walls he has determined to level with the ground, our hands are ready to work the engines: nor shall we hesitate, should the name of the devoted city be Rome itself." These are indeed the expressions of a poet; but of a poet who has been distinguished, and even censured, for his strict adherence to the truth of history.[1]
His retreatThe legions of Galerius exhibited a very melancholy proof of their disposition by the ravages which they committed in their retreat. They murdered, they ravished, they plundered, they drove away the flocks and herds of the Italians; they burnt the villages through which they passed, and they endeavoured to destroy the country, which it had not been in their power to subdue. During the whole march Maxentius hung on their rear; but he very prudently declined a general engagement with those brave and desperate veterans. His father had undertaken a second journey into Gaul, with the hope of persuading Constantine, who had assembled an army on the frontier, to join the pursuit and to complete the victory. But the actions of Constantine were guided by reason, and not by resentment. He persisted in the wise resolution of maintaining a balance of power in the divided empire, and he no longer hated Galerius when that aspiring prince had ceased to be an object of terror.[2]
Elevation of Licinius to the rank of Augustus, A.D. 307, Nov. 11The mind of Galerius was the most susceptible of the sterner passions, but it was not however incapable of a sincere and lasting friendship. Licinius,[3] whose manners as well as character were not unlike his own, seems to have engaged both his affection and esteem. Their intimacy had commenced in the happier period, perhaps, of their youth and obscurity. It had been cemented by the freedom and dangers of a military life; they had advanced, almost by equal steps, through the successive honours of the service; and, as soon as Galerius was invested with the Imperial dignity, he seems to have conceived the design of raising his companion to the same rank with himself. During the short period of his prosperity, he considered the rank of- ↑
- Castra super Tusci si ponere Tybridis undas (jubeas),
- Hesperios audax veniam metator in agros.
- Tu quoscunque voles in planum effundere muros,
- His aries actus disperget saxa lacertis;
- Illa licet penitus tolli quam jusseris urbem
- Roma sit. Lucan. Pharsal. i. 381.
- ↑ Lactantius de M. P. c. 27. Zosim. l. ii. p. 82 [10]. The latter insinuates that Constantine, in his interview with Maximian, had promised to declare war against Galerius.
- ↑ [Valerius Licinianus Licinius.]
