United States or Malaysia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But when Galerius had obtained the supreme power, and the government of the East, he indulged in their fullest extent his zeal and cruelty, not only in the provinces of Thrace and Asia, which acknowledged his immediate jurisdiction, but in those of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, where Maximin gratified his own inclination, by yielding a rigorous obedience to the stern commands of his benefactor.
Every hour increased the danger of Constantine, and the anxiety of his father, who, by repeated letters, expressed the warmest desire of embracing his son. For some time the policy of Galerius supplied him with delays and excuses; but it was impossible long to refuse so natural a request of his associate, without maintaining his refusal by arms.
The cares of State in a disordered age, when the empire was threatened on every side by hostile barbarians, and disgraced by insurrections and tumults, induced Diocletian to associate with himself three colleagues, who had won fame in the wars of Aurelian and Carus. Maximian, Galerius, and Constantine—one of whom had the dignity of Augustus, and two that of Cæsar.
But Galerius did not leave them long in suspense; he pushed forward Maximinus and showed him to the assembly, and Diocletian clothed him with the purple vest, after which the old emperor returned privately in his carriage to Nicomedia, and immediately after set off for Salona in Dalmatia, near which he built himself an extensive palace by the sea-shore, in which he lived for the rest of his life, respected by the other emperors, without cares and without regret.
Galerius at length extorted from him the permission of summoning a council, composed of a few persons the most distinguished in the civil and military departments of the state. The important question was agitated in their presence, and those ambitious courtiers easily discerned, that it was incumbent on them to second, by their eloquence, the importunate violence of the Cæsar.
Galerius again assumed the power of nominating an Augustus, and bestowed the purple, made vacant by the death of Severus, on an old comrade, Licinius, originally a Dacian peasant.
Curran gives quite an exhaustive article on the disease called in olden times "eaten of worms," a most loathsome malady. Herod the Great, the Emperor Galerius, and Philip II of Spain perished from it.
Constantius forbade all persecution in the West, but Galerius and his son-in-law, Maximin, were very violent in the East; and Maximin is counted as the last of the ten persecuting emperors. Under him a great many Christians were blinded, scarred with hot iron, or had their fingers and ears cut off.
The two Cæsars repudiated their respective wives; Galerius married Valeria, Diocletian's daughter, adding to his name that of Valerianus; and Constantius married Theodora, daughter of Maximianus. Galerius was a native of Dacia, and a good soldier, but violent and cruel; he had been a herdsman in his youth, for which he has been styled, in derision, Armentarius.
The rumor of his death was for some time universally believed, and it was supposed to be concealed with a view to prevent the troubles that might have happened during the absence of the Cæsar Galerius.
Word Of The Day