Galerius was appointed as the eastern deputy emperor in Tetrarchy (four-headed politics) started by Emperor Diocletian, who was the daughter of Diocletian and reigned as the emperor when the predecessor retired. ..
Deputy Emperor of Diocletian
Originally, Diocletian and Maximian were lined up in Diocletian, but it was still too widespread, so it was later moved to Diocletian. At that time, it was Galerius who was appointed as the deputy emperor in anticipation of military talent.
The origin of Galerius is also unknown, and it is known that he was born around what is now Bulgaria and was successful under Aurelian and Callus.
Having Valeria, the daughter of Diocletian, as his wife, he becomes a vice-emperor and is assigned to the Balkan Peninsula.
Immediately after that, he could change his place to the Middle East.
His main role was to win the fight against the Sassanid Empire, but in 296 AD he lost the fight against the Sassanid Empire and lost the Mesopotamian region.
Nevertheless, he succeeded in establishing a pro-Roman king in Armenia, won the battle with the Sassanid Empire, occupied his capital, Ctesiphon, and regained the Mesopotamia region.
Inauguration of the Emperor
When Diocletian and Maximian retired, Galerius became the Emperor with Constantius, and his confidant Valerius Severus and his nephew Maximian Dia were vice-emperors.
At this time, Maximian, the son of the emperor Maximian, opposes this, and along with the Roman Senate, he stands up for the emperor Maximian in the capital Rome.
Shortly before that, when another Emperor Constantine died, Galerius admitted this and made Constantine the Deputy Emperor, probably because his son Constantine arbitrarily nicknamed the emperor and decided that it was not a good idea to hostile. I will leave it to you.
The six emperors can no longer find a solution only by fighting each other, and enter an era in which they fight each other.
The first thing that happened was the battle between Maxentius &former emperor Maximianus and Galerius &Severus who was promoted to the emperor.
Even though he was old, his military talent was certain. Before Maximianus, the current Emperor Combi suffered a terrible defeat.
Severus was captured and sent to Rome to die.
Galerius instead inaugurated Licinius as the western emperor, but his original illness worsened and he died in 311 AD.
Personal evaluation of Galerius
Galerius's evaluation is very bad.
It is probably because he added a thorough crackdown on Christians under Emperor Diocletian. At that time, Rome was culturally more declining than during the republican era, and there were few attempts to keep records, and I think it is unavoidable because the remaining materials were left by Christians.
According to such records, Galerius was a racist who was cold-hearted to Roman citizens and favored humans in his hometown of the Balkans.
In fact, the Roman emperor at this time was consolidated from the Balkan Peninsula, and the tendency may have been more or less.
The birthplace of the Roman emperor was mostly Roman until the Five Good Emperors, then Spain, North Africa in the Severus dynasty, and the Balkan Peninsula from the end of the military emperor.
Galerius itself was not in a mismanagement.
The reason why he entered the civil war in the time of Galerius was that the system built during the time of Diocletian was unreasonable, and that his successor problem could not be fully solved. Will be required.
As a result, ambitious people such as Maxentius and Constantine emerged, and they died at the end of their illness.
In the history of the world, one regime has never been successful in divide and rule.
The Mongol Empire, which boasted a vast territory, was also subdivided and eventually disappeared. The fact that the four emperors rule the country and the dominated government, where the authority is concentrated on the emperors, were originally incompatible.
A tyranny can only be established if there is a powerful person with absolute charisma.
At the same time, Constantine, the enemy of Galerius, had that talent.
Galerius may be said to be a bridge from Diocletian to Constantine in a sense.