History of the Roman Empire disputes about the supreme authority, this finally formalised a peaceful succession of the emperor: in each half a "Caesar" would rise up to replace the "Augustus" and select a new "Caesar". On May 1, 305, Diocletian and Maximian abdicated in favour of their "Caesars". Galerius named the two new "Caesars": his nephew Maximinus for himself, and Flavius Valerius Severus for Constantius. The arrangement worked well under Diocletian and Maximian and shortly thereafter. The internal tensions within the Roman government were less acute than they had been. In "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", Edward Gibbon notes that this
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire object, to which my plan was originally confined. Although he published other books, Gibbon devoted much of his life to this one work (1772–1789). His autobiography "Memoirs of My Life and Writings" is devoted largely to his reflections on how the book virtually "became" his life. He compared the publication of each succeeding volume to a newborn child. Gibbon continued to revise and change his work even after publication. The complexities of the problem are addressed in Womersley's introduction and appendices to his complete edition. Many writers have used variations on the series title (including using "Rise and Fall" in