Catholic tradition states that Erasmus of Formiae, also known as Saint Elmo, was finally executed by disembowelment in about A.D. 303, after he had suffered extreme forms of torture during the persecutions of Emperor Diocletian and Maximian.
The cognomen of this legion came from Herculius, the attribute of Maximian (Diocletian's colleague) meaning "similar to Hercules".
The cognomen of the legion refers to Hercules, to whom Diocletian's colleague, Maximian (also known as Herculius, "the man like Hercules"), was devoted and identified.
Saint Sebastian was appointed as a captain of the Praetorian Guard of Roman emperors Diocletian and Maximian and was martyred.
Maximian |
The text of this is extant, preserved in the Panegyrici Latini; it is there followed by two panegyrics from three quarters of a century earlier, addressed to the Emperor Maximian (the first delivered in 289 and the second in 290 or 291).
In 307, Constantine allied to the Italian Augusti, and this alliance was sealed with the marriage of Constantine to Fausta, daughter of Maximian and sister of Maxentius.
Eulalia of Mérida was a young Roman Christian martyred in Emerita, the capital of Lusitania (modern Mérida in Spain), conventionally during the persecution under Diocletian and Maximian.
In 305, Diocletian and Maximian abdicated, and the former caesares Constantius and Galerius became Augusti.
To a modern art historian Meyer Shapiro, "Maximian was "a poor deacon of Pola who to a high position through his political adroitness" as a protegé of Justinian II. He had not been wanted as archbishop by the people of Ravenna, but "by shrewd maneuvres he overcame their opposition, and won their respect by his discretion, generosity, and great enterprises of church building and decoration".
A third Iulianus is mentioned revolting between the time Maximian had been raised to the rank of Augustus (1 March 286) and the time Constantius Chlorus and Galerius became Caesar (March 1, 293).
The first was Maximian, dedicated to William Lock; the second was Theodora, dedicated by permission to Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire.
Tres Tabernae was the place where the former Emperor Flavius Valerius Severus was held prisoner by Maxentius and Maximian, before being killed (307).