Maximian seized control of the government

My only experience with naval affairs was when we floated an army through Gaul, after Maximian seized control of the government at Arles. You’re younger and more adaptable than either of us, Crispus, so the task will have to be yours.”

Constantine went to a large map he’d ordered drawn of the area and indicated the neck of territory serving as a land bridge between Europe and what was ordinarily called Asia Minor. It was cut only in one place by the narrow waterway known as the Bosporus within sight of Byzantium. “Our major purpose is to take Byzantium and cross the Bosporus into Asia,” he said.

I take it there is no possibility of any further agreement with Licinius?” Dacius asked.

Constantine turned almost savagely upon the old soldier who had been his tutor. ‘Would you have me give him leave to go on harassing the church? And encouraging the Goths?”

Dacius was not intimidated. “I just want to be sure that religious considerations are not directing military policy.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“The territory beyond the Bosporus is large and we both know how quickly an army can be cut to pieces in an area like Augusta Euphratensia. It is one thing to risk an army to gain an important military victory, but quite another to ask men who are not Christians to put their lives in jeopardy so bishops and churches may be preserved.”

With an effort, Constantine controlled himself. From the viewpoint of logic alone everything Dacius had said was true. The majority of his subjects, whether in Britain, Gaul, Italy or Illyricum, were not Christians. And his obligation as a ruler was as much to them as to those of the church to which he gave allegiance.

“I shall not ask men who followed me across the Rhine and the Danube to die needlessly for any faith,” he said and turned back to the map. “Here is the Hellespont, Crispus. You can see that it is narrow and long, but if you succeed in opening it and driving through the Sea of Marmara and the Bosporus, we will cut off any retreat of the enemy across to Asia Minor. Otherwise, if the siege begins to go against Licinius, he will leave Byzantium and go over into Asia.”

Bastamae in a drive

Unable to penetrate Constantine’s powerful chain of fortifications along the Danube, the Gothic kings now used the corridor belonging to these Bastamae in a drive southwestward toward the very heart of Illyricum. Under heavy attack, Constantine’s forces in Moesia the weakest link in the chain of defense due to the proximity of the province to Thracia, which Licinius controlled were forced to fall back. But when as Senior Emperor Constantine demanded that Licinius launch a flank attack northward to cut off the Gothic advance, the Emperor of the East refused.

To Constantine, tightlipped with fury at Licinius, only two explanations for his brotherinlaw’s betrayal seemed likely. Either Licinius intended to move into central Illyricum himself, after both adversaries had exhausted themselves, or he had invited the Gothic chiefs to attack, assuring them that they would be left free to pillage at will in Constantine’s territory. Whatever the explanation, immediate action was demanded and, when Licinius refused to do his part, Constantine ordered his forces to converge upon the invaders, even though it meant that one body of his troops would pass through Licinius’ territory.

 Constantine invaded

When Constantine’s forces unexpectedly appeared on the southern flank and threatened to cut them off entirely, the surprised Goths had no choice except to flee across the Danube as best they could. But Licinius, his plan to cripple Constantine gone awry, decided to declare war against his fellow Augustus on the grounds that Constantine had invaded his territory something which the Senior Emperor had every right to do in any event. Thus the die was cast for the final struggle, which indeed had been in progress, as Constan

tine himself discerned, for a long time the death struggle between Christianity and paganism.

Constantine had been a Christian now for a number of years, though in order to avoid stirring up those who still clung to the worship of the old gods, he had not made Christianity the official religion of the Empire. He had, however, taken an increasingly active part in the strictly religious life of his domain, as witnessed by his calling the Council of Arles and intervening in the recurring struggle with the Donatists.

Quaestor Rubellius

“I have asked the Quaestor Rubellius, as final legal authority, and General Dacius, as a friend to both of us, to investigate certain charges that have been brought against you, Caesar Crispus,” Constantine said formally. “Are you satisfied to let them constitute a court for deciding this matter?”

“Your will is my command, Dominus.” The voice was strained and its tone hopeless.

“I am inclined to overlook one charge against you,” Constantine told him, “since you were known to be intoxicated and not in full possession of your senses.”

He saw a look of hope spring into Crispus’ eyes, only to die away when he added: “But another and graver charge has been made by an informer, a crime against the state, which I cannot ignore. Have you anything to say before Quaestor Rubellius reports to us on his investigation?”

“No, Dominus.”

“Then proceed please, Rubellius.”

