with deep penitence, suffered martyrdom. The command to deliver up the sacred writings gave rise to a new order of apostates, the so-called _Traditores_. Many had recourse to a subterfuge by surrendering heretical writings instead of the sacred books and as such, but the earnest spirit of the age treated these as no better than _traditors_.[27] § 22.7. =Maximinus Daza, Maxentius and Licinius.=--After the death of Galerius his place was taken by the Dacian Licinius, who shared with Maximinus the government of the East, the former taking the European, the latter the Asiatic part along with Egypt. Constantius Chlorus had died in A.D. 306, and Galerius had given to the Cæsar Severus the empire of the West. But the army proclaimed Constantine, son of Constantius, as Emperor. He also established himself in Gaul, Spain and Britain. Then also Maxentius, son of the abdicated emperor Maximian, claimed the Western Empire, was proclaimed Augustus by the Prætorians, recognised by the Roman senate, and after the overthrow of Severus, ruled in Italy and Africa.--The pagan fanaticism of =Maximinus= prevailed against the toleration edict of Galerian. He heartily supported the attempted expulsion of Christians on the part of several prominent cities, and commended the measure on brazen tablets. He forbade the building of churches, punished many with fines and dishonour, inflicted in some cases bodily pains and even death, and gave official sanction to perpetrating upon them all sorts of scandalous enormities. The _Acta Pilati_, a pagan pseudepigraph filled with the grossest slanders about the passion of Christ, was widely circulated by him and introduced as a reading-book for the young in the public schools. =Constantine=, who had inherited from his father along with his Neo-platonic eclecticism his toleration of the Christians, secured to the professors of the Christian faith in his realm the most perfect quiet. =Maxentius=, too, at first let them alone; but the rivalry and enmity that was daily increasing between him and Constantine, the favourer of the Christians, drew him into close connection with the pagan party, and into sympathy with their persecuting spirit. In A.D. 312 Constantine led his army over the Alps. Maxentius opposed him with an army drawn up in three divisions; but Constantine pressed on victoriously, and shattered his opponent’s forces before the gates of Rome. Betaking himself to flight, Maxentius was drowned in the Tiber, and Constantine was then sole ruler over the entire Western Empire. At Milan he had a conference with Licinius, to whom he gave in marriage his sister Constantia. They jointly issued an edict in A.D. 313, which gave toleration to all forms of worship throughout the empire, expressly permitting conversion to Christianity, and ordering the restoration to the Christians of all the churches that had been taken from them.