Divine Institutes & On the Deaths of the Persecutors 2 part 2/4

When these solemnities had been celebrated, since he could not endure the freedom of the Roman people, impatient and sick at heart he rushed out of the city as the Kalends of January were approaching, on which his ninth consulship was being conferred upon him. He could not endure thirteen days, that he might enter upon his consulship at Rome rather than at Ravenna, but setting out while winter raged, lashed by cold and rains, he contracted an illness slight indeed but lasting, and being afflicted throughout the whole journey, he was for the most part carried in a litter. Thus, when summer had passed, he came by way of the bank of the Ister to Nicomedia, his illness now growing grievous; and when he perceived himself oppressed by it, he was nevertheless brought forth, that he might dedicate the circus he had built, the year after his twentieth anniversary being completed.

Then he was so oppressed by his languor that prayers were made to all the gods for his life, until on the Ides of December there was suddenly mourning in the palace, sorrow and tears of the judges, trepidation and silence throughout the whole city. Now they said he was not only dead but even buried, when suddenly, on the following morning, a rumor spread that he was living, and the faces of the household and the judges were changed with cheerfulness. There were those who suspected that his death was being concealed until Caesar should come, lest perhaps something should be stirred up by the soldiers. This suspicion prevailed so far that no one believed him to be living, until on the Kalends of March he came forth, scarcely to be recognized, since for nearly a whole year he had wasted away with illness.

And he, lulled into death on the Ides of December, had recovered his soul, yet not the whole of it. For he became demented, so that at certain hours he raved, at certain hours he came to his senses. And not many days after, Caesar arrived, not to congratulate his father, but to compel him to yield up the empire. He had already lately clashed with old Maximian and had terrified him by inspiring in him the fear of civil arms. He approached Diocletian therefore at first gently and in a friendly way, saying that he was now old, now less vigorous and unfit for administering the state; that he ought to rest after his labors. At the same time he brought forward the example of Nerva, who had handed over the empire to Trajan.

But he answered that it would be both unseemly, if after such great brilliance of lofty eminence he should sink down into the shadows of a lowly life, and less safe, because in so long a reign he had earned for himself the hatred of many; that Nerva, however, ruling for one year, when he could bear neither the weight nor the care of such great affairs, whether by reason of age or of unfamiliarity, had cast aside the helm of the state and returned to a private life, in which he had grown old. But if he desired to obtain the name of emperor, there was no impediment to prevent all from being styled Augusti.

But the other, who had already in hope invaded the whole world, since he saw that either nothing beyond a name, or not much, was accruing to him, answered that the arrangement of Diocletian himself ought to be preserved in perpetuity, namely that there should be two greater rulers in the state, who held the sum of affairs, and likewise two lesser, who should be a help; that between two concord could easily be preserved, but between four equals by no means. If he himself had been unwilling to yield, he would take counsel for his own interest, that he might no longer be the lesser and the lowest. Now fifteen years had passed in which he had been relegated to Illyricum—that is, to the bank of the Danube—wrestling with barbarous nations, while others ruled in luxury within more spacious and more peaceful lands.

Hearing these things, the feeble old man—who had now also received a letter from old Maximian, writing whatever the other had said, and had learned that the army was being increased by him—weeping, said, "Let it be so, if this is your pleasure." It remained that, by the common counsel of all, Caesars should be chosen. "What need is there of counsel, when it is necessary that those two be pleased with whatever we shall have done?"—"Just so, plainly. For it is necessary that their sons be named." 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 insolent that he was wont to do reverence neither to his father nor to his father-in-law, and for that reason was hateful to both.

Constantius too had a son, Constantine, a most virtuous young man and most worthy of that high rank, who by his distinguished and graceful bodily bearing, his soldierly diligence, his upright character, and his singular courtesy was beloved by the soldiers and longed for by private citizens. He was at that time present, having long since been made by Diocletian a tribune of the first order. "What then is to be done?"--"That man," said Galerius, "is not worthy. For he who as a private man despised me, what will he do once he has received the imperial power?"--"But this one is both lovable and so disposed to rule that he will be judged better and more merciful than his own father."--"In that case it will turn out that I cannot do what I wish.

It is fitting therefore that those be appointed who are in my power, who will fear me, who will do nothing except at my command."--"Whom then shall we make?"--"Severus," he said.--"That dancer, drunken and given to wine, for whom night is as day and day as night?"--"He is worthy," he said, "because he has faithfully commanded the soldiers; and I have sent to Maximian, that he may be invested by him."--"So be it. Whom will you give as the other?"--"This man," he said, pointing to Daia, a certain half-barbarian youth, whom he had recently ordered to be called Maximinus, after his own name.

