The Tetrarchy

Alright, folks (and by "folks" I'm addressing the 2 or 3 of you who are inexplicably into Roman History the way I'm inexplicably into Roman History and will actually read through this entire tedious blog post), this whole tetrarchy business gets a bit tricky, but I think I've mostly got it straightened out.  So, let's start with the cast of characters...

Diocletian 284-305

So, Diocletian.  We've already mentioned him a few times.  He was a man of dubious origin, he rose through the military ranks, he ran over Carinus and took over the Roman Empire, he breathed new life into the empire by breaking it up into a Tetrarchy, he eventually retired from being emperor and took up cabbage farming, etc, etc..

Maximian 286-310

We talked about Maximian before too, yes?  Like Diocletian, he was a career soldier from a humble background who proved himself in battle.  Maximian served with Diocletian under the emperors Aurelian and Probus.  When Diocletian decided to split the empire in two, he gave Maximian authority over the West.

Galerius 305-311

Galerius was a herdsman before he became a soldier.  When it came time to appoint junior emperors, Diocletian picked Galerius, going so far as to make the man his son-in-law by marrying him to his daughter (Galeria Valeria).  But there was this one time when Galerius made some poor judgement calls on a battlefield in Syria and, as punishment/humiliation, he was forced to walk in front of Diocletian's chariot for about a mile.

Oh, and Galerius hated Christians.  Some historians think he was the architect behind the great persecutions that took place under Diocletian.  It is thought that Galerius convinced Diocletian of the dangers of Christianity and its Christians.

Constantius I, AKA Constantius Chlorus (the pale) 305-306

Constantius Chlorus is mostly remembered as Constantine's Dad.  Constantine's mother, Helena, is thought to have been Constatius' concubine, but Constantius never treated the boy as anything less than a son.  When he was named Maximian's junior emperor in 293, he took over the responsibilities of managing Britannia, Spain, and Gaul.  Constantius Chlorus was an exceptional commander and his successes earned him the respect of his men, a respect that extended to his son.

Constantius was relatively tolerant of Christianity and tended to ignore the strictures of the anti-Christian edicts issued by Diocletian and Galerius.  Only a handful of churches were torn down in the west under Maximian and Constantius.    

Severus II 306-307

Severus II is yet another Humble Origins guy.  He was an old friend of Galerius and, when it came time to appoint a second set of junior emperors, Galerius convinced Diocletian to name Severus as Constantius' junior emperor in the west in spite of the fact that Constantine was the more obvious choice.  When Severus II is remembered at all, it is as the man who unsuccessfully attacked Maxentius in Rome in the year 307.  And speaking of Maxentius...

Maxentius 306-312

Maxentius was the dissatisfied son of Maximian.  Even though he was the son of the man in charge of the Western half of the Roman Empire, Maxentius never served in any political or military capacity.  Like Constantius' son Constantine, Maxentius felt entitled to an authoritative position and felt slighted when he was not chosen to serve as an emperor or a junior emperor.

Constantine 307-337

I have it in mind to dedicate an entire blog post to Constantine.  What a fascinating character.  For now, we'll just reiterate that he was the son of Constantius Chlorus.  Constantine served as an aide under Diocletian in the East and was allowed to join his father in Britannia around 305.

He was (kind of) a Christian.

Maximinus Daia 310-313

Maximinus Daia was a nephew of Galerius and, like Galerius, he was all about persecuting Christians.  In fact, he kept right on persecuting Christians even after Galerius (on his horrific death bed) passed the Edict of Toleration.  He served as Galerius' junior emperor in the east after the retirement of Diocletian.

Licinius 308-324

Last up is Licinius, the sometime ally and sometime rival of Constantine The Great.  He was born a Dacian peasant and when he had the opportunity to join the Roman military with his childhood friend Galerius he took it.  Licinius eventually achieved the rank of senior emperor in the west with Constantine, officially, as his junior emperor.  Constantine, of course, never accepted the diminutive designation of "junior".


Okay, most of that is probably correct.  Now that we've settled the Who, lets move on to the How and the What...

