ros. 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.]

The 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 endeavored 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 in 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. [28]

[Footnote 28: Lactantius de M. P. c. 27. Zosim. l. ii. p. 82. The
latter, that Constantine, in his interview with Maximian, had promised
to declare war against Galerius.]

The mind of Galerius was the most susceptible of the sterner passions,
but it was not, however, incapable of a sincere and lasting friendship.
Licinius, 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 honors 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 Caesar as unworthy of the age and merit of
Licinius, and rather chose to reserve for him the place of Constantius,
and the empire of the West. While the emperor was employed in the
Italian war, he intrusted his friend with the defence of the Danube;
and immediately after his return from that unfortunate expedition, he
invested Licinius with the vacant purple of Severus, resigning to
his