Usurpers, oppressors and persecutors: Discrediting Constantine’s imperial rivals
History has not been kind to Maxentius, Licinius and Maximinus Daia, Constantine’s rivals for imperial power. In most surviving sources, they appear as usurpers, oppressors and/or persecutors of Christians. During the tumultuous period that saw the disintegration of the tetrarchy, Constantine successfully challenged their right to rule, ultimately claiming imperial power exclusively for himself and his descendants. However, at the outset of his reign, it was far from clear that his claim to the purple was superior to those of his (later) rivals. When troops in York proclaimed him AUgUstUs in 306 CE, they upset the Tetrarchic succession scheme envisioned by Diocletian. In the following years, Constantine’s shifting allegiances and various, partially contradictory justifications of his position attest to the slippery nature of imperial legitimacy in the post-Diocletianic era. This paper examines by what arguments pro-Constantinian sources such as Lactantius, Eusebius and the Panegyrici Latini discredited Maxentius, Licinius and Maximinus as illegitimate, unworthy emperors, and how that reflects on Constantine’s own claims to imperial power.
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