The quaestor’s report was made even more damning by Dacius’ concurrence. It told of an ambitious and highly capable young man, who had been dazzled when important men among the Senate and nobles of Rome had honored him with a triumph reminiscent of the days when heroes of the Empire had been welcomed to its capital with every honor the state and the gods of Rome could bestow.

East at Ryzantium

It revealed how a carefully planned campaign of flattery and persuasion had been launched to gain Crispus’ confidence and convince him that the cause of the Empire was being poorly served by Constantine’s rumored intention to build another capital in the East at Ryzantium. And it recounted how, in the past several months since the young Caesar had come to Rome to arrange the celebration of his father’s twentieth year as Augustus, argument after argument had been marshaled to convince him that Constantine should be forced to follow the example of Diocletian and Maximian, relinquishing power at the end of the twentyyear period and placing Crispus at the head of a state divided into two parts.

Forgiven Bassianus

“There are similarities between a traitor and a serpent,” Hosius agreed. “Are you all right now?”

“Yes. I sent for you to ask how Christ would have treated a man like Bassianus.”

“We believe the Master taught us the will of God when he spoke from a mountain in Galilee and said: ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.’”

“Would Christ have forgiven Bassianus, knowing he would only connive again?”

“Jesus was also a man, Augustus,” Hosius said. “One morning on the way to Jerusalem when he was hungry, he came upon a fig tree. The fruit of this tree usually appears before its leaves and, since the tree was full of leaves, its fruit should have been ripe, yet it was barren. The Master cursed the tree that day and it never again bore fruit.”

“Then the man you worship as god was no more consistent than an ordinary man would be. He taught us to forgive those who err, yet cursed a tree that failed to bear fruit.”

“That passage in the Holy Scriptures has troubled many people,” Hosius admitted. “It appears in two of the gospels which we consider authentic, so we believe it really happened.”

“You still haven’t explained the difference between what Christ said and what he did.”

Son of God

“I remind you again that Jesus was not only the Son of God but also a man, Augustus. Since he was born of woman and therefore mortal, he could act as a man in cursing the fig tree. But he is also God and taught the word of God. We believe the incident of the fig tree really means that when a man has the outward show of a good character, but not the fruit he should bear, he cannot be considered valuable to the kingdom of God and thus should be cast out.”

“Bassianus had the outward show of good works but certainly not the inward quality of loyalty,” Constantine said. “Does that mean I am justified in executing him as a traitor?”

Dacius Crispus

With proof of his fellow Emperor’s treachery in the shattered statues and the harboring of traitors, Constantine made one of his characteristic swift decisions, followed by equally swift action. The courier service of the Imperial Post had already brought word that Dacius, Crispus and an army of some ten thousand veterans from Gaul were encamped far enough from the border with Licinius for their presence not to be an obvious threat, yet close enough to enter Licinius’ domain in a few days of forced marches.

A message now went to Dacius by the swift chain of couriers, telling him to move eastward for a junction with Constantine’s own forces between Virunum on the headwaters of the river Savus, and Galerius’ old capital of Sirmium on the same stream some fifty miles west of the junction of that river with the Danube. At the same time, Constantine himself moved northward with ten thousand troops, mostly cavalry.

When Constantine’s spies reported that Licinius’ army, now moving westward from Sirmium along the banks of the river Savus, numbered about thirtyfive thousand roughly twice as many as he commanded he began to seek a field of battle where the terrain would be favorable to his forces, evening somewhat the odds against him. Shortly after joining Dacius and Crispus, Constantine found a spot suitable for his needs not far from a town named Cibalae.

It was a defile lying between a deep swamp on one side and a steep hill on the other, enabling him to present a solid front in depth against Licinius’ attack in spite of the difference in numbers. His foot soldiers were stationed in the defile, while behind the hill, hidden from observation, he placed a force of nearly five thousand horse. These preparations made, he set up his own command post on top of the elevation.

Valens

Licinius’ army, under the command of an experienced general named Valens, advanced to attack but were thrown back with it seemed to Constantine, as he watched from the hilltop suspicious ease. His suspicion became a certainty, when he saw his eager front rank, ignoring Dacius’ fiercely shouted commands, pursue the seemingly fleeing enemy.

Belonging to a single Augustus

“Have you no more to say in defense of your treachery?”

“It is not myself I serve, but Rome. What crime can be found in that?”

