t seem to have been an unwise thing,
since it led to civil wars and rivalries, and struggles for supremacy.
It is a mistake to divide a great empire, unless mechanism is worn out,
and a central power is impossible. The tendency of modern civilization
is to a union of States, when their language and interests and
institutions are identical. Yet Diocletian was wearied and oppressed by
the burdens of State, and retired disgusted, dividing the Empire into
two parts, the Eastern and Western. But there were subdivisions in
consequence, and civil wars; and had the policy of Diocletian been
continued, the Empire might have been subdivided, like Charlemagne's,
until central power would have been destroyed, as in the Middle Ages.
But Constantine aimed at a general union of the East and West once
again, partly from the desire of centralization, and partly from
ambition. The military career of Constantine for about seventeen years
was directed to the establishment of his power in Britain, to the
reunion of the Empire, and the subjugation of his colleagues,--a long
series of disastrous civil wars. These wars are without poetic
interest,--in this respect unlike the wars between Caesar and Pompey,
and that between Octavius and Antony. The wars of Caesar inaugurated the
imperial regime when the Empire was young and in full vigor, and when
military discipline was carried to perfection; those of Constantine
were in the latter days of the Empire, when it was impossible to
reanimate it, and all things were tending rapidly to dissolution,--an
exceedingly gloomy period, when there were neither statesmen nor
philosophers nor poets nor men of genius, of historic fame, outside the
Church. Therefore I shall not dwell on these uninteresting wars, brought
about by the ambition of six different emperors, all of whom were aiming
for undivided sovereignty. There were in the West Maximian, the old
colleague of Diocletian, who had resigned with him, but who had
reassumed the purple; his son, Maxentius, elevated by the Roman Senate
and the Praetorian Guard,--a dissolute and imbecile young man, who
reigned over Italy; and Constantine, who possessed Gaul and Britain. In
the East were Galerius, who had married the daughter of Diocletian, and
who was a general of considerable ability; Licinius, who had the
province of Illyricum; and Maximin, who reigned over Syria and Egypt.

The first of these emperors who was disposed of was Maximian, the father
of Maxent