Chap. XXXII.

Maximin Daia was incensed at the nomination of Licinius to the dignity of emperor, and he would no longer be called Cæsar, or allow himself to be ranked as third in authority. Galerius, by repeated messages, besought Daia to yield, and to acquiesce in his arrangement, to give place to age, and to reverence the grey hairs of Licinius. But Daia became more and more insolent. He urged that, as it was he who first assumed the purple, so, by possession, he had right to priority in rank; and he set at nought the entreaties and the injunctions of Galerius. That brute animal was stung to the quick, and bellowed when the mean creature whom he had made Cæsar, in expectation of his thorough obsequiousness, forgot the great favour conferred on him, and impiously withstood the requests and will of his benefactor. Galerius at length, overcome by the obstinacy of Daia, abolished the subordinate title of Cæsar, gave to himself and Licinius that of the Augusti, and to Daia and Constantine that of sons of the Augusti. Daia, some time after, in a letter to Galerius, took occasion to observe, that at the last general muster he had been saluted by his army under the title of Augustus. Galerius, vexed and grieved at this, commanded that all the four should have the appellation of emperor.27    [One wonders that this history was not more efficacious in enforcing the hint on p. 12, at note 1, supra.]    

XXXII. 0244B Nuncupato igitur Licinio imperatore, Maximinus iratus, nec Caesarem se, nec tertio loco nominari volebat. 0245A Mittit ergo ad eum saepe legatos: orat sibi pareat, dispositionem suam servet, cedat aetati, et honorem deferat canis. At ille tollit audacius cornua, et praescriptione temporis pugnat se priorem esse debere, qui prior sumpserit purpuram; preces ejus et mandata contemnit. Dolet bestia, et mugit, quod cum ideo ignobilem fecisset Caesarem, ut sibi obsequens esset, is tamen tanti beneficii sui oblitus, voluntati ac precibus suis impie repugnaret. Victus contumacia, tollit Caesarum nomen, et se Liciniumque Augustos appellat, Maxentium et Constantinum filios Augustorum, Maximinus postmodum scribit, quasi nuntians in campo Martio proxime celebrato Augustum se ab exercitu nuncupatum. Recepit ille moestus ac dolens; et universos quatuor, imperatores jubet 0245B numerari.