So, Diocletian decide to split the empire into two parts, East and West, between himself and his co-emperor Maximian...

Then they both adopted junior emperors (Diocletian chose Galerius and Maximian chose Constantius Chlorus) to help them rule their respective halves...

When Diocletian and Maximian (unprecedentedly!) retired from office in 305, their Junior Emperors were promoted to the roles of Senior Emperors and Galerius was able to get a couple of his guys (pal Severus II and nephew Maximinus Daia) installed as the new Junior Emperors...

...the problem was that Maximian and Constantius both had ambitious sons that weren't happy about being passed over in the Junior Emperor picking process...

When Constantius died of a disease (probably leukemia) in 306, his men were supposed to support Severus II, but, instead, they chose to rally around Constantine, naming him their emperor.  Galerius, embarrassed, tried to act like it was all just a matter of semantics and referred to Constantine as Junior Emperor of the West while endorsing Severus II's position as Senior Emperor of the West.

Meanwhile, Maximian's son Maxentius was stewing in Rome and decided that the time was right to declare himself Senior Emperor of the West.  The people in the city were mostly cool with the idea of an emperor Maxentius, so, at least within the walls of the city proper, he was the emperor.

Severus II, who had a large army backing him up, wasn't crazy about any of this, but he was angrier with Maxentius than he was with Constantine, so he gathered up his troops and headed for Rome.  Maxentius asked his father, Maximian, to come out of retirement and lend him some support.  Then the father and son duo sat inside the walls of Rome together and waited for Severus.  When Severus showed up, the Maxes bribed his troops out from under him and sent him scurrying off.  Severus II was soon after captured and executed.

Galerius also decided to try his luck against the Maxes and, like Severus II before him, was abandoned by his turncoat soldiers and similarly forced to flee.  But Galerius was better at fleeing than Severus II and survived to fight another day.  The Maxes were in good shape until the father, Maximian, attempted to usurp his son's position as emperor.  Maxentius rebuffed his treachery and Maximian fled to Constantine who, having married Maximian's daughter, was his son-in-law.

Galerius and Maximian convinced Diocletian to come out of retirement to act as an imperial arbiter and set things back in order.  Diocletian reluctantly agreed and decided that things would stand as seen in the following chart...

Maxentius still occupied the city of Rome but was not officially recognized as an emperor or a junior emperor.  Maximian found himself, once again, out of power altogether, but that didn't stop him from scheming in Constantine's court where he'd been staying as an adviser/guest since falling out with his son.  While Constantine was out of town battling some Franks, Maximian foolishly decided to tell everyone that Constantine was dead and that he, Maximiain, was now in charge.  When Constantine came back, Maximian fled to Mareseilles where he was cornered and committed suicide.

Around this time, Galerius succumbed to a particularly nasty strain of stomach cancer (bonus points if you look up Eusebius' description of the death of Galerius in his Ecclesiastical History and write it down in the comments section).  With Galerius out of the picture, our chart now looks like this...

 Naturally, Maximinus Daia and Licinius decided to fight it out to see who was really the Supreme Emperor of Rome, but before things could really get going they decided on a truce that left Maximinus Daia in charge of the East and Licinius in charge of the West.

Constantine, meanwhile, marched on Rome to end the reign of Maxentius, which he did at the famous Battle of the Milvan Bridge.

With Constantine having captured Rome, Licinius (who had attached himself to Constantine by marrying his sister Constantia) and Maximinus Daia resumed hostilities.  The two armies met outside of Hadrianopolis in Thrace.  Licinius was outnumbered 30,000 to 70,000, but he soundly defeated Maximinus Daia's army and sent Maximinus himself running away in terror, disguising himself as a slave.  Max fled all the way to Tarsus but was pursued by Licinius' men.  Desperate and with no way out, Maximinus Daia decided to kill himself, but the poison he took was weak and took four days to finish him off.

So here's where we are now...

And we'll leave things there for now.  Place your bets on whether or not Licinius and Constantine end up becoming best buds.

Cheers.