ity to
plunder, and even to massacre, the defenceless people; [46] and indulging
them in the same licentiousness which their emperor enjoyed, Maxentius
often bestowed on his military favorites the splendid villa, or the
beautiful wife, of a senator. A prince of such a character, alike
incapable of governing, either in peace or in war, might purchase the
support, but he could never obtain the esteem, of the army. Yet his
pride was equal to his other vices. Whilst he passed his indolent life
either within the walls of his palace, or in the neighboring gardens of
Sallust, he was repeatedly heard to declare, that he alone was emperor,
and that the other princes were no more than his lieutenants, on whom he
had devolved the defence of the frontier provinces, that he might enjoy
without interruption the elegant luxury of the capital. Rome, which had
so long regretted the absence, lamented, during the six years of his
reign, the presence of her sovereign. [47]

[Footnote 42: Julian excludes Maxentius from the banquet of the Caesars
with abhorrence and contempt; and Zosimus (l. ii. p. 85) accuses him of
every kind of cruelty and profligacy.]

[Footnote 43: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 83--85. Aurelius Victor.]

[Footnote 44: The passage of Aurelius Victor should be read in the
following manner: Primus instituto pessimo, munerum specie, Patres
Oratores que pecuniam conferre prodigenti sibi cogeret.]

[Footnote 45: Panegyr. Vet. ix. 3. Euseb. Hist Eccles. viii. 14, et in
Vit. Constant i. 33, 34. Rufinus, c. 17. The virtuous matron who stabbed
herself to escape the violence of Maxentius, was a Christian, wife to
the praefect of the city, and her name was Sophronia. It still remains
a question among the casuists, whether, on such occasions, suicide is
justifiable.]

[Footnote 46: Praetorianis caedem vulgi quondam annueret, is the vague
expression of Aurelius Victor. See more particular, though somewhat
different, accounts of a tumult and massacre which happened at Rome, in
Eusebius, (l. viii. c. 14,) and in Zosimus, (l. ii. p. 84.)]

[Footnote 47: See, in the Panegyrics, (ix. 14,) a lively description of
the indolence and vain pride of Maxentius. In another place the orator
observes that the riches which Rome had accumulated in a period of 1060
years, were lavished by the tyrant on his mercenary bands; redemptis ad
civile latrocinium manibus in gesserat.]

Though Constantine might view the conduct of Maxentius with abhorrence,
and th