For Diocletian himself had partly changed his name for the sake of an omen, because Maximian rendered fidelity with the utmost devotion.--"Who is this man whom you offer me?"--"My kinsman," he said.--But the other, groaning, said: "You give me men unfit, to whom the safeguarding of the commonwealth can be entrusted."--"I have approved them," he said.--"You shall see to it, you who are to assume the governance of the empire. I have labored and provided enough so that, while I rule, the commonwealth might stand secure. If any adversity should come, it will not be my fault." When these things had been settled, the proceedings took place on the Kalends of May. All gazed upon Constantine; there was no doubt;

the soldiers who were present, and the chief officers chosen and summoned from the legions, intent upon this one man, rejoiced, wished for him, and made their prayers. There was a high place outside the city, about three miles off, on whose summit Maximian himself had assumed the purple, and there a column had been erected with the image of Jupiter. Thither they proceeded. An assembly of the soldiers was convened. The old man began, with tears, to address the soldiers: that he was infirm, that he sought rest after his labors, that he was handing over the empire to stronger men, and substituting others as Caesars. The expectation of all was at its height, as to what he would bring forth. Then suddenly he proclaimed Severus and Maximinus as Caesars; all were astounded. On the tribunal Constantine stood above;

and they hesitated among themselves whether Constantine's name had been altered, when, in the sight of all, Maximian, stretching back his hand, drew forth from behind Daia, thrusting Constantine aside, and having stripped him of his private dress, set him in the midst. All marveled who he was and whence he came. Yet no one dared to cry out in protest, all being thrown into confusion by the strangeness of the thing none had expected. Upon him Diocletian cast his own purple, with which he divested himself, and he became Diocles again. Then they descended, and the veteran ruler was carried out through the city in a carriage and dismissed to his homeland.

But Daia, lately raised from the flocks and the woods, at once a shield-bearer, immediately a protector, soon a tribune, the next day a Caesar, received the East to trample and grind down--he who knew neither soldiering nor statecraft, now no longer a herdsman of cattle, but of soldiers. After Maximian had accomplished what he wished, having driven out the old men, he gave himself out as now the sole master of the whole world; for although Constantius had necessarily to be named first, he despised him, because he was mild by nature and hindered by poor bodily health. He hoped that this man would shortly die, and if he did not die, it seemed easy to strip him of power even against his will. For what could he do, if he were compelled by three to lay down his rule?

He had with him Licinius, a friend of his old comradeship and intimate from his earliest military service, by whose counsels he made use for governing all things; yet he was unwilling to make him a Caesar, lest he should call him a son, his plan being rather afterwards to name him Augustus and brother in Constantius's place; and that then he himself should hold the supremacy and, raving at his pleasure over the whole earth, celebrate his vicennalia, and, with his own son set up as Caesar--he was then nine years old--he himself too should lay down power; so that, while Licinius and Severus held the chief of the empire, and Maximinus and Candidianus held the second rank of the Caesars, he, fenced about by an impregnable wall, might pass a secure and tranquil old age. Toward this his designs tended.

But God, whom he made his enemy, dissolved all his plans. Having therefore attained the greatest power, he set his mind to vexing the world which he had opened up to himself. For after the Persians had been conquered--whose rite and custom it is that they devote themselves to the service of their kings, and the kings use their people as a household--this wicked man wished to introduce this custom into the Roman land; and from the time of that victory he praised it without shame. And because he could not openly command it, he so acted as himself also to take away liberty from men. First of all he took away honors. Not only the decurions but even the chief men of the cities, men outstanding and most accomplished, were tortured by him, and that indeed in trifling and civil suits.

If they seemed worthy of death, crosses stood ready; if not, fetters were prepared. Idle and noble matrons were dragged off to the women's workhouse; if anyone was to be flogged, four stakes were fixed in a stable, to which no slave was ever wont to be stretched. Why should I tell of his sport and his amusements? He kept bears very like his own ferocity and bulk, which he had selected throughout the whole time of his rule; whenever it pleased him to be entertained, he would order one of them to be brought by name. To these he threw men not exactly to be eaten, but to be gulped down; and when their limbs were torn apart, he laughed most delightedly, and never dined without human gore. For those without rank the penalty was fire.

