immediate command the provinces of Illyricum. [29] The news of
his promotion was no sooner carried into the East, than Maximin,
who governed, or rather oppressed, the countries of Egypt and Syria,
betrayed his envy and discontent, disdained the inferior name of Caesar,
and, notwithstanding the prayers as well as arguments of Galerius,
exacted, almost by violence, the equal title of Augustus. [30] For the
first, and indeed for the last time, the Roman world was administered
by six emperors. In the West, Constantine and Maxentius affected to
reverence their father Maximian. In the East, Licinius and Maximin
honored with more real consideration their benefactor Galerius. The
opposition of interest, and the memory of a recent war, divided the
empire into two great hostile powers; but their mutual fears produced an
apparent tranquillity, and even a feigned reconciliation, till the death
of the elder princes, of Maximian, and more particularly of Galerius,
gave a new direction to the views and passions of their surviving
associates.

[Footnote 29: M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv.
part i. p. 559) has proved that Licinius, without passing through
the intermediate rank of Caesar, was declared Augustus, the 11th of
November, A. D. 307, after the return of Galerius from Italy.]

[Footnote 30: Lactantius de M. P. c. 32. When Galerius declared Licinius
Augustus with himself, he tried to satisfy his younger associates, by
inventing for Constantine and Maximin (not Maxentius; see Baluze, p. 81)
the new title of sons of the Augusti. But when Maximin acquainted him
that he had been saluted Augustus by the army, Galerius was obliged
to acknowledge him as well as Constantine, as equal associates in the
Imperial dignity.]

When Maximian had reluctantly abdicated the empire, the venal orators of
the times applauded his philosophic moderation. When his ambition
excited, or at least encouraged, a civil war, they returned thanks to
his generous patriotism, and gently censured that love of ease and
retirement which had withdrawn him from the public service. [31] But it
was impossible that minds like those of Maximian and his son could long
possess in harmony an undivided power. Maxentius considered himself as
the legal sovereign of Italy, elected by the Roman senate and people;
nor would he endure the control of his father, who arrogantly declared
that by his name and abilities the rash youth had been established on
the throne.