131 - The New Game in Town
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Hello and welcome to the History of Rome, episode 131, The New Game in Town. Last time, we left off with the Tetrarchy in general disarray. Maxentius had revolted, Severus was dead at the hands of Maximian, Galerius had been forced to slink out of Italy, and up in the north, Constantine was just sort of lurking ominously. The only members of the imperial brotherhood who remained untouched by the events of the last two years were the retired Diocletian, who is about to get dragged back into all this, and the eastern Caesar Maximinus Dia, who is himself about to become quite disgruntled.
At this point, it might not have been clear to all the players that the game had changed, but they were about to learn pretty quick that the Tetrarchy was no longer an end unto itself, it was now simply a means to an end. In other words, getting into the Tetrarchy was not important because it makes you part emperor, it was important because it was the only way to qualify for the championship round. And I think we all know that the prize for winning the championship round was sole control of the Roman Empire. So I hope everyone is ready to keep up with the rapid fire horse trading, alliance hopping, and double crossing that is about to go down in pursuit of the championship, because I can tell you one thing for sure, Constantine is.
You'll recall from last week that as Maxentius was preparing Italy for the imminent invasion of Galerius, he managed to secure an alliance with Constantine that would keep the newly minted Caesar out of the fighting. I mentioned that the key to this alliance was a marriage to Maxentius' sister Fausta, but I forgot to mention the other key part of the bargain. With Severus dead, the Western Augustus slot was open, and Constantine demanded that the ex-emperor Maximian use his prestige to unilaterally promote his soon-to-be son-in-law to the position. Maxentius and his father agreed to the terms, and in the summer of 307, probably not long after Galerius' withdrawal from Italy, though I'm not sure about that, a ceremony unfolded that saw Maximian hand Constantine first his daughter in marriage, and then the title Augustus.
Though Constantine's promotion was essentially self-proclaimed, there was no one around to stop him, and, unlike the last time this happened, when he ultimately accepted demotion to Caesar, this time around, and for the rest of his life, Constantine never would give up the title Augustus.
For the briefest of moments, even though the Western and Eastern halves of the empire were at each other's throats, on either side of the divide there was relative peace. But that too was about to fall apart. In the West, it seems that Maximian had, for a while now, been making the rather bold assumption that now that he was back, he was back, senior Augustus, superior in rank and prestige to Constantine and Maxentius the whole bit. But Maxentius, finally coming into his own, had no intention of ceding any real authority to his father. As far as Maxentius was concerned, Maximian was a relic, a useful relic, but a relic nonetheless.
Over the course of the winter of 307-308, Maxentius and his father Maximian resided together in Rome, and when they discovered the assumptions the other had been making, they began to feud immediately. Things came to a head in the spring, when Maximian got up in front of the troops, and publicly denounced his own son, going so far as to physically wrestle off Maxentius's purple cloak. But Maxentius had spread the wealth around generously, and the troops in Italy were his to a man now, and they did not take kindly to this old has-been manhandling their new, and did I mention generous, benefactor.
His denunciation backfiring completely, Maximian fled the city, and with nowhere else to go, headed for Nicomedia, where he hoped, get this, that Galerius would take him in. With his father out of the way, Maxentius probably hoped things would calm down a bit. But almost as soon as the old man was gone, word came up to Rome that Domitius Alexander, the vicar of Africa, had had himself proclaimed emperor by the troops at Carthage, a proclamation that had apparently been sparked after Maxentius demanded Alexander send a son to Rome to act as a hostage.
This was bad news for Maxentius, as North Africa was the source of Italy's grain supply. But for the moment, there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't turn away from the main game with Galerius just yet. But once he was legitimated within the Tetrarchy, which is something Maxentius no doubt expected straight away, he would deal with Alexander.
Back in Nicomedia, Galerius was still fuming over his forced retreat when Maximian suddenly appeared on his doorstep. It is kind of surprising that the Eastern Augustus did not just have the old man executed straight away for killing his Western counterpart, but Galerius checked his wrath, and instead granted Maximian asylum. At this point, it is likely that Galerius knew what he wanted his next move in the game to be, and realized that Maximian could be useful.