This means of destruction he had first permitted against the Christians, laws having been issued that, after torture, the condemned should be burned with slow fires. When they had been handed over, a gentle flame was first applied to their feet, so long until the contracted hard skin of the soles was torn away from the bones by the fire. Then torches, lit and then put out, were brought to each of their limbs, so that no place in the body should be left untouched; and meanwhile the face was sprinkled with cold water and the mouth was washed with moisture, lest, with the throat parched by dryness, the breath should be given up too quickly. This at last would happen when, through a long day, with all the skin consumed, the force of the fire had penetrated to the inmost organs. Then a pyre being built, bodies already burned were burned again.

The bones, gathered and ground into dust, were cast into rivers and the sea. What therefore he had learned in torturing the Christians, by that very habit he practiced upon all. With him no penalty was light--not islands, not prisons, not the mines--but fire, the cross, and wild beasts were in his eyes everyday and easy things. Domestics and officials were corrected with the spear. In a capital case the punishment of the sword was granted, as if a favor, to very few, who by reason of past merits had obtained a good death. Now even those things had been light by comparison: eloquence extinguished, advocates done away with, jurists either banished or put to death.

Letters indeed were reckoned among the evil arts, and those who knew them were crushed and execrated as foes and enemies. License in all matters was assumed, the laws being loosed, and granted to the judges. Military judges, untrained in the humanity of letters, were sent into the provinces without assessors. But that other thing was a public calamity and the common mourning of all--the census once dispatched into the provinces and cities. With census-takers spread everywhere and harassing all things, there was the appearance of a hostile tumult and of dreadful captivity. The fields were measured clod by clod, vines and trees were counted, animals of every kind were registered, the heads of men were recorded;

in the cities the urban and rural populace were gathered together, all the marketplaces were crammed with throngs of families; everyone was present with his children and his slaves; tortures and floggings resounded; sons were hung up against their parents, the most faithful slaves were racked against their masters, wives against their husbands. If all else failed, men were tortured against themselves, and when pain had prevailed, things they did not possess were registered against them. There was no excuse of age or of infirmity; the sick and the disabled were brought in, the ages of individuals were assessed, years were added to little children, taken away from old men. All places were full of grief and sorrow.

What the ancients had done by the law of war against the conquered, this man dared to do against the Romans and those subject to the Romans, because his own ancestors had been subjected to the census which Trajan, as victor, imposed upon the constantly rebelling Dacians as a penalty. After this, monies were paid in lieu of heads, and a price was given for life. Yet not even these same registrars were trusted, but others were sent over others, as though they would discover more; and as the sum was always doubled--not because they found more, but because they added as they pleased, lest they should seem to have been sent in vain. Meanwhile the animals diminished and mortals died, and none the less the tributes were paid for the dead, so that now it was permitted neither to live nor even to die free of charge.

Only the beggars remained, from whom nothing could be exacted, whom their misery and wretchedness had made safe from every kind of injury. And this pious fellow had pity on them, that they might not be in want. He ordered them all to be gathered together and, carried off in small boats, drowned in the sea. So merciful a man, who took care that no one should be wretched under his rule! Thus, while he guards lest anyone, under pretense of beggary, should escape the census, he slew a multitude of the truly wretched against all law of humanity. Now the judgment of God drew near to him, and the time followed in which his affairs began to slip and flow away. He had not yet turned his mind to overthrowing or expelling Constantius, while he was occupied with these matters which I have set forth above;

and he awaited his death, but yet did not think he would die soon. When Constantius was gravely ill, he had sent letters that he should send back to him his son Constantine to be seen by him, whom he had long since vainly demanded back. But the other wished nothing less. For he had often assailed the youth with ambushes, since he dared nothing openly, lest he should stir up civil arms against himself and--what he most feared--the hatred of the soldiers; and under the pretext of exercise and sport he had thrown him to wild beasts; but in vain, because the hand of God protected the man, who delivered him from his hands at the very crisis.

For when, being asked again and again, he could no longer refuse for long, he gave him the seal as the day was already declining, and ordered him to set out the next morning, having received his instructions--intending either himself to detain him by some pretext, or to send letters ahead, so that Constantine might be held by Severus. But Constantine, foreseeing this, while the emperor was now resting after dinner, hastened to depart, and having carried off all the post-horses at many stations, flew away. The next day the emperor, having deliberately slept until midday, ordered him to be summoned. He was told that he had set out immediately after dinner. He began to be indignant and to rage. He demanded the post-horses, to have him brought back. He was informed that the public courier-service had been stripped bare before him. He could scarcely hold back his tears.

But Constantine, using incredible speed, reached his father, who was now failing; and the father, having commended him to the soldiers, handed over the empire to him by his own hand. And so on his own bed he received the rest of life, as he had wished. Having taken up the empire, Constantine Augustus did nothing before restoring the Christians to their worship and to their God. This was his first ordinance--the restoration of holy religion. A few days later his laurelled portrait was brought to the wicked beast. He deliberated a long while whether he should accept it.

