As Severus moved to his place behind Galerius, Carinus picked up the scroll and began to read from it again: “As Caesar of the East, it pleases us to appoint ”
When he paused once again for effect, shouts began to arise from the crowd and, startled, Carinus lost his place. While he fumbled for it, shouts of “Constantine! Constantine!” came from the crowd.
“Read on!” Galerius snapped angrily and the chamberlain, abandoning any attempt to find his place, announced: “As Caesar of the East, Maximin Daia.”
A roar of indignation came from the crowd, many of whom knew Daia as a lackey, and nephew, of Galerius. Daia himself ignored the shouting and, stepping from among the group of officers on the lower platform, moved up to a position before Diocletian, where the purple cloak of a Caesar was draped about his shoulders.
A blaze of indignation
There was an awkward moment, for the space on the dais was now filled, but Constantine did not give up the place that was rightfully his beside Diocletian. Galerius, however, solved the matter by casually throwing out his arm and pushing Constantine so strongly that he stumbled and was forced to step down to a lower level. A blaze of indignation at the deliberate affront made Constantine instinctively drop his hand to the sword at his side, but he conquered it immediately and drew his hand away. For an instant he felt the terrible loneliness of being shut out from everything toward which he had worked; then Diocletian stepped down to the lower level beside him and spoke almost in his ear.
“Let us go,” the old man said in a somewhat shaky voice and, without waiting for permission from the new Augustus, they marched down the knoll to where the golden chariot waited under the trees with the horses of the troops that would accompany Diocletian to Salonae tethered close by.
If Diocletian’s almost precipitate flight from Nicomedia following his abdication betrayed his distrust of his soninlaw, the character of the palace at Salonae was proof of it. Located with a lovely view of the Mare Adriaticum, the coast of which was studded with small islands in this region to form almost an enclosed lake, it was one of the most beautiful spots on the entire coast and also the greatest citadel.
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