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WHEN Diocletian and Maximian, surnamed Herculius, had by mutual
consent laid aside the imperial dignity, and retired into private
life, Maximian, surnamed Galerius, who had been a sharer with them
in the government, came into Italy and appointed two Caesars,
Maximin in the eastern division of the empire, and Severus in the
Italian. In Britain, however, Constantine was proclaimed
emperor, instead of his father Constantius, who died in the first
year of the two hundred and seventy-first Olympiad, on the 25th of
July. And at Rome Maxentius, the son of Maximian Herculius, was
raised by the praetorian soldiers to be a tyrant rather than an
emperor. In this state of things Herculius, impelled by a desire to
regain the sovereignty, attempted to destroy his son Maxentius; but
this he was prevented by the soldiery from effecting, and he soon
afterwards died at Tarsus in Cilicia. At the same time Severus
Caesar being sent to Rome by Galerius Maximian, in order to seize
Maxentius, was slain, his own soldiers having betrayed him. At
length Galerius Maximian, who had exercised the chief authority,
also died, having previously appointed as his successor, his old
friend and companion in arms, Licinius, a Dacian by birth.
Meanwhile, Maxentius sorely oppressed the Roman people, treating
them as a tyrant rather than as a king, shamelessly violating the wives
of the nobles putting many innocent persons to death, and perpetrating
other similar atrocities. The emperor Constantine bring informed of
this, exerted himself to free the Romans from the slavery under him
(i.e. Maxentius), and began immediately to consider by what means
he might overthrow the tyrant. Now while his mind was occupied with
this great subject, he debated as to what divinity's aid he should
invoke in the conduct of the war. He began to realize that
Diocletian's party had not profited at all by the pagan deities, whom
they had sought to propitiate; but that his own father Constantius,
who had renounced the various religions of the Greeks, had passed
through life far more prosperously. In this state of uncertainty, as
he was marching him. In fact, about that part of the day when the sun
after posing the meridian begins to decline towards the west, he saw a
pillar of light in the heavens, in the form of a cross, on which were
inscribed these words, By THIS CONQUER. The appearance of
this sign struck the emperor with amazement and scarcely believing his
own eyes, he asked those around him if they beheld the same spectacle;
and as they unanimously declared that they did, the emperor's mind was
strengthened by this divine and marvelous apparition. On the following
night in his slumbers he saw Christ who directed him to prepare a
standard according to the pattern of that which had been seen; and to
use it against his enemies as an assured trophy of victory. In
obedience to this divine oracle, he caused a standard in the form of a
cross to be prepared, which is preserved in the palace even to the
present time: and proceeding in his measures with greater earnestness,
he attacked the enemy and vanquished him before the gates of Rome,
near the Mulvian bridge, Maxentius himself being drowned in the
river. This victory was achieved in the seventh year of the
conqueror's reign. After this, while Lisister Constantia, was
residing in the East, the emperor Constantine, in view of the great
blessing he had received, offered grateful thanksgivings to God as his
benefactor; these consisted as were imprisoned, and causing the
confiscated property of the prescribed to be restored to them; he
moreover rebuilt the churches, and abdicated the imperial authority,
died at Salona in Dalmatia.
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