Because the next move Galerius wanted to make was convince Diocletian to come out of retirement and help him resettle the political order. Galerius may not have been able to impose his own will on his new colleagues, but he had always had a knack for getting his way with Diocletian. And Diocletian was the only man in the Empire who the other Tetrarchs would actually listen to. So get Diocletian to ratify Galerius' will, and voila, a new new order of things.
With Maximian in hand, Galerius could now build the meeting not as a desperate plea for Diocletian's gravitas, but instead, as a summit of the original Tetrarchs, minus the late Constantius of course, to reconsider the organization of the successor Tetrarchy, which was at present a bloody mess. Diocletian, three years into his retirement, finally agreed to the meeting, and in November 308, traveled from his palace in modern Croatia, to one of the military cities along the Danube, to meet with Galerius and Maximian.
When the three emperors were once again in the same room, Maximian wasted no time begging Diocletian to come out of retirement, so they could once again be the senior Augusti together. But Diocletian had no interest at all in returning to power, and allegedly told Maximian, that if his old friend were to come see the magnificent cabbages he was now growing, that he too would turn his back on the pursuit of worldly power.
It was agreed then, that Diocletian would stay retired, and that Maximian, look at me Maximian, you are going to stay retired too. No more hopping down drunkenly from the stands to steal the ball from the kids, you got it? Galerius had to breathe a sigh of relief at Diocletian's response, as Diocletian coming out of retirement was the one scenario that would muck up his plan, which could now proceed as follows. Galerius would stay Augustus of the East, with Maxiministia as his Caesar. Constantine would be demoted back down to Caesar, despite his self-proclaimed promotion to Augustus. Instead a newcomer, and of course old friend of Galerius's, Gaius Valerius Licinianus Licinius, would be vaulted directly into the role of Augustus of the West. Maxentius holding Rome, and Alexander holding Carthage, would both be declared illegal usurpers.
The bargain struck, and Diocletian returned to his happy retirement, Maximian to his unhappy retirement, and Galerius to his role as senior Augustus of a newly minted Tetrarchy. Himself, Licinius, Maxiministia, and Constantine. It had Diocletian's seal of approval. What could possibly go wrong?
To say that this was a pretty crappy reorganization of the Tetrarchy is a bit of an understatement. As soon as the other principals were informed of the little committee's decision, there were at least three men, wielding large armies, who were instantly ticked off. Maxentius because he had been snubbed yet again, Constantine because they were trying to bust him back to Caesar, and Maxiministia because he was still just a Caesar, while Licinius, the noob of the bunch, suddenly outranked him. How Galerius, who was clearly the driving force behind this realignment, thought that this quote-unquote compromise was going to work is a mystery to everyone. But there it was.
Before I move on, I should probably do the thing where I give you a little thumbnail sketch of Licinius' pre-imperial life, especially since the newest member of the Tetrarchy will also prove to be one of its longest serving members, and in the end, the final final match of the championship round will be fought between him and Constantine.
The new Augustus, like every other emperor of his age, was born to peasant-stock, Dacian peasant-stock to be exact, in the mid-260s AD, and he was raised in the rough border province of Moesia. Being about the same age and being from about the same place, Licinius and Galerius had apparently hooked up with each other at a young age and become fast friends. When Galerius' imperial star rose, Licinius rose with him, and he served alongside his old friend during the wars in Persia in the late 290s AD. After that, he appears to have served on Galerius' staff as a highly trusted advisor. So trusted that it was Licinius who was left in charge of the Danube frontier when Galerius left for Italy to confront Maxentius. And then so trusted, that when a new Augustus needed to be appointed, Galerius pushed for his old friend Licinius.
When Diocletian for whatever reason gave his blessing, Licinius was elevated to the purple in 308, and despite the fact that his presence in the imperial college was annoying as all get-out to everyone but Galerius, he managed to deftly maneuver around the myriad political landmines of the early 4th century, and he hung around for a surprising 16 years before finally being blown up by Constantine in 324 AD.
As I just hinted though, the settlement hashed out between Galerius Diocletian and Maximian ultimately created more problems than it solved. Maximinus Dio had so far been the most stable part of the Tetrarchy, but now he became embittered at having been passed over for promotion. Out in the west, Constantine simply ignored his demotion back to Caesar, and instead went right on calling himself Augustus. Something that caused acute embarrassment to the rest of the Tetrarchy, as there was really very little they could do to stop Constantine from calling himself whatever he wanted.
