18 "With one shout and charge." This does not agree with the account of the final struggle by which Licinius came into Constantine's power, as generally given, and lends some probability to the view that after he had been captured he again revolted.
19 Like very many other things which Eusebius tells of Constantine, that which was entirely customary with other emperors as well as Constantine has the appearance of being peculiar to him. Victor is a common title of various emperors.
20 [In the gynaecia (gunaikeia), or places where women, and subsequently slaves of both sexes, were employed in spinning and weaving for the emperor. Vide infra, ch. 34.-Bag.] See note on ch. 34.
21 "The value of our narrative"is the rendering of Molzberger."The powerfulness of his language."-1709.
22 Compare Epitome in Sozomen, 1. 8.
23 There is a curious unanimity of effort on the part of theological amateurs, ancient and modern, to prove that those upon whom the tower in Siloam fell were guiltier than others. This was the spirit of Lactantius and it is not to be wondered at that Constantine should adopt such a peculiarly self-satisfying doctrine.
24 Compare Lactantius, On the deaths of the persecutors (De M. P.), and the Church History of Eusebius.
25 Literally "beneath the earth," referring of course to the Graeco-Roman conception of Hades.
26 ["I said, under the guidance," &c. It seems necessary to supply some expression of this kind, in order to preserve the sense, which is otherwise interrupted by the division (in this instance, at least, manifestly improper) into chapters.-Bag.]
27 Glossed by Molzberger as "political dishonor."
28 In the Greek houses there were separate suites for men and women. Compare article Domus, in Smith, Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Antig.
29 [That is, the free subject of inferior rank, accustomed to labor for his subsistence, but not to the degradation of slavery.]
30 [This seems to be the subscription or signature in the emperor's own handwriting, which is referred to at the end of ch. 23.-Bag.]
31 [That is, the proconsuls, the vicars (or vice-praefects), and counts, or provincial generals.-Bag.]
32 [The power of the four Praetorian Praefects in the time of Constantine is thus described by Gibbon: "1. The Praefect of the East stretched his ample jurisdiction into the three parts of the globe which were subject to the Romans, from the cataracts of the Nile to the banks of the Phasis, and from the mountains of Thrace to the frontiers of Persia. 2. The important provinces of Pannonia, Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece once acknowledged the authority of the Praefect of Illyricum. 3. The power of the Praefect of Italy was not confined to the country from whence he derived his title; it extended over the additional territory of Rhaetia as far as the banks of the Danube, over the dependent islands of the Mediterranean, and over that part of the continent of Africa which lies between the confines of Cyrene and those of Tingitania. 4. The Praefect of the Gauls comprehended under that plural denomination the kindred provinces of Britain and Spain, and his authority was obeyed from the wall of Antoninus to the fort of Mount Atlas."-Decline and Fall, chap. 17.- Bag.]