It nearly came to this, that he would have burned both the portrait and the very man who had brought it, had not his friends turned him from that fury, reminding him of the danger--that all the soldiers, against whose will the unknown Caesars had been made, would have taken up Constantine and would have flocked to him with the utmost eagerness, if he had come in arms. And so he accepted the portrait very much against his will, and sent him the purple, so that he might seem to have admitted him into the partnership of his own accord. Now his calculations had been thrown into confusion, and he could not name another beyond the number, as he had wished.

But he devised this: that he should name Severus, who was older in age, as Augustus, but order that Constantine be called not emperor, as he had been made, but Caesar together with Maximinus, so as to throw him back from the second place into the fourth. His affairs now seemed in some way settled, when suddenly another terror was brought to him--that his own son-in-law Maxentius had been made emperor at Rome. The cause of this movement was as follows. When he had resolved, by instituting the census, to devour the whole world, he leaped forward to such madness that he wished not even the Roman people to be made immune from this captivity. Census-takers were already being appointed who, sent to Rome, should register the commons. About the same time he had also abolished the praetorian camp.

And so the few soldiers who had been left in the camp at Rome, seizing the opportunity, killed certain of the judges--the people not unwilling, for they were stirred up--and clothed Maxentius in the purple. When this news was brought, he was somewhat disturbed by the novelty of the thing, yet not too greatly terrified. He both hated the man and could not make three Caesars. It seemed enough to have done once what he did not wish. He summoned Severus, urged him to recover the empire. He sent him with Maximian's army to attack Maxentius, and sent him to Rome--in which those soldiers, very often most luxuriously entertained, would wish not only that city to be safe, but to live there.

Maxentius, conscious to himself of so great a crime, although by right of inheritance he could bring over his father's soldiers to his side, yet reflecting that it might happen that his father-in-law Maximian, fearing this very thing, would leave Severus in Illyricum and himself come with his own army to attack him, sought how he might fortify himself against the impending danger. To his father, lingering in Campania after he had laid down power, he sent the purple and named him Augustus a second time. And he, both eager for revolution and having laid down power unwillingly, gladly seized it. Severus meanwhile advanced and came armed to the walls of the city. At once the soldiers, raising their standards, departed and handed themselves over to the very man against whom they had come. What remained for the abandoned man but flight?

But Maximian, his power now resumed, was coming to meet him; at whose approach Severus fled to Ravenna and there shut himself up with a few soldiers. When he saw that it would come to pass that he would be handed over to Maximian, he surrendered himself and gave back the purple robe to the very man from whom he had received it. By doing this he obtained nothing else but a good death. For with his veins cut, he was forced to die gently.

But Herculius (Maximian), knowing the madness of Maximian (Galerius), began to consider that he, inflamed with anger at hearing of Severus's death and taking up the feud, would come with his army--and perhaps with Maximinus joined to him and his forces doubled, against which there could be no resistance in any way. So, having fortified the city and carefully provided all things, he set out for Gaul, in order to win Constantine over to his side by the marriage of his younger daughter. Galerius meanwhile, having assembled his army, invaded Italy and approached the city to wipe out the senate and slaughter the people; but he found everything closed and fortified. There was no hope of breaking in, the siege was difficult, and there were not enough troops to invest the walls;

for indeed he had never seen Rome, and supposed it to be not much larger than the cities he knew. Then certain legions, detesting the crime--that a father-in-law was attacking his son-in-law, and that Roman soldiers were attacking Rome--shifted their standards and abandoned his cause. And now the rest of the soldiers were wavering, when he, his pride broken and his spirits cast down, fearing the fate of Severus, threw himself at the feet of the soldiers and begged that he not be handed over to the enemy, until by enormous promises he bent their minds and turned his standards back and, trembling, took to flight--in which he could most easily have been crushed, if anyone had pursued him even with a few men.

Fearing this, he gave the soldiers leave to scatter as widely as possible and plunder or destroy everything, so that, if anyone wished to pursue, he might have no provisions. Therefore that part of Italy through which that pestilential column passed was laid waste, everything was pillaged, women were defiled, virgins were violated, parents and husbands were tortured to make them betray their daughters, their wives, their wealth. Plunder of cattle and beasts of burden was driven off as though from barbarians. In this way he withdrew to his own seat, when one who had once been a Roman emperor, now a ravager of Italy, had ravaged all things in hostile fashion.