Realizing that he had miscalculated a bit, Galerius attempted to soothe both of their egos by giving the two Caesars the further title, Sons of Augustus, but the transparent sop was seen for what it was by both. In the east, the unmollified Maximinus Dio would choose to follow Constantine's lead instead, and began to simply assert his own promotion to Augustus by 310 AD. And in the west, well, Constantine never stopped calling himself Augustus, even for a minute.
The wild card following the settlement of 308 was Maxentius, still in control of Italy and still lacking any sort of legitimacy. Licinius' first mission on behalf of the Tetrarchy was supposed to have been bring Italy and Africa back into their hands, but as Severus and Galerius had demonstrated, that was easier said than done, and the new western Augustus never would initiate a concentrated effort to oust Maxentius from Rome. That effort, as we will see next week, will be undertaken instead by Constantine, leading to one of the most famous and most important battles in the whole long history of the world, the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.
The other wild card in all this, the really, really wild card at this point, was Maximian. Pushed back into retirement, despised by Galerius and Maximinus Dio, and obviously on the outs with his own son, the only imperial court that would accept the old man was his new son-in-law Constantine's, settled at that point in Britain. At first, Constantine was only too happy to secure for himself the further prestige of having the old Augustus around, but it did not take long for Maximian to chafe under the weight of his own impotence and cause trouble. Trouble that will lead the once noble Maximian to a most ignoble end.
Things were pretty quiet for the first year or so, as Constantine continued to tour his provinces and campaign periodically against the Germans. But in 310, as Constantine began a more strenuous little war against the Franks, Maximian seized what he thought looked a lot like an opportunity, though it would turn out to be nothing of the kind. Constantine had dispatched his father-in-law to southern Gaul with a contingent of troops to keep an eye on the Alpine passes and make sure Maxentius stayed in Italy while Constantine fought the Franks. But instead of remaining on guard duty, Maximian decided, sort of out of the blue, hey, I think I want to be the senior western emperor again. So he spread the word that Constantine had died in battle, and further declared that he was an Augustus again.
But the world had already moved on. In a replay of his confrontation with Maxentius two years earlier, Maximian discovered that whatever his past exploits, a new generation of emperors now commanded the loyalty of the troops. The soldiers under his command balked at following Maximian, and instead decided to wait for independent confirmation that Constantine really was dead. When it became obvious that Constantine was really not dead, and that having heard of Maximian's little ruse, he was now marching south with all deliberate speed, Maximian attempted to bribe the troops into following him, but they weren't having it. To follow Maximian would be to die with Maximian. Of that they had no doubt.
So Maximian headed to Marseilles, which was both defensible and housed some troops who still remembered their old commander fondly. But these men were by far a minority in the city. Maximian had been more or less in charge of Britain and Gaul for the last four years, and in that time he had made a hugely positive impact on everyone, soldier and civilian alike. He was attentive to the needs of the citizens, undertook rebuilding projects after years of neglect, promoted the arts, and was generally seen as productive, responsive, and wise beyond his years. There was no way anyone was going to abandon him for the old man Maximian. So I'm not sure how many hours passed from the time Constantine showed up at Marseilles to the time that the back door was opened for him by a loyal subject inside the city, but it seems like it was probably somewhere in the single digits.
Maximian was tracked down and captured, and then hauled before an extremely irate Constantine. Constantine explained to Maximian that out of filial duty he was not just going to kill his father-in-law, as he would any other rebel, but if Maximian were to, say, take this opportunity to save everyone future headaches by, you know, doing the right thing, that Constantine would not at all be adverse to that. At some point in July of 310, Maximian did the right thing, and hanged himself. He was about sixty years old, and not so very long ago, had been a successful emperor for twenty years, but now, rather than dying a hero to the empire, he died instead a broken disgrace. It was a sad end.
Sure, without Diocletian, Maximian was a complete disaster, but up until the very end he did have Diocletian, and so for most of his life he was not a complete disaster. And though he died a hated man, he would sort of get the last laugh genetically, as it would be his grandsons, and his great-grandsons, who would eventually come to rule the empire following the reign of Constantine.
