LICINIUS (Valerius Licinianus Licinius), ROMAN EMPEROR. — Born ca. AD 250 in Dacia Ripensis, that is, in the region south of the Danube which Aurelian had chosen to name thus after being forced to abandon the true Dacia with its too insecure borders north of the great river. It is by no means improbable that his parents were farmers; at that time it was quite possible to rise very high from the lowest social strata; the usual path was through the military. L. was a soldier, and good fortune placed him near another rough man destined for the highest honors, Galerius, also from Dacia Ripensis and of modest origins (he was called Armentarius) and raised by Diocletian to the rank of Caesar. Shared life led to friendship; upon becoming Caesar, Galerius took his former comrade-in-arms with him. L. was usefully at his side during the difficult war against the Persians, which began badly but then turned so fortunate that it could be celebrated with Galerius’ triumphal arch in Thessalonica.
After the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian (305), Galerius became Augustus, and when the other Augustus, Constantius Chlorus, died shortly thereafter, he seems to have wished to elevate his old comrade-in-arms as his colleague. But this did not succeed at first, because the troops of Britain and Gaul wanted as emperor the son of their deceased Augustus: the young Constantine. This return to the tradition of dynastic succession, which violated the norms established by Diocletian for his tetrarchy, led to the other usurpation of Maxentius, son of Maximian, and to the resumption of the purple by the old Maximian, who had very reluctantly obeyed Diocletian’s order to abdicate. The tetrarchy had thus become a heptarchy, and it was necessary for Diocletian to consent to leave his retreat at Salona and preside over a meeting at Carnuntum intended to restore order to the troubled Empire. Diocletian still had enough energy and authority to force Maximian to abdicate and to proceed with the appointment of a new Augustus to replace Flavius Severus, who had meanwhile died. The two irregular rulers Constantine and Maxentius were not considered, and L. was appointed Augustus (11 Nov. 308). The solution, evidently championed by Galerius, violated the principles already established by Diocletian himself, because it disregarded the rights of the Caesar Maximinus Daia and proposed instead an “homo novus” like L. Moreover, when it came to implementing the decisions of the Carnuntum conference, L., who was supposed to take control of all the West, could do nothing against Maxentius and Constantine and had to content himself with exercising his authority in a very restricted area between the Alps and the Danube.
Some years later Galerius died (311), and Maximinus Daia, the Caesar of the easternmost provinces, considered the moment ripe to avenge the rebuff suffered at Carnuntum, and, proclaimed Augustus, rushed to take possession of Asia Minor, bringing his army to the Asian shores of the Bosporus. L. had to resign himself to recognizing his control over all the Asian provinces and Egypt, managing to keep for himself Thrace and the Balkan peninsula. Meanwhile Constantine, with the battle of Saxa Rubra, put an end to the Italo-African Empire of Maxentius (28 Oct. 312), and L., who had been able to be neither friend nor ally of Maxentius nor of Maximinus Daia, drew close to the victor, met with him in Milan, married his sister, and issued with him the Edict of Milan granting freedom to Christianity.
Returning to his part of the Empire, L. found that Maximinus Daia had crossed the Bosporus, occupied Byzantium and Heraclea. War could no longer be avoided, and indeed it was fought in Thrace at Campus Serenus with L.’s complete victory, followed by the precipitate flight of his rival to Tarsus in Cilicia and his subsequent death (313). L. was master of half the Empire, but precisely now he revealed his nature as a suspicious, impulsive, and cruel barbarian. He indeed had all those who might have laid claim to the throne sought out and killed, sparing not even the relatives of his benefactor Galerius. Moreover, even apart from the deficiencies of L.’s personality, it was difficult, even for intrinsic reasons of the differing interests of the two parts of the Empire, to maintain good accord between the two emperors who remained after the failure of Diocletian’s tetrarchic system. The divergences grew ever more serious from 314 onward and degenerated into open war, in which L. was defeated near Adrianople (323) and then at Chrysopolis (324), and through the intercession of his wife, Constantine’s sister, had his death sentence commuted to relegation to Thessalonica. But since he continued to weave intrigues, he was brought to trial before the Senate and condemned to death, which was carried out by the Goths during an attempted escape, or by order of Constantine, at Thessalonica (325).
The disagreement between the two emperors also manifested itself in their treatment of Christians: L. remained a pagan throughout, but he had been able to see the failure of Diocletian’s persecution and note the repentance of Galerius, who had been the fiercest of the persecutors, so that he was tolerant toward Christians and not only subscribed with Constantine to the so-called Edict of Milan but, when he went to war with Maximinus Daia, who had remained an obstinate persecutor, issued a decree that promised restitution of confiscated goods to Christian subjects, the rebuilding of churches, etc. (13 June 313). Things began to change when, with the rise of the preaching of Arius, L. showed himself favorable to it, placing himself in opposition to Catholic bishops who were exiled, imprisoned, and prevented from holding councils. And since Constantine increasingly openly protected Christians, L., in contrast, came to hate them and oppressed them in every way. Such was the man, far inferior to the high dignity to which only in those troubled times was it possible for him to rise.
The Heresy of Arius: J. Burckhardt, Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen, 5th ed., Berlin 1929; M. Besnier, L’Empire romain de l’avènement des Sévères au Concile de Nicée, Paris 1937; A. Solari, L’Innominato dell’Impero romano, I, L’unità di Roma (306-363), Milan 1938; R. Paribeni, Da Diocleziano alla caduta dell’Impero d’Occidente, Bologna 1942, pp. 69-79 and passim.