§ 22.6. =Diocletian and Galerius.=--When =Diocletian= (A.D. 284-305) was proclaimed Emperor by the army in Chalcedon, he chose Nicomedia in Bithynia as his residence, and transferred the conduct of the war to the general Maximianus [Maximian] Herculius with the title of Cæsar, who, after the campaign had been closed successfully in A.D. 286, was raised to the rank of Augustus or joint-Emperor. New harassments from within and from without led the two Emperors in A.D. 286 to name two Cæsars, or sub-Emperors, who by their being adopted were assured of succession to imperial rank. Diocletian assumed the administration of the East, and gave up Illyricum as far as Pontus to his Cæsar and son-in-law Galerius. Maximian undertook the government of the West, and surrendered Gaul, Spain and Britain to his Cæsar, Constantius Chlorus. According to Martyrologies, there was a whole legion, called =Legio Thebaica=, that consisted of Christian soldiers. This legion was originally stationed in the East, but was sent into the war against the Gauls, because its members refused to take part in the persecution of their brethren. After suffering decimation twice over without any result, it is said that =Maximian= left this legion, consisting of 6,600 men, along with its commander St. Maurice, to be hewn down in the pass of Agaunum, now called St. Moritz, in the Canton Valais. According to Rettberg,[26] the historical germ of this consists in a tradition reported by Theodoret as originating during the fifth or sixth century, in a letter of Eucherius bishop of Lyons, about the martyrdom of St. Maurice, who as _Tribunus Militum_ was executed at Apamea along with seventy soldiers, by the orders of Maximian. =Diocletian=, as the elder and supreme Emperor, was an active, benevolent, clear-sighted statesman and ruler, but also a zealous adherent of the old religion as regenerated by Neo-platonic influences (§ 24, 2), and as such was inclined to hold Christianity responsible for many of the internal troubles of his kingdom. He was restrained from interfering with the Christians, however, by the policy of toleration which had prevailed since the time of Gallienus, as well as by his own benevolent disposition, and not least by the political consideration of the vast numbers of the Christian population. His own wife Prisca and his daughter Valeria had themselves embraced Christianity, as well as very many, and these the truest and most trustworthy, of the members of his household. Yet the incessant importunities and whispered suspicions of Galerius were not without success. In A.D. 298 he issued the decree, that all soldiers should take part in the sacrificial rites, and thus obliged all Christian soldiers to withdraw from the army. During a long sojourn in Nicomedia he finally prevailed upon the Emperor to order a second general persecution; yet even then Diocletian