A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

LICINIUS.- LICINIUS. 783'
doubtful, but as the tyrant was anxious to signalize years'before. - Meanwhile, Maximinus, taking adhis reign by the punishment of a vestal, Licinianus vantage of the absence of his neighbour, who was
confessed that he was guilty, in order to save him- enjoying the splendours of the nuptial festivities
self from certain death. In reward for this com- at Milan, placed himself at the head of a forplaisance, he was simply banished, and Nerva sub- midable army, and'setting forth in the dead of
sequently allowed him to reside in Sicily as the winter succeeded, notwithstanding the obstacles'
place of his banishment. Here he supported him- offered to his progress by the season, in passing theself by teaching rhetoric, having been previously straits, stormed Byzantium in April, and soon after
one of the most eloquent pleaders in the courts at captured Heracleia also. But scarcely had he gained
Rome. (Plin. Ep. iv. 11; Suet. Dom. 8.) possession of the last-named city when Licinius,
L1CI'NIUS. 1. C.: LICINIUS, was, according who had hurried from Italy upon receiving intellito Livy (ii. 33), one of the first tribunes of the gence of this treacherous invasion, appeared at the
plebs, B. c. 493, who was elected with only one head of a small but resolute and well-disciplined
colleague, L. Albinius, and according to the same force to resist his further progress. The battle
writer, these two immediately elected three others. which ensued was obstinately contested, and the
According to other writers the number of two re- result was long doubtful, but the bravery of the
mained unchanged for a time; and, according to troops from the Danube, and the great military
others again, among whom is Dionysius (vi. 89), five- talents of their leader, at length prevailed. Maxi-.
were originally elected by the people, and of them, minus fled in headlong haste, and died a few
two were Licinii, namely Caius and Publius. (Comp. months afterwards at Tarsus, thus leaving his enemy
Liv. ii. 58; Ascon. in Cic. Cornel. p. 76, with undisputed master of one half of the Roman empire,
Orelli's note; Plut. Coriol. 7.) while the remainder was under'the sway of his
2. Sp. LIINIUS, tribune of the plebs, B. c. 481, brother-in-law Constantine. It was little likely
according to Livy (ii. 43). Dionysius (ix. 1) gives that two such spirits could long be firmly united
the name Sp. Icilius [ICILlus, No. 1]; and in by such a tie, or that either would calmly brook
favour of the latter there is the fact, that in'no the existence of an equal. Accordingly, scarce a
other instance do we find the praenomen Spurius in'year elapsed before preparations commenced for the
the Licinia gens. grand contest, whose object was to unite once more
3. SEX. LICINIUS, a senator, whom Marius or- the whole civilised world under a single ruler. The
dered to be hurled down the Tarpeian rock, on the leading events are detailed elsewhere LCONSTANTI]st of January, B. c. 86, the day on which he NUS, p. 834], and therefore it will suffice briefly
entered upon his seventh consulship. (Liv. Epit. to state here that there were two distinct wars; in
80; Plut. Mar. 45; Dion Cass. F2raqm. 120.) the first, which broke out A. D. 315, Licinius was'
4. The name of three or four slaves or freed- compelled by the decisive defeats sustained at
men, mentioned by Cicero, of whom the only one Cibalis in Pannonia, and in the plain of Mardia in
deserving of notice is the LICINIUS, an educated Thrace, to submit and to cede to the victor Greece,.
slave belonging to C. Gracchus, who used, accord- Macedonia, and the whole lower valley of the
ing to the well-known story, to stand behind his Danube, with the exception of a part of Moesia. The
master with a musical instrument, when he was peace which followed lasted for about eight years,
speaking, in order to moderate his tone.. This when hostilities were renewed, but the precise cir-.
slave became afterwards a client of Catulus. (Plut. cumstances which led to this fresh collision are as
Tib. Gracch. 2; Cic. de Or. iii. 60; Gell. i. 11.) obscure as thecauses which produced the first rupture.
LICI'NIUS, Roman emperor (A. D. 307-324), The great battle of Hadrianople (3rd July, A. D.
whose full name was PUBLIUS FLAVIUS GALERIus 323) followed by the reduction of Byzantium, and
VALERIUS LIcINIANUS LICINIUS, was by birth a a second great victory achieved -near Chalcedon
humble Dacian peasant, the early friend and com- (18th September), placed the eastern Augustus abpanion in arms of the emperor Galerius, by whom, solutely at the mercy of his kinsman, who, although
with the consent of Maximianus Herculius and he spared his life for the moment, and -merely senDiocletian, after the death of Severus [SEVERUS, tenced him to an honourable imprisonment at
FLAVIUS VALERIUS] and the disastrous issue of Thessalonica, soon found a convenient'pretext for
the Italian campaign [MAXENTIUS], he was raised commanding the death of one who had long been
at once to the rank of Augustus without passing the sole impediment in his path to universal dothrough the inferior grade of Caesar, and was in- minion.
vested with the command of the Illyrian provinces However little we may respect the motives, and
at Carmentum, on the 11th of November, A. D. however deeply we may feel disgusted'by the sys307. Upon the death of his patron, in 311, he tematic hypocrisy of Constantine, we can feel no
concluded a peaceful arrangement with Daza compassion for Licinius. His'origin, education,
[MAXIM1NUS II.], in terms of which he acknow- and early habits might very naturally inspire him
ledged the latter as sovereign of Asia, Syria, and with a distaste for literature, although they could
Egypt, while he added Greece, Macedonia, and scarcely justify or excuse' the rancour which -he
Thrace to his own former dominions, the Helles- ever manifested towards all who were in any way
pont, with the Bosporus, forming the common distinguished by intellectual acquirements, and a
boundary of the two empires. Feeling, however, life passed amidst a succession of scenes in which
the necessity of strengthening himself against a human nature was exhibited under its worst asrival at once ambitious, unscrupulous, and power- pect, was by no means calculated to cherish any of
ful, he entered into a league with Constantine, and the purer or softer feelings of the heart. But while
after the termination of the struggle with Maxen- he had all and more than all the vices which - such
tius, during which he-had acted the part of a watch- a'career might produce, he had none of the frank
fill spectator rather than of a sincere ally, received generosity of a bold soldier of fortune. I-e was
in marriage (A. D. 313) Constantia, the sister of not only totally'indifferent to human life and sufferthe conqueror, to whom he had been betrothed two ing, and regardless of any principle of law or jus