Dr. David Gwynn
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
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He's another successful soldier.
And Galerius, the fourth member of the Tetrarchy who's going to work with Diocletian.
Because the idea of the Tetrarchy is not four equals.
Sharing power with one other person who has the same high title of Augustus, that was traditional.
To have four Augusti...
There would not be a precedent for that.
It would also be very unstable.
So the tetrarchy is not for equal people.
Instead, these next two, Constantius and Galerius, are given the title Caesar.
As so often, the titles, of course, go back to Julius Caesar and Augustus.
But the Augustus is the senior,
The Caesar is the junior.
Constantius goes westward.
So Constantius will be the Caesar to Maximian as the Augustus.
Galerius stays in the east.
He's Diocletian's Caesar.
And then it's a case of where do you send them?
So step one, Maximian, interestingly, pulls back towards northern Italy.
from which he can watch the Rhine and the upper levels of the Danube, Constantius' job is Britain.