Among all Roman emperors, the tales of Maxentius have most convoluted accounts.

Everything began years back before the Diocletian introduced the Tetrarchy scheme. So in collaboration with Maximian, they both a joint ruling alliance, and each of them was controlling half the empire.

Caesar was named as right hand by both of them, and this meant that Caesar would also be the successor after the emperor had died.

The father of Maxentius was Maximian, and in every other time, he would be the successor to Maximian. However, according to the new ruling format, there wasn’t a place for him.

Maximian was abdicated and forced by the Diocletian, and was asked to do as said, where Maxentius lost all his hopes. He was aware that if he don’t take any action, he will be sidelined and thrown out  of the race completely.

He took the benefit of growing dissatisfaction in Rome and particularly the whole Italy, by forcing Galerius to revoke the status for zero tax. Thus, an empathetic army was gathered by Maxentius, and he declared him as Caesar.

The title of Augustus was avoided by him, since he wanted to clear Constantine and Constantius Chlorus, that his revolts were only against Galerius.

Meanwhile, when Constantine was announced as the emperor and as he failed to warm up Maxentius, he decided to revolt against both and proclaimed himself as the new emperor.

In order to make him look more legitimate in front of the Romans, his father was convinced by him to take his retirement back and start a joint rule alongside him.

For Galerius, it would be difficult to defeat these forces, and therefore he retreated back to the eastern side without the result of the battle. The attention got diverted towards Constantine, but their luck got turned here.

A poor judgment came up from Maximian, as he decided to go lonely and totally distanced himself from Maxentius, just to become cannon fodder for Constantine.

The African quarters then bought a revolt against Maxentius, which he took down by risking his own popularity.

Despite being weak, he still needed to fight Constantine, and ultimately he got defeated in the Milvian Bridge’s battle, taking place in the North of Rome.