Maxentius Valerius

283 – 312 · Generation XVI · Emperor in Rome (r. AD 306–312)

Maxentius (AD 283 – AD 312). Emperor in Rome (r. AD 306–312). Held Rome for six years; drowned in the Tiber as Constantine’s army crossed the Milvian Bridge. A son of an emperor yet passed over in the Tetrarchic succession, he was acclaimed by officers of the city garrison when Rome rioted over threatened taxation and the dissolution of the Praetorian Guard. He kept the throne the way he had won it: the armies Severus and then Galerius led against him melted away, bought with promises of money and the authority of his father Maximian. Never recognized by his fellow emperors, he ruled Italy and Africa as the last emperor to reside permanently in Rome, and built accordingly — the great Basilica of Maxentius that Constantine would finish, the Temple of the Divine Romulus for his deified young son, a villa and circus on the Via Appia. When Africa seceded under Domitius Alexander, he crushed the revolt and shipped its grain home to feed the city.

Parents

Maximian Herculius (250 – 310)
Eutropia of Syria (250 – 325)

Siblings

Fausta Flavia Maxima (289 – 326)