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Chapter XXXIII.—Of the Adulterous Conduct of Maxentius at Rome. 3117

For he who had tyrannically possessed himself of the imperial city, 3118 had proceeded to great lengths in impiety and wickedness, so as to venture without hesitation on every vile and impure action.

For example: he would separate women from their husbands, and after a time send them back to them again, and these insults he offered not to men of mean or obscure condition, but to those who held the first places in the Roman senate. Moreover, though he shamefully dishonored almost numberless free women, he was unable to satisfy his ungoverned and intemperate desires. But 3119 when he assayed to corrupt Christian women also, he could no longer secure success to his designs, since they chose rather to submit their lives 3120 to death than yield their persons to be defiled by him.

Footnotes

Compare the Church History, 8. 14.

Maxentius, made emperor by an uprising of the Prætorian Guards in 306.

“For” seems to express the author’s real meaning, but both punctuation of editors and renderings of translators insist on “but.”

Various readings of text add “lawfully married” women, and send them back again “grievously dishonored,” and so Bag., but Heinichen has this reading. Compare note of Heinichen.