Once, indeed, as soon as he had received the name of emperor, he had declared himself an enemy of the Roman name, whose title he wished to be changed, so that it should be called not the Roman empire but the Dacian. After this man's flight, when the other Maximian had withdrawn from Gaul, he held the empire in common with his son. But the young man was obeyed more than the old, since the power of the son was both prior and greater--he who had even restored the empire to his father. The old man bore it with resentment that he could not freely do what he wished, and envied his own son with childish rivalry. He therefore planned to expel the youth, in order to claim his own for himself: which seemed easy, because he had the soldiers who had deserted Severus.

He summoned the people and the soldiers, as though about to hold an assembly concerning the present evils of the commonwealth. When he had said much about these, he turned his hands toward his son and, declaring that he was the author of the evils, the chief cause of the calamities which the commonwealth was enduring, he tore the purple from his shoulders. Stripped, the son threw himself headlong down from the tribunal and was received by the soldiers. By their anger and shouting the impious old man was thrown into confusion and was driven out from the city of Rome, like a second Superbus.

Returning again into Gaul, where he lingered some time, he set out to his son's enemy Maximian (Galerius), as though to confer with him about settling the condition of the commonwealth, but in truth in order to kill him under the pretext of reconciliation and to hold his kingdom, being shut out from his own. Wherever he came, there was present Diocles, lately summoned out of retirement, so that what he had not done before, in his presence he might give the empire to Licinius, substituted in Severus's place. And so it was done, both being present. Thus at one time there were six. By this matter, his counsels being thwarted, the old man Maximian planned yet a third flight:

He returned into Gaul, full of evil thought and crime, to circumvent by wicked deceit Constantine the emperor, his son-in-law, his daughter's husband, and that he might be able to deceive, he laid aside the royal robe. The nation of the Franks was in arms. He persuaded Constantine, who suspected nothing, not to lead his whole army with him: the barbarians could be subdued with a few soldiers, so that he himself might have an army to seize, and the other could be overcome because of the scarcity of his soldiers. The young man believes him as an expert and an old man, obeys him as a father-in-law: he sets out, leaving behind the greater part of his soldiers. Maximian, having waited a few days, when he now reckoned that Constantine had entered the borders of the barbarians, suddenly assumed the purple, seized the treasures, gave gifts lavishly as was his custom;

he invented against Constantine charges which forthwith recoiled upon himself. The emperor is speedily informed of what was done. With admirable speed he flies back with his army. The man is overwhelmed by surprise, not yet sufficiently prepared, and the soldiers return to their own emperor. He had seized Massilia (Marseilles) and guarded its gates. The emperor draws nearer and addresses him as he stands on the wall, not harshly nor in hostile fashion, but asks what he had wanted, what had been lacking to him, why he was doing what least became him in particular. But the other heaped curses from the walls. Then suddenly the gates behind him are unbarred, the soldiers are admitted. The rebel emperor, the impious father, the perfidious father-in-law, is dragged to the emperor.

He hears the crimes he committed; his robe is stripped from him, and after being rebuked, his life is granted to him. Thus, having lost the honor of emperor and father-in-law, impatient of his humiliation, he again contrived other plots, because he had once gone unpunished. He calls his daughter Fausta and solicits her, now with prayers, now with flatteries, to the betrayal of her husband, promising her another more worthy man; he asks that the bedchamber be left open and allowed to be guarded more negligently. She promises she will do it and at once reports it to her husband. A scene is arranged by which the crime might be plainly caught. A certain worthless eunuch is substituted to die in place of the emperor. Maximian rises in the dead of night, sees everything favorable for ambush. The watchmen were few and those indeed at a distance;

yet he told them that he had seen a dream which he wished to tell to his son. He enters armed, and having slain the eunuch, leaps forth exulting and proclaims what he has done. Suddenly Constantine shows himself from the other side with a band of armed men. The corpse of the slain man is brought forth from the bedchamber; the manifest murderer is caught and, mute, stands stupefied, as though a hard flint or a Marpesian crag should stand. He is rebuked for his impiety and crime. At last the power of a free death is given to him, and he ties the knot of a shapeless death from a lofty beam.

Thus that man, the greatest emperor of the Roman name, who after a long interval of time celebrated with immense glory the vows of his twentieth year, with his most arrogant throat crushed and broken, ended his detestable life by a shameful and groaning death. From him God, the avenger of religion and of His own people, turned His eyes to the other Maximian (Galerius), the author of the unspeakable persecution, in order to show in him also now the might of His majesty. He too was already thinking of celebrating his vicennalia. And in order that he, who had long since afflicted the provinces with levies of gold and silver, might render what he had promised, he also, in the name of the vicennalia, inflicted yet another axe-blow.