The Tetrarchy was devised by Diocletian as a way to insure the smooth transfer of power when an Emperor died. Instead, it was a recipe for civil war. A nephew of Galerius, Maximinus became Caesar in 305 and Augustus six years later. He was a casualty of the Civil Wars of the Tetrarchy, when rival claimants sought to wipe each other out and consolidate power; he committed suicide after his defeat to Licinius I. A staunch pagan, he engaged on one of the last systematic persecutions of Christians.
The son of Arcadius, Theodosius the Calligrapher is famous for developing the Codex Theososianus, or the Theodosian law code, an important compilation of Roman law. He founded the University of...
Friend of the emperor Galerius, and like him of common birth, Severus II was Western Roman Emperor for a year before fleeing to Ravenna, where he was assassinated.
Magnentius was a military commander in Gaul who rebelled against the Roman emperor Constantius II, removing and killing his junior colleague Constans, in the west. He appears to have had widescale...
The son of the Eastern Roman Emperor Licinius I and Constantia, the half-sister of Western Emperor Constantine the Great, Licinius the Younger served as Caesar to his father s Augustus. As the nephew...
In 269, Postumus was murdered by his own troops, and the Gallic Empire, which depended on the force of his personality, began to crumble. Victorinus, who assumed control of the breakaway empire late...
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ngc-01__36103.1763377187.jpg?c=1 "Roman AE of Maximinus II (AD311-313) NGC")
ngc-01__01315.1763377868.jpg?c=1 "Roman AE of Maximinus II (AD311-313) NGC")