“The crime of deciding that what is in your own interest is always best for the state,” Constantine said gravely. “Emperor Diocletian could have retained the power and glory belonging to a single Augustus, yet he chose to share it because he believed the Empire could be ruled more effectively from several capitals. Under his direction Rome’s frontiers were extended from the river Tigris in Persia to the Antonine Wall in Britain, proving him right. The greatness of a ruler is not measured in pride, Bassianus, or in lust for power, but in compassion for those he rules and the desire to improve the lot of the people. You cannot make men free by forging chains of gold; the lowest plebe unchained is far more free than you, bound as you are by the fetters of lust for power that you have forged for yourself.”

Constantine nodded to the magister memoriae who sat beside him. “Let it be recorded that the prisoner Bassianus is hereby ordered beheaded ”

“But you cannot!” Bassianus protested. “Emperor Licinius ”

“Licinius doesn’t rule here!” Constantine snapped. “Your sentence is death.”

“Then let me choose ”

“A traitor has no choice. Only consideration for my sister keeps me from ordering your head paraded through Italy, as I did with Maxentius in Africa.”

Bassianus was dragged away

Babbling pleas for mercy, Bassianus was dragged away. As Constantine turned to the door leading to his private cabinet behind the chamber, he ordered the guard who stood there to send for Bishop Hosius, and was standing at the window breathing deeply of the fresh air outside when Hosius of Cordoba entered.

“Are you ill, Augustus?” the priest asked anxiously.

“Only with a nausea of the spirit that became too great for the body to stand.” Constantine turned to face the churchman. “I remember feeling this way once after a venomous serpent struck at me when I was walking through the woods. I was seized by such a rage then that I beat the snake to death without knowing what I was doing, but afterwards was so spent from retching that I had to sit upon a log for a while before going on.”

Walls of Heraclea

Thracia, in the heart of Licinius’ domain, appeared likely to be conquered by Daia’s lightning advance before its ruler could even move an army eastward, but fortunately the invasion was stopped for more than a week by the walls of Heraclea, some fifty miles west of Byzantium. The delay gave Licinius time to bring up his troops and, in the battle that followed, Daia’s failure to bring adequate supplies and weapons with him on the forced march across the Galatian uplands told heavily against him. As a result, Licinius’ Illyrian veterans put Daia’s forces to flight and Daia himself was destroyed.

Reading reports of the downfall of Maximin Daia brought to him by the Imperial Post, Constantine found much to praise in the rapidity with which Licinius had opposed Daia. But of what followed the victory, he could hardly approve. First, Licinius ordered the destruction of Daia’s young children, a boy of eight and a girl of seven. Two other refugees, Lady Valeria, the widow of Galerius, and the Empress Prisca, who being Christians had been in hiding from persecution in Syria, now came to Licinius’ new court at Nicomedia, expecting to be welcomed there, since Galerius had raised Licinius first to the rank of general and then to the purple of a Caesar and Augustus. Instead, they were harshly treated and only managed to escape alive with the help of the Christians of Nicomedia.

Frankish rebellion

Busy putting down the Frankish rebellion during the rest of the winter and early spring, Constantine heard of these melancholy events, but could do nothing at the moment about them. He had thought that Licinius had been convinced by his example of how effectively people could be ruled by the application of justice and fair treatment to all.

But it was only too apparent now that, suddenly finding himself ruler of more territory than he had imagined could ever be his, the Emperor of the East had succumbed to the same lust for power that had brought about the downfall of Daia, Maxentius and Maximian. At the moment, however, each of the two remaining Augusti where once there had been six needed each other, so the situation was left at that.

Constantine assured

“If it were anything so minor, Dominus,” Adrian said, “I would have haled them before the tribunal of the praetor urbanus and brought you their heads as proof that I had no part in it.”

“I would need no proof of that,” Constantine assured him. “You have served me well, Adrian, and no one knows it better than I. What did bring you to make the long journey from Rome to Milan?” “Something so grave that I could not trust it to hands other than my own,” Adrian told him. “Ten days ago one of our galleys returned from Trapezus at the eastern end of the Pontus Euxinus. During the voyage, our ship rescued the crew of a galley belonging to Senecio, the brother of Bassianus. It was sinking in the Mare Aegeum after a storm.”

“Bassianus will no doubt be glad to hear they are safe.”

Nephew Camianus

“I haven’t told him yet, Dominus,” Adrian said. “My nephew Camianus happened to be aboard our ship as supercargo; I am training him to be my deputy. He went aboard Senecio’s galley with some men Istanbul old city tours, trying to save her for salvage, but they were forced to leave the ship later though not before he removed some letters the Captain had failed to destroy.”

“You opened them?” Constantine’s voice was grave.

“The water had broken the seals, Dominus, and when Camianus saw what was written there, he brought the letters directly to me. The captain of the galley still thinks they were destroyed,” he added pointedly, as he opened the package he carried and revealed two small scrolls such as were regularly used for correspondence.

The parchment was stained from exposure to water and the wax seals had broken loose from their attachment, allowing the letters to become unrolled. The seals were still intact, however, even to the deep imprint pressed upon them while the wax had been warm and soft. Constantine needed no second look at the imprint in the wax to recognize it; he’d seen it often enough before.

“What possible need could there be for official correspondence between Bassianus’ family and Emperor Licinius?” he asked.

“I asked myself the same question, Dominus,” Adrian said. “The answer is there in the scrolls.”

Knowing Maximin Daia

Another purpose of the edict was not quite so obvious. Knowing Maximin Daia, he sent a copy to the Emperor of the East, with the request that it be published. Certain that Daia would defy him, Constantine was thus laying the groundwork for a charge of disobedience which could serve to legalize any move he might choose to make against his old fellow cadet later on.

Though the young Emperor had become in less than a year the champion of the Christians, Christianity itself had not become the official religion of the Roman state. That, for the city of Rome itself at least, was still the reverence of Jupiter, but, with the waning of Rome’s influence as a center of empire, so waned the influence of Jupiter and the rites of his worship. Christianity, in turn, tended to look with Constantine toward the East, where lay a city much more intimately bound up in its history Jerusalem, called Aelia Capitolina by the Romans.

Maximin Daia

With Licinius now his ally by marriage, Constantine began building up his forces for the eventual conflict with Maximin Daia, whose acts of cruelty and rapine had become notorious throughout the Empire. Before he could launch any punitive action, however, an uprising by one of the Frankish tribes in northern Gaul demanded his presence, with a substantial part of his army, in a forced march into that vitally important territory.

Watching always for a chance to move against the often ineffective Licinius, while Constantine was otherwise occupied, Maximin Daia acted with great rapidity. It was still winter when news of Constantine’s departure for the West reached him, but Daia at once began a forced march westward.

Before Licinius who was still at Milan with his young bride knew what was happening, Daia had moved a large army out of Syria into Bithynia along the excellent roads built across the Galatian uplands long ago by the Romans. Crossing the Bosporus, he moved into Licinius’ own territory and attacked the city of Byzantium, which fell after a siege of only about seven days.

counsel of Eumenius

“It wasn’t planned. The boy handled himself well in battle and I need someone I can trust to rule in Gaul and Britain.”

“A mere youth with no experience? Where is the wisdom in that?”

“I was only a youth when I became Caesar of Gaul,” he reminded her. “But I had the wise counsel of Eumenius and so will Crispus. Besides, I’m sending Dacius with him to Treves.”

“You and Licinius have already made plans for your sons,” Fausta flared. private tour guide Turkey  “What about mine when they are born? Will there be any place for them?”

“You once said the Empire is large enough for all my male

offspring if there are any more,” he reminded her. “Give me a son and, when he is christened, I will make him Caesar in Pannonia.” “Christened? What is that?”

“A Christian custom, and a very beautiful one. Hosius has been telling me about it.”

“Then you’re really becoming a Christian? And not simply using them to help you control the Empire?”

“The Christian Church has more to offer me than any other religion, and no one could deny that it is a considerable influence for stability in the Empire.” He put his arm about her and drew her close. “Give me three sons and I will name each to rule a quarter, as in the days of Diocletian.”

“I shall make you keep that promise,” she warned him. “Our next child will be a boy; I’ve decided on it.”

“As you decided that we would be married when you first saw me at Nicomedia?”

She wrinkled her nose at him and was once more the delightful creature with whom he had fallen so violently in love in Rome. And in his happiness that the growing coolness between them over his refusal to spend much time at Rome seemed to have abated, he found it easy to forget that her father had tried to destroy him twice and her brother once.

Constantine’s sponsorship of the Christian Church

Originally, Constantine’s sponsorship of the Christian Church had been motivated by two convictions. The first was his belief that at two crucial points in his career at Dura, when he had been unsure of the course he had plotted for his command, and again at Saxa Rubra Christ himself had guided him to victory. The second was his realization that, highly organized as it was through bishops, local churches and clergy, the Christian faith could help him unify the Empire. To these two had now been added a third factor, a genuine faith and conviction of the truth inherent in Christianity brought to him by his studies of the Scriptures with Hosius.