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The next emperor who disappeared from the field was Maximin, who had embarked in a civil war with Licinius. He died at Tarsus, after an unsuccessful contest, A.D. 313; and there were left only Licinius and Constantine, the former of whom reigned in the East and the latter in the West. Scarcely a year elapsed before these two emperors embarked in a bloody contest for the sovereignty of the world.
The rougher trade of arms was abandoned to the peasants and barbarians of the frontiers, who knew no country but their camp, no science but that of war no civil laws, and scarcely those of military discipline. With bloody hands, savage manners, and desperate resolutions, they sometimes guarded, but much oftener subverted, the throne of the emperors. Part I. The Elevation And Tyranny Of Maximin.
With the courage of despair they took the only step that remained: two new emperors, Maximus and Balbinus, were appointed, and active steps taken to defend Italy and Rome. There was no time to be lost. News of these revolutionary movements had roused in Maximin the rage of a wild beast. All who approached his person were in danger, even his son and nearest friends.
The former tyrants, Caligula and Nero, Commodus, and Caracalla, were all dissolute and unexperienced youths, educated in the purple, and corrupted by the pride of empire, the luxury of Rome, and the perfidious voice of flattery. The cruelty of Maximin was derived from a different source, the fear of contempt.
"I had long since been baptized, and all the prisons were open to me, the rich Menander, the brother-in-law of the prefect those prisons in which under Maximin so many Christians were destined to be turned from the true faith. "But she did not belong to us. Her eye met mine, and I signed my forehead with the cross, but she did not respond to the sacred sign.
With Philip ends, according to our distribution, the second series of the Caesars, comprehending Commodus, Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, and Geta, Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander Severus, Maximin, the two Gordians, Pupienus and Balbinus, the third Gordian, and Philip the Arab.
No sooner had Maximin advanced about two miles from the Danube, than he began to experience the fastidious insolence of the conqueror. He was sternly forbid to pitch his tents in a pleasant valley, lest he should infringe the distant awe that was due to the royal mansion.
On his refusal to comply with such ignominious terms, the Imperial envoy was commanded instantly to depart; the order was recalled; it was again repeated; and the Huns renewed their ineffectual attempts to subdue the patient firmness of Maximin.
Far away a red point rose and fell in the darkness a watch-fire of the enemy upon the further shore. Outside his tent, beside some smouldering logs, Giant Maximin was seated, a dozen of his officers around him. He had changed much since the day when we first met him in the Valley of the Harpessus. His huge frame was as erect as ever, and there was no sign of diminution of his strength.
He represented to them that the choice of cautious, dilatory measures had been long since out of their power; that Maximin, implacable by nature, and exasperated by injuries, was advancing towards Italy, at the head of the military force of the empire; and that their only remaining alternative was either to meet him bravely in the field, or tamely to expect the tortures and ignominious death reserved for unsuccessful rebellion.
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