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In the
year of our Lord 286, Diocletian, the thirty-third from Augustus, and chosen
emperor by the army, reigned twenty years, and created Maximian, surnamed
Herculius, his colleague in the empire. In their time, one Carausius, of
very mean birth, but a man of great ability and energy, being appointed to
guard the sea-coasts, then infested by the Franks and Saxons, acted more to the
prejudice than to the advantage of the commonwealth, by not restoring to its owners
any of the booty taken from the robbers, but keeping all to himself; thus
giving rise to the suspicion that by intentional neglect he suffered the enemy
to infest the frontiers. When, therefore, an order was sent by Maximian that he
should be put to death, he took upon him the imperial purple, and possessed
himself of Britain, and having most valiantly conquered and held it for the
space of seven years, he was at length put to death by the treachery of his
associate Allectus. The usurper, having thus got the island from
Carausius, held it three years, and was then vanquished by Asclepiodotus, the
captain of the Praetorian guards, who thus at the end of ten years restored
Britain to the Roman empire.
Meanwhile,
Diocletian in the east, and Maximian Herculius in the west, commanded the
churches to be destroyed, and the Christians to be persecuted and slain. This
persecution was the tenth since the reign of Nero, and was more lasting and
cruel than almost any before it; for it was carried on incessantly for the
space of ten years, with burning of churches, proscription of innocent persons,
and the slaughter of martyrs. Finally, Britain also attained to the great glory
of bearing faithful witness to God.
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