climbing up on their
comrades’ backs, are vivid but unconvincing. What emerges from their
doubtful narratives is that Marseilles was captured without a siege, and
that Maximian fell into the hands of his justly angry son-in-law, who
stripped him of his titles but vouchsafed to him his life.
-----
Footnote 34:
C. 18.
-----
Was Maximian in league with his son, Maxentius, in this usurpation? Had
they made up their old quarrel in order to turn their united weapons
against Constantine? There were those who thought so at the time, as
Lactantius says,[35] the theory being that the old man only pretended
violent enmity towards his son in order to carry out his treacherous
designs against Constantine and the other Emperors.
-----
Footnote 35:
_De Mort. Persec._, c. 43.
-----
Lactantius himself denies this supposition bluntly (_Sed id falsum
fuit_) and then goes on to say[36] that Maximian’s real motive was to
get rid both of Maxentius and the rest, and restore Diocletian and
himself to power. Even for Lactantius, this is an extraordinarily wild
theory. It runs counter to all that we know of Diocletian’s wishes
during his retirement, and it speaks of the “extinction of Maxentius and
the rest” as though it only needed an order to a centurion and the deed
was done. It is much more probable that Maximian had actually re-entered
into negotiations with Maxentius and had offered, as the price of
reconciliation, the support of the legions which he had treacherously
won from Constantine. The impetuous haste with which Constantine flew
back from the Rhine indicates that the crisis was one of extreme
gravity.
-----
Footnote 36:
_Nam id propositi habebat, ut et filio et ceteris extinctis se ac
Diocletianum restitueret in regnum._
-----
Maximian did not long survive his degradation. That he died a violent
death is certain; the circumstances attending it are in doubt.
Lactantius gives a minute narrative which would carry greater conviction
if the details had not been so manifestly borrowed from the chronicles
of the East. He says that Maximian, tiring of his humiliating position,
engaged in new plots against Constantine, and tempted Fausta, his
daughter, to betray her husband by the promise of a worthier spouse. Her
part in the conspiracy was to secure the removal of the guards from
Constantine’s sleeping apartment. Fausta laid the whole scheme before
her husband, who ordered one of his eunuchs to sleep in the royal
chamber. Maximian, rising in the dead of night, told the sentries that
he had dreamed an important dream which he wished at once to communicate
to his son-in-law and thus gained entrance to the room. Drawing his
sword, he cut off the eunuch’s head and rushed out boasting that he had
slain Constantine—only to be confronted by Constantine himself at the
head of a troop of armed men. The corpse was brought out; the
self-convicted murderer stood “speechless as Marpesian flint.”
Constantine upbraided him with his treachery, gave him permission to
choose his own mode of dying, and Maximian hanged himself, “drawing”—as
Virgil had said—“from the lofty beam the noose of shameful death.”
[Illustration:
FRAGMENT OF 4TH CENTURY EGYPTIAN POTTERY BOWL
SHOWING AN EARLY PORTRAIT OF CHRIST, WITH BUSTS OF THE EMPEROR
CONSTANTINE
AND THE EMPRESS FAUSTA. (FROM THE BRITISH MUSEUM.)
]
Such is the story of Lactantius; it could scarcely be more
circumstantial. But if this had been the manner of Maximian’s death, it
is hardly possible that the other historians would have passed it by in
silence. Eusebius, in his _Ecclesiastical History_, simply says that
Maximian strangled himself; Aurelius Victor that he justly perished
(_jure perierat_). The author of the Seventh Panegyric declares that,
though Constantine offered him his life, Maximian deemed himself
unworthy of the boon and committed suicide.[37] Eutropius, evidently
borrowing from Lactantius, remarks that Maximian paid the penalty for
his crimes. There is little doubt, therefore, that Constantine ordered
his execution and gave him choice of death, just as Maxentius had given
similar choice to Severus. Officially it would be announced that
Maximian had committed suicide. At the time, public opinion was shocked
by the manner of his death, though it was generally conceded that his
life was justly forfeit.
-----
Footnote 37:
_Nec se dignum vita judicavit, cum per te liceret ut viveret._—_Pan.
Vet._, vii., 20.
-----
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]