The most immediate impact of Maximian's death was that it drove a wedge between Maxentius and Constantine. Up until now, the two had coexisted more or less peacefully, and the shared link of Fausta, Maxentius's sister and Constantine's wife, helped secure the peace. But after Maximian's death, things began to get ugly.
We have no way of knowing whether the story is true, but not long after Maximian hanged himself, Constantine began passing it around that his father-in-law's suicide had nothing to do with the little rebellion Maximian had cooked up, and instead had everything to do with Maximian plotting to kill Constantine despite having been so generously allowed to live. The key plot twist of this story was that Maximian had taken Fausta into his confidence, and that she had decided to betray her father to her husband, which cannot have gone over too well with her brother, even if he and his father were estranged.
Constantine then went further, and announced that Maximian's memory was henceforth damned. Throughout his provinces, provinces that had once been Maximian's, Constantine tore down statues and defaced monuments, crossing out any reference to or mention of the old Augustus. It appears that this was then picked up by the eastern Tetrarchs, neither of whom liked Maximian one bit. This shabby treatment of his father's memory angered Maxentius, and he began styling himself now as the dutiful son, despite the fact that he and his father had no longer even been on speaking terms. And he was thus able to add defense of father's honor to his list of reasons for continuing to stand against the Tetrarchy.
But before he could exact his revenge on the Tetrarchs, who just kept poking him in the eye every chance they got, Maxentius needed to clean up his own backyard. And so, in either 310 or 311, he ordered his Praetorian prefect to lead an invasion of North Africa, crush Domitius Alexander, and unclench the usurper's stranglehold on the grain supply. A stranglehold that was undermining Maxentius' popularity in Rome. Further heightening Maxentius' sense of urgency was the rumor going around that Constantine had entered into talks with Alexander to discuss what kind of pincer move they might be able to jointly put on Italy.
Whether that rumor is true or not soon became irrelevant though, as Maxentius' prefect arrived in Carthage, steamrolled the lesser African troops, and then captured Alexander and had him put to death. With Africa back under his control, Maxentius felt that he was now fully prepared to meet whatever the Tetrarchy had to throw at him. But before anyone had a chance to do anything, the political apple cart was once again overturned.
In mid-311, after having spent the last few years peacefully resigned to the fact that he was never going to be the great puppet-master that Diocletian had been, Galerius got sick. Really sick. And if you believe Eusebius, the Christian writer, who took particular joy in the suffering of the great persecutor, really, really sick. Like, no matter how many baths he took, the stench of Galerius' rotting insides could be smelled throughout the city sick.
As I mentioned a few episodes back, when Galerius sensed that the end was near, he decreed an end to the great persecution, admitting that for all the violent coercion of the past decade, the Christians remained as obstinate as ever. In essence, the persecution has failed spectacularly, and it is time to admit defeat. But Galerius would fail even in his attempt to end the persecution in the East. After all, that was the only place it was really still going on anymore. And once he was dead, Maximinus Dia, who was not at all ready to admit defeat, revived it and set it back on its murderous path. But that was all someone else's problem now.
In May of 311, whatever was killing Galerius, gangrene, bowel cancer, whatever, finally killed him. He was about 51 years old, and had helped rule the empire, first as a Caesar, then as an Augustus, then as the senior Augustus, for about 18 years. I think at the end of the day, we have to see Galerius mostly as a failure. He was a good lieutenant, and his triumph over the Sassanids should never be discounted. But once he wielded power in his own right, his legacy boils down to the Great Persecution, a failed policy that did a lot of damage for no measurable return, and a series of attempts to manipulate the Tetrarchy to his advantage, all of which blew up in his and the empire's face. He wasn't the worst emperor of all time, but I think you can lay the blame for a pretty good chunk of the chaos and bloodshed of the early 4th century at his doorstep. Maybe everything was destined to fall apart, but the way Galerius arranged for it to play out all but guaranteed it.
Next week, the real unraveling will begin. The four main powers left, Maximinus Dia, Constantine, Maxentius, and Licinius, will pair up to face off against the other two, Constantine with Licinius and Maximinus Dia with Maxentius. After Constantine and Licinius successfully beat down Maxentius and Maximinus, they will for a time peacefully coexist, ruling over west and east respectively, until Constantine will finally decide in 324 AD that his destiny has been put off long enough.