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De la mort des persécuteurs de l'église

XXV.

Peu de jours après, il envoya à Galérius son image couronnée de laurier. Galérius douta s'il devait la recevoir; et sans ses ministres qui le retinrent, il eût fait brûler et l'image et celui qui la lui avait apportée. Mais ils lui représentèrent que, comme l'on avait créé des Césars inconnus et désagréables aux soldats, assurément ils se rangeraient du parti de Constantin aussitôt qu’il prendrait les armes. Il déféra donc à leur avis, mais à regret, et reçut l'image. Ensuite, il envoya la pourpre à Constantin pour faire voir que de son bon gré il l'associait à l'empire. Cependant ce fâcheux événement rompit ses mesures. Il ne pouvait nommer un troisième César, contre la disposition de Dioclétien. Mais il s'avisa de cette subtilité : il accorda le nom d'Auguste à Sévère qui était le plus âgé, et celui de César à Constantin, qui, au lieu d'occuper le second rang, se trouva rejeté au quatrième et après Maximien.

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Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died

Chap. XXV.

Some few days after, the portrait of Constantine, adorned with laurels, was brought to the pernicious wild beast, that, by receiving that symbol, he might acknowledge Constantine in the quality of emperor. He hesitated long whether to receive it or not, and he was about to commit both the portrait and its bearer to the flames, but his confidants dissuaded him from a resolution so frantic. They admonished him of the danger, and they represented that, if Constantine came with an armed force, all the soldiers, against whose inclination obscure or unknown Caesars had been created, would acknowledge him, and crowd eagerly to his standard. So Galerius, although with the utmost unwillingness, accepted the portrait, and sent the imperial purple to Constantine, that he might seem of his own accord to have received that prince into partnership of power with him. And now his plans were deranged, and he could not, as he intended formerly, admit Licinius, without exceeding the limited number of emperors. But this he devised, that Severus, who was more advanced in life, should be named emperor, and that Constantine, instead of the title of emperor, to which he had been named, should receive that of Caesar in common with Maximin Daia, and so be degraded from the second